North Western Australia Adventure

We've just arrived home from a 3 week road trip through northern Western Australia. June is supposed to be an excellent time to visit the region...unless there happens to be unseasonably bad weather and flooding of course! At times we were swimming along our bush hiking paths.

We splashed our way along around 5,300km of muddy roads to visit Karijini, Millstream-Chichester, Cape Range and Francois Peron national parks. This area of Western Australia is full of big skies, fabulous sunsets, gorges, beaches and mountains. There also seems to be an amazing array of rusty machinery and vehicles just abandoned where they fell.

We saw lots of wildlife including eagles, herons, kestrels, kites, dolphins, rays, whales, fish of all kinds, coral reefs, sea cucumbers, crabs, turtles, kangaroos, rock wallabies, dingoes, echidnas, monitor lizards and loads of other things I have forgotten. No snakes this time surprisingly.

We managed to do all the gorge walks in Karijini National Park although we couldn't get right into the end of a couple because the amount of water and slippery rocks made it too dangerous - several people have lots their lives here. Walking (swimming!!) whilst dressed in a wet-suit and hiking boots was a new experience for everyone.

Huge termite nests are everywhere

At Millstream-Chichester National Park the walks were a little less challenging. We explored the homestead and swam in the chilly pools and rivers.

Cape Range National Park is all about the beach and Ningaloo Marine Park coral reefs. Even half a year's worth of rain that fell in one day couldn't stop us. We took a very enjoyable boat trip down Yardie creek and saw many endangered rock wallabies, sea eagles and herons. Snorkelling was chilly but visibility was excellent, as was the marine life.

In Carnarvon we visited the Space and Technology Museum.

At Shark Bay we saw the sharks in the aquarium and visited Francois Peron National Park and Monkey Mia. We also took in shell beach and the Hamelin Pool stromatolites. Many of the buildings in the area are made from compacted shells that make up the beaches instead of sand. There were plenty of dolphins around a L got to feed one. Everyone loved soaking in the hot tub at Peron Homestead.

Shell block quarry

Stromatolites

We camped for a while at Oakabella haunted Homestead and saw an amazing sunset from Cliff Head camping area.

We hope to return one day and take in some more areas in the Pilbara region which we just couldn't reach due to the floods.