Perth to Exmouth

We picked up our massive Toyota Landcruiser 4WD in Perth and started our journey. Firs,t we stocked up our supplies and were so happy to finally have a tiny fridge at the back of the camper to cool wine, beer, cheese, meat, salad, veggies and other perishable goods. After all our tiny and modern rental cars it was quite a change to drive this monster of a vehicle, but it was a hell of a reliable and robust old car. We caringly gave it a name: good old Rrrrrrraoul because the engine made such a rrrrrroaring sound like a tractor :). Moni had already done this trip 5 years ago with her best friend and the two girls had rented exactly the same Landcruiser so Moni had already pre-warned Alex: if we wanted to be cost-conscious we should not drive more than 80km/h, otherwise the fuel consumption would increase exponentially. After all, such an off-road tractor is not made to run long distances at high speed on highways... Good prospects: driving 7000km at maximum 80 km/h. Alex found out quite soon that it was really true and we had to slow down good old Raoul to reduce the consumption below 15l.

Trust us, we were the snails on the highway. In all those 28 days and thousands of kilometers on the road we only managed to overtake 3 cars! 3 cars and not one more!!! On the other side we were driving so slow that even road trains (yes those monster trucks with up to 4 trailers) were overtaking us. And quite many of them. Especially for Alex it was quite hard and embarrassing in the beginning (Moni had been through this already 5 years ago), but every other foreigner we met with a 4WD on our way confirmed us that they were as well driving maximum 80km/h to reduce the fuel costs, so at the end we did not feel like the only fools on the highway :). At least we did not risk to get a fine for speeding :D. And even though our Landcruiser was quite big and heavy, the interior living space was rather small and it was quite some logistic every day to get the car ready for the night and then again for driving, but after a couple of days we were really fast in moving stuff around and tidying away for day- or night-time. Please check out the pics of our Raoul as it was quite cool: we had two 90l tanks, a 40l freshwater tank, a pop-up roof under which we could make our bed, a fridge and some shelfs with utensils and storage space inside and a slide-out kitchen with two gas stoves and a sink on the outside of the car. How cool's that :8 ?!

Once we left Perth our first destination was the Pinnacle Desert. This is a really weird place and the formation of these sandstone pillars is still subject of debates and not entirely clarified today. It looks a bit alien-like with those thousands of pinnacles rising on a 190 hectares sandy area, especially at sunrise and sunset. There is a loop to access the desert with your car and a walking trail. As we arrived on time for the sunset, we wanted to use the good light conditions and drove into the pinnacles, stopped every here and there to walk a bit around the sandstone formations and take tons of pictures. After a night at a free campsite we came back in the early morning to experience sunrise which was probably even more impressive as we had clear sky and perfect light. Just after breakfast it started to rain, but we anyways had to drive quite some distances (at limited speed) to reach our next camp for the night. On the way to Shark Bay we decided to do a small detour via Kalbarri to see Murchison Gorge. We passed a huge pinkish lagoon that got its colour from algae in the water and set camp at such a windy place that it was almost impossible to cook outside. On the way we read a really funny story about the principality of River Hutt which proclaimed itself an independent sovereign state in 1970. The owner of the 75km2 area, Prince Leonard, used a loophole in the Australian legislation when in the 60ies the farmers had a huge dispute due to draconian export quota of wheat and other cereals set by the government. At the time it was written that in case any Australian citizen felt his existence severely endangered he could “leave the Australian state” and found his own state (or kingdom). That is what Prince Leonard did and apparently River Hutt is quite a tourist attraction because it has its own currency, passport stamp and you can even apply for a citizenship :). Funny story, no?

The next day we had clear sky and sunshine and profited from beautiful views of the rough coast in Kalbarri. Then we turned towards Murchison Gorge, a calm and peaceful location where we climbed down the small gorge to sit next to the river for a while. It started to get really hot and we went to a second lookout spot to enjoy great views of Murchison River and its gorge. In the early afternoon, we returned to the highway and aimed to reach Denham around the Shark Bay peninsula. We will probably both never forget the huge lizard (or goanna) that was sunbathing on the road and jumped away when we approached. It was almost the size of a Komodo dragon, we're not exaggerating!! We then spent the night at a real campground in Denham as we needed a shower and laundry facilities.

The next day we had an early start to drive up to the northwest of the peninsula to Monkey Mia. Quite touristic, but probably the best place to see dolphins from close-by. The dolphins at Monkey Mia had been fed by the fishermen in the old days and thus returned every day to get some more fish. The beginnings of this tourist attraction were not very well organized (no rules, guidelines etc.) and resulted in many deaths of baby dolphins because the parents did not take care of their babies anymore and did not teach them how to catch fish and look for food themselves. These days there is a very strict organisation and regulation and the population of dolphins is becoming healthier and growing again. We saw about 7 dolphins swimming around close to the shore and waiting for fish. The volunteers had buckets with 2-3 fish for each dolphin and some people were selected to feed the dolphins. Moni was also picked and could give a fish to Puck, one of the oldest dolphins in the bay.

In the late morning we drove back direction Denham and turned off to visit François Peron National Park. It was our first off-road adventure and we were quite excited as the tracks in the park were just deep sandy paths so we needed to reduce the tyre pressure by almost 50% before entering. On the way in, Alex was driving and enjoyed himself very much running our good old Landcruiser through the deep red sand into beautiful little bays. We first stopped at Big Lagoon for lunch and as its name says it was a beautiful big and shallow lagoon shining in amazing colours under the midday sun. We crossed some salt pans and some even deeper sand tracks on the way up to the most northern tip of the peninsula: Cape Peron. After Big Lagoon we hardly met anybody else as some people were afraid of getting stuck in the sand. Well, we know that you definitely need a 4WD with high clearance to manoeuvre through, but none of us had any off-road sand driving experience and we managed pretty easily. Close to Cape Peron was Skipjack Point with a good lookout to spot marine life. We were hoping for the very rare dugongs, but "only" saw sharks, giant turtles and some schools of rays. In the evening, we picked one of the bays for the night, went snorkelling, did not see a thing and then tried our camping shower for the first time. The car was supplied with a 10l thick and black plastic bag that we filled up with water and left it in the sun to warm up. There was a little hose and showerhead attached to it so we just had to hang it in a tree or on our car and could take a shower.  That added even more autonomy to our camping style ;). Make sure you check out the pictures of Alex "under the shower"... We had dinner and enjoyed that we were all by ourselves on that spot. With a glass of wine we enjoyed watching the crystal clear sky and all the bright stars - it truly was amazing. The next morning it was Moni's turn to drive Raoul back out on the sandy tracks. It was quite fun and Alex was doing a lot of nonsense with the GoPro, so make sure you watch the video as well ;).

Once we refilled our tyres with air at the entrance and left the national park, we aimed for our next destination: Exmouth and the Ningaloo Reef. On the way we stopped at a beautiful lookout in Shark Bay, Shell Beach (a beach with little shells instead of sand) and at the stromatolites, the oldest living organisms on earth. The journey to Exmouth was quite far and we had to spend the night on one of the rest areas along the highway and arrived the next day at noon. The coral reef on the western side of Australia is a lot less touristic and more accessible than the Great Barrier Reef and the coral spawn in spring attracts many huge fish like manta rays and... whale sharks. Each year between April and June the whale sharks migrate through the area of Exmouth and Coral Bay and offer excellent possibilities to snorkel with them. We arrived by the end of March and were told that the season had just started 4 days ago and the big fish were already around. It was a hell of a budget, but we told ourselves that we were there at the right place at the right time and how often do you get the chance to swim with the biggest fish in the ocean? Better use the opportunity! So we booked a tour the next day and shopped around for diving possibilities as well. Exmouth' most famous spot to dive is the Navy Pier, one of the top ten shore dives in the world. The license to dive at the pier is renewed every 2 years and the different dive operators can apply to get the license. As we had anyways already spent a lot of money on the whale sharks and we wanted to go diving, we opted for this unique experience at the marine base later on during the week.

The next day was quite a special day: we got picked up in the early morning and went to the small harbour to get on the boat that would bring us to the sea. On the way we passed the military base and saw the impressive Naval Communication Center with its 13 towers (the highest is 387m high). The station is the most powerful transmission station in the Southern Hemisphere and provides very low frequency radio transmission to communicate with ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean. Very interesting information and then we already reached the boat! The reason why the whale shark tours are so expensive is that the agencies use spotter planes. The planes head out in the morning and scan the water for the big fish. Once they locate one, they give the coordinates to the boat and the boat will go there. After a morning snorkelling excursion with many red jellyfish we had to wait for the plane to spot us a whale shark. They liked to play tricks on us that day cause the first two went diving as soon as someone went into the water, but at the end we found a massive 8m whale shark that stayed on the surface long enough so that every group could snorkel with it three times. It is quite an exhausting exercise to keep up with that fish against the current and big waves, but it was just amazing. Whale sharks are such impressive and majestic creatures and we managed to take a couple of good videos and we also got the great pictures from Amy, the professional underwater photographer on the boat that day. We can say for sure that it was worth all the money we paid for such a unique activity.

That evening a big surprise was still waiting for Moni: we came back in the late afternoon, took a shower at the beach and decided to spend the next two days in Cape Range National Park with many nice beaches and snorkelling spots. On the way we saw hundreds of wallabies, some of them with baby in the pouch. We had beforehand looked up some campgrounds that seemed to be pretty nicely located, but once we approached the first one Alex felt like there were already too many other campers as he wanted some peace and quiet. So we carried on to the next one which was closed for construction. The third one was also quite full (10 cars), but as the sun was setting quite soon we decided to stay. Alex sent Moni ahead with the camping chairs to secure us a nice spot at the beach (a bit German, no?! :P). The good thing about this campground was that every parking bay had its own path over the dune and along the wide beach there were many secluded little bays and Moni sat down with the chairs seeing and hearing nobody else around. Then she waited and waited, but Alex did not show up even though all he had to do was take the wine and the glasses?! Even though he had told her to secure our spot, after a while she decided to check on him to make sure nothing happened. Once she crossed the dune she saw him close the door of the camper with two glasses and a bottle, signalling "all ok". Apparently, he had just set up the camper for the night... Once we were both sitting, we cheered and sipped our wine while watching the sun and every now and then a turtle head popping up in the water.

And now I (Moni) will have to write from my very own perspective. It was a beautiful evening on a beautiful spot and Alex told me how much he loved me. In fact, he said he loved me so much that he wanted to ask me something... On the beach he fell on his knees in front of me, took out a beautiful ring and asked me whether I would marry him! <3 <3 <3 I was overwhelmed and - of course - started to cry, but not before saying "Yes, of course!" to the love of my life. For all these 8 months he had been carrying this ring with him (well technically I carried it myself in my own backpack without knowing) and I had absolutely no idea. On top, he then jumped up and ran away saying "Wait, I have something for you!". I was a bit confused because he already gave me the ring so what else was coming now? He sprinted to the camper and brought back our camping bucket filled with water and ice and a bottle of sparkling wine from Jansz in Tasmania, the winery with the outstanding sparkling wines we had visited weeks before. I was speechless! That guy had really thought of everything. You HAVE to marry such a man, don't you?! It was a really magical moment and I will for sure always remember that beach, that sunset, that moments and my own emotions attached to it. So yes, we are happy to announce that we are engaged and will be getting married <3.

The next day was beach day and we were driving around Cape Range National Park and stopped at various bays. Turquoise Bay in the morning to go on a "drift snorkelling excursion". Jump in at the end of the beach and drift in the current to the other end of the beach while watching corals and fish on the way. And in the afternoon we went to Oyster Stacks where you can only snorkel at high tide, otherwise the huge, but sharp oyster rocks would cut you open. There were some amazing fish around, but unfortunately there were way too many jellyfish. Even though they were not dangerous, it was still burning when they hit you and at the end we were only zigzagging to avoid jellyfish, so we stopped the adventure. We spent the night at another campground which seemed to be the meeting place of mama wallabies as we saw two of them hopping around our site with their babies in the pouch. So cute!!!

The next day we headed back to Exmouth for our Navy Pier dives. As the dive site is on a military base, it was quite strictly regulated. Everybody needed to have their passports ready for control and we only had a limited period of time (low tide) to conduct our two dives at the pier. All divers were quite disciplined and we could spend a maximum of time under water. As there are practically never ships anchoring at the pier the marine life there is abundant. During our two dives we saw tons of different fish schools, reef sharks, the funny carpet-looking like wobbegong shark, lionfish, shrimps and other macro stuff, but our favourite was the massive big grouper that lived under the pier. It was a good 1,5 meters long and our dive instructor had already pre-warned us that this guy did not have any sense of privacy. And he did not! He seemed to be especially fond of our group and followed us pretty much everywhere. He almost swam into our masks because he was so curious and sometimes we did not even realize he was swimming next to us. We accidentally hit him with our fins or got a brief shock when turning and almost bumping into his face and sometimes Moni wished she had a camera to take a picture of Alex, closely followed his big fish friend :). We can confirm that the dive site is quite exceptional in terms of the variety of marine life you can see. If you are around and have the chance to go diving, don't miss out on the Navy Pier in Exmouth.

After the dive, we took another shower at the beach and continued our journey to our next stop: Karinjini National Park. Another very beautiful stop, so please stay with us until the next article. In the meantime, enjoy all the great pictures and funny videos of this coastal part of our road trip.

Cheers,
Mr. and (future) Mrs. Lafaye

Driving around Francois Peron NP

Snorkelling with whale sharks in Exmouth