We tried

 Sunday 2 August – 179218

We were up just after 6am Perth time after a much milder night. We did gym, a billy bath and breakfast, and were on the road at 8:15am.  There were two RFDS strips between Jilah Rockhole and Madura. We stopped at the Madura Pass Lookout – this has an expansive view. We had dropped from the escarpment at Eucla and then came back up at Madura.  

Not long west of Madura we saw a Wedge Tailed Eagle on the highway. We had planned to go to Burnabbie Ruins, Tommy Grahams Cave and a few other spots on the road to the Eyre Bird Observatory. The observatory was closed and the road not suitable for towing, so we elected to skip this.  Cocklebiddy Caves was also closed.

We stopped for lunch at Caiguna Roadhouse.  Caiguna Blowhole was much larger than the others we had previously seen, and as such we could not hear or feel any air movement.

The Baxter Rest Area Blowhole was smaller, and we could just feel a small amount of air movement. We saw our first Australian Ring Neck Parrots. Balladonia was where we bought the last of our reduced excess fuel before it finishes tonight. 

Newman Rocks Waterhole was very pretty and was surprisingly similar to the stone country of Nitmiluk and Kakadu National Parks in the Northern Territory.

Then one more Blowhole – they are everywhere on the Nullarbor.

A short 35 minutes’ drive and we stayed at Fraser Range Station stay, about 100km west of Norseman. It is a beautiful property with room for a lot of vans and tents. We ate in the camp kitchen with a log fire. Fraser Range Station

 

22 October - Quobba Blowholes and Point Quobba Snorkelling

22 October 2016 – 192 339

Quobba Blowholes and Point Quobba Snorkelling

This morning we drove north to the Quobba Blowholes. https://www.westernaustralia.com/en/Attraction/Blowholes_and_Point_Quobba/56b2669dd5f1565045da9a6c#/
https://www.carnarvon.org.au/point-quobba-blowholes
https://www.australiascoralcoast.com/destination/carnarvon-blowholes
These were quite different to what I expected as instead of one large hole it was multiple smaller holes.  Depending on how big each wave was, which holes “blew” and how high.  I was also surprised at the roaring noise they made, particularly when they were spewing mist rather than water. 

After watching these for a while we went slightly south to Point Quobba.  This is a very sheltered lagoon with an extensive coral reef inside.  When we arrived, the tide was on the way in, walking around we could see some of the corals, sea urchins, sea snails and oysters above the water line.  We relaxed in the shade and read our books for an hour or so while we waited for the tide to come in – we had to retreat to the car as the flies were terrible.  When we had our snorkel, we found the water was not as cold as Coral Bay thankfully.  The coral was quite colourful – blue, pink, purple, green and yellow – with the corals lighting up quite well in the shallow water.  Once again we saw many, many fish and again varieties we had not previously seen as well as many we had.  The fish ranged in size from a few centimetres to half a metre.  Next, we went back to the blow holes to see how they looked on the high tide.  There was much less roaring and “steam”, and some really big jets of water.  Amazing to watch!  While we were watching the blowholes we also saw two turtles swimming in close, as well as a school of large fish being pursued by a group of sharks further out. The cliffs above the blowholes had salt in all its stages of crystallization from saline to piles of salt crystals.  Hayden spent ages looking at this and collected salt crystals in a bag.  When we got back to the van, we went back to school work again for a few hours – getting close to done now.  We finished the day with a swim.  Today was warm as the wind has finally eased, so we all enjoyed the cool off.

Bicheno Coastline

Tuesday 20 January 2015

We walked along Bicheno’s Foreshore Footway and Drew found wild blackberries growing beside the path – some were very tart, but those that were sweet were delicious.  From here we went to a point where we could see Governor Island Marine Reserve and could see hundreds, or possibly thousands, of Crested Terns, who use the island as a rookery.  We also saw a seal (or maybe a sea lion) on top of nearby Alligator Rock.  We continued along the path to the Blow Hole which was very active due to today’s rough and windy weather.  We walked up to the top of Whaler’s Lookout, where in the past someone would watch for passing whales to alert the whale boats to commence the chase.  On the way back to our accommodation we stopped off at a playground for Hayden to have a play.

https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/index.aspx?base=3094

Unfortunately the windy weather meant that our kayaking trip with Freycinet Paddles was cancelled – this way very disappointing as this had been one of the key things I had wished to do in Bicheno – something to do next time!  We also could not do the glass bottomed boat tour of Governor Island Marine Reserve due to the weather.

 Instead, we drove to the lighthouse at Cape Tourville – the view was great – it would have been even better if we could have climbed the lighthouse.  I took some photos of Wineglass Bay and the mountains beyond – Mt Freycinet and Mt Graham.  The mood of the sky and view was such a contrast to yesterday.  Once again we were lucky enough to have beautiful weather yesterday for one of our key walks.  Today has really been the first day of this holiday where the weather has prevented us doing something we had planned – we certainly can’t complain.

https://www.parks.tas.gov.au/?base=1462