From my ‘Big Trip’ blog.
Drove to Windy Harbour, a small & pleasant settlement of holiday & fishing shacks surrounded by the D'Entrecasteaux National Park. The land is leased from the government, & despite this even the most basic shack still sells for over a quarter of a million dollars! Windy Harbour lived up to it's name all the time we were there! The caravan park was a bit pricey at $20 unpowered, but they did have hot showers. These showers were particularly difficult to use as they operated on a timer tap which needed pushing every 20 seconds or so. Around our camp were large numbers of tiny 'Splendid Fairy wrens, & early in the morning a mob of very large 'roos hopped around the park. Beautiful coastal scenery.
The coastline east of Windy Harbour has some great spots.
Being the ruft tufty bikers that we are, we braved the cold, the wind & the occasional drizzle, & took the bikes out for a bit of sightseeing, having determined that the sea was far too turbulent for safe fishing off the rocks. We rode first to 'Boat Harbour', which isn't a harbour at all, far from it. We stood on bare granite slabs projecting out into the water which surged & chopped as though in a giant washing machine. , waves hit the rocks forcing white spray high into the air, before the wind blasted our faces with salty drizzle. The last 5kms to Boat Harbour were signposted 4wd only. A lot of soft sand saw us paddling & bogging now & again, but overall a bit of a challenge that I enjoyed. MrsTea even acknowledged 'not hating' it, & felt that the effort was made worthwhile by our sighting of a black seal surfacing numerous times in the foamy water just out from the rocks. We stood alongside a long 'crevice' perhaps 4 metres wide in which the frothing sea deposited it's seafoam in large quantity. The contents of the crevice shook in the wind like a giant jelly, whilst the sea continued to ad to it with every wave. Later we visited the more visited (because of bitumen access road) Greens Pool & Elephant Rocks, more spectacular granite outcrops & waves, plus tiny secluded beaches hidden between rocks. Good, but would be so much nicer when the sun shines we reckon. Whilst down that way we checked out the beaches at Madfish Bay & Waterfall Beach (Couldn't work out the reason for the latter's name). Having returned 'home' hungry, we were fortunate to be offered a meal of barbequed fish from our 'next door neighbours. 'Skippys, caught that morning & cooked whole. Delicious, quite a firm fish, very different, & preferable to the bream we have caught & eaten recently.
And for a bit of exercise you gotta climb Bluff Knoll in the Stirling Ranges north of Albany.
Further east still, one of my all time favourite camp spots was the fishers camp at Betty’s Beach. Camp on grass, nestled into the scrub which is a bit higher than the vehicle for shelter, soft sand & great rounded rocks. Long drop dunny. The only area other than Rottnest island where quokkas still live in the wild. We had one ‘visit’ us, came right under our awning, as did a large goanna.
If you get as far as Esperance, you can camp at Lucky Bay in the Cape Le Grande NP. Book at the Tourist info centre in town. Water, toilets & cold showers. Very scenic beaches with kangaroos on them. Go a few kms past the turn off to Lucky Bay & you find idyllic little bays that you get to yourself ‘cos most folk don’t want to travel over the corrugations to get there. You can drive the 60 or 70kms from Esperance to Lucky bay on the beach.
Cuppa
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Originally Posted by Rustyboner81
