Gassmans Gone Under: June 2014

Be careful what you wish for... We were sweating it out in the humidity of the north, in Darwin, and then as we travelled south we were stopping and buying flannel pjs and extra blankets, and pulling on our shoes instead of sandals. The days were staying relatively warm with a few showers but the nights were dipping down to 2 degrees. Traveling south the weather was bound to be cooler.

We headed south to Karijini NP where White Lightning was put to the test on a couple of terribly corregated (washboard) roads. We hiked both Dales Gorge (we camped here at the NP campground) and the Weano Gorge, both were very nice but Weano Gorge was a little more fun as we had to do a bit of clinging to the rock walls and climbing down walls into pools by toehold and handrail...in spots we felt like spiderman. White Lightning and our clothing will never be the same after the fine RED dirt (get the idea of how red the really is?).

We very disappointed when we were unable to snorkel The Great Barrier Reef so we bought fins and snorkels in Broome and were very excited to be able to try our hand at snorkeling on the Ningaloo Reef on the west coast. People here say the Ningaloo Reef maybe isn't as big but is definitely as good as The Great Barrier and it's easier to get to because you can walk out to it from the beach. We snorkeled 3 times on the Ningaloo, at Cape Range NP near Exmouthe, at Coral Bay and again near the Blow holes where we did a drift snorkel, getting pulled along by the tidal currents. Sad to say the water was a little too cold to stay in very long but we managed to see coral, some colourful fish and a ray.

The west coast was loaded with National Parks and we seemed to be skipping down from one to the next. Kalbarri NP offered us more great walking trails in the gorges along the Murchison River and some great views as we walked the cliffs along the Indian Ocean. The countryside began to change when we started to arrive in the area of Kalbarri, farms of sheep, cattle and oats/wheats. It was nice to see green fields again!

Along with the green we started to see white, big white sand dunes amongst the green. The last NP we visited before Perth was the Namburg NP with its very strange boulders standing straight up out of the desert in the middle on no where.

So many different parks with so many different characteristics, (but we are getting a bit gorged out). We have been running into some of the same people all along the way down the west coast and in Perth we stayed with Elspeth and Michael and had a great time visiting and reminiscing about our vacations north along the coast. They make and market a coconut frozen nondairy organic dessert, we spent one evening testing flavours. Yummy, check out their website at coconutz.org and hit 'about' for a great ad, Michael made the whole site. Good work!

Dale's Gorge, Karijini NP.

Red Capped Robin

Weano Gorge, Karijini NP.

The Lighthouse at Cape Range NP, near Exmouthe.

Turquoise Bay, leading out to the Ningaloo Reef. It looks inviting but the water was a little cool at 20 degrees, not to mention the wind, brrrr.

Water, water! I'm thirsty after that long flight. Little Corellas with their light blue eyes.

Coral Bay, still another change to snorkel and the water was a bit cooler...18 degrees and still windy.

Storms out to sea make for interesting clouds.

The Blow Hole (blowing water up to 20 metres in the air) just north of Carnarvon, WA. We camped there for a couple nights and had perfect conditions low tides and high seas...lots of water pressure.

The coastline in the west can be very rugged.

There are so many types of tent campers etc but this one looked something like we might see at home, only loaded on a 4X4 ready for the Australian Outback.

Looking out over a gorge along the Murchison River from Hawks Head, Kalbarri NP.

These Tawny Frogmouths sat on a branch above our campsite all day and we didn't notice them until sunset.

Looking through Natures Window at Kalbarri NP. at the head of The Loop walking track. Nice and sunny here but by the time we were finished it was pouring rain.

A Bottle Brush flower, new buds were coming out after a week or so of good rain (which they got before we arrived...luckily!).

The Natural Bridge, Kalbarri NP.

White sand dunes looked like piles of flour in amongst the green foliage, just north Green Head WA.

Another great sunset over the Indian Ocean.

I'm standing amongst the Pinnacles, Namburg NP. A moon-scape of standing rocks set in the desert.

I almost take back everything I said about how lousy the Australian internet is...here I sit at a roadside stop, free camping for the night and they have a free wifi hotspot! No toilet but free internet, we don't try to understand anymore.

The trip across the top from the Northern Territories to Western Australia was another long drive. We were forewarned about the bordercrossing between the two states and ate all our fruit and cooked all our vegies, and with great disgust abandoned our honey.

So back to the drive...thank goodness for the boab trees, without them we would have nothing to look at or talk about. We were more than ready for our first stop at Lake Argyle. Perfection! We camped on grass, swam in the infinity pool and lived the lifestyles of the rich and famous taking a cruise on the lake, swimming and drinking a glass of wine while floating in the perfect temperature of water, watching the sun set.

Back on the road, we were a little dissappointed we didn't invest in a 4X4 because we would have liked to have driven the over 600 km on the infamous dirt "Gibb River" road through the Kimberleys. When we arrived at the Bungle Bungles, the Purnululu NP, we found we couldn't go in to see the beehive hills and gorges with White Lightning, even the road up to Windjana Gorge NP and Tunnel Creek NP was off limits to us :(

We decided to blow the bank in Broome and take a fixed wing airplane, speedboat, and 4X4 tour! What the heck we couldn't do the other attractions and NPs...we just drove right on by. Our tour started at 5:30 am and included a floatplane flight out to the Horizontal Waterfalls on a Cesna 208 and ride through them in a speed boat, breakfast, a flight over the Buccaneer Archipelago, lunch, One Arm Point at the tip of Cape Leveque and rough ride back to Broome by 4X4 all done by 5:30 pm...and for only a mere $800 pp! What a deal...we figured it was worth about half that but as I've said before "This is Australia!". The best thing about our tour was Ken and I got to take turns sitting up front in the co-pilot seat!

The Cable Beach Caravan park in Broome was very nice, just steps from the beach, had a nice pool...what the heck we stayed a few days then started south.