Flower Xxx Orchid
We left Fitzgerald River National Park and headed west along the Southwest Australia coast, stopping on our way out of the park to check for flowers wherever it looked interesting. We were never disappointed.
There were even some things which we couldn't really figure out what they were.
As almost everywhere in this neck of the woods, there were peas of all sorts in abundance.
Dona found a fuzzy critter curled up on the end of ... something. A caterpiller?
We found a nature walk around a small hill out in the middle of all the brush and thorns. While it looked rather blah as we approached, we found plenty of flowers in amongst the brambles.
We found a small campground on a deserted beach, where we settled in and poked around. There were Southern Wright Whales in the bay in front of the campground, birds in the bushes, wildflowers on the fringes, and kangaroos hiding out as well. What a place! From our beach we could see another beach a bit further up the coast that looked like it was only accessible by boat or via a steep 4WD road. It looked like the kind of place that might not be too difficult to get to, but getting back out of there after a good rain storm might be another matter. We decided our camp was cool enough.
There was only one other vehicle at the campground, three guys from the Netherlands on a long trip. They had bought a used camping/rover type Ford vehicle in Perth for $4,000; that's only twice what we were paying for our rental, and they had unlimited use of it forever, so they clearly had the better deal. I think they said they had been on the road for three months at that point. Last year they had been in SE Asia; this year was Australia. They did tell us there were issues with vehicle registration for foreigners in Australia, and the nice thing about Western Australia is that it is the only state with on-line extensions of registrations. So if purchasing a vehicle in Australia, check that out, so you don't have to go clear across the country to get your registration renewed / extended.
We talked to a ranger who said over the Christmas / New-Year holiday and other similar holidays the beach is totally crammed, with vehicles parked clear up the road and vehicles too big jammed up on the road making a real mess. I guess we were there at the right time.
This camp on the beach was quite a bit more exposed than our previous one. We were on a small grassy area in the open; we tied the tent down as best we could using the car to shield it from one side and also serve as a heavy-duty tie down.
My diary says "Need some kind of overseas travel lantern, small and lightweight like the stove." Since we didn't have a light / lantern to play bananagrams by, we ended up going to bed about 19:00, so we were pretty well rested.
Gary took the opportunity to poke his toe into the closest he has ever been to the Southern Ocean. It was... cold. At least for a wuss like him. But his diary says "Not too cold, if the day had been hot I might have gone all the way in for a swim." Right. Talk and excuses are cheap.
We wandered the beach and found some surprises.
We were surprised, but probably shouldn't have been, to find a kangaroo chowing down in the shrubs on the hillside next to camp.
The next morning we packed up camp and headed out, stopping at an overlook on a bluff just above camp. We had a great view of the bay, but unfortunately the whales had moved on. There was some sort of slanted surface by the parking area which we never figured out quite what it was for, but it was a fine place to sit and enjoy the view.
We had heard from friends about the really tall trees in this part of the world, and how the Australians had turned some of them into fire lookouts. Since Gary loves to climb things, we had to go find some of them, so we headed a bit inland in search of tall trees.