A glorious sunrise this morning over Shark Bay. We climbed up the hill behind our camp (Guess what! Ther's phone reception on top - And lovely views out over the bay.
Breakfast then off (without the camper) to Edel Land National Park and Steep Point.
The road into the park was much better than expected. Not as corrugated as many of the comments on various sites would have us believe. Guess it's been graded since the rains a week or so ago. As we got into the park the road (track) became narrower and very sandy and rocky in places. (time to take some air out of the tyres). Even saw some camel tracks at one point. We were driving up the east coast of the peninsula and the countryside was quite pretty – driving along the beach in some places. We stopped at the Ranger Station to ask for some information. From the map, we couldn't really tell the best way to go. “No, it's “shit”” was the response to the question of driving down the west coast from Nor 6 to Thunder Bay.
We headed off to Steep Point, the most westerly point on mainland Australia. The Dutch seafarer William de Vlamingh named ‘Steyle Hock’ (Steep Point) in 1697 when anchored off the cliffs near the southern tip of Dirk Hartog Island. The Point looks out over Dirk Hartog Island, now a spot for hardcore campers to visit via barge from within the National Park. Nice to see the spot which every Australian child of our age learnt about in school in Social Studies. The island was discovered by Hartog on 25 October 1616 in the Dutch East India Company ship Eendracht while sailing from Cape Town to Batavia (Jakarta). The names of senior people on board, including Hartog's were inscribed with the date on a pewter plate and nailed to a post. In 1697 the Dutch captain Willem de Vlamingh landed on the island and discovered Hartog's plate. He replaced it with one of his own, which included a copy of Hartog's inscription, and took the original plate home to Amsterdam, where it is still kept in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. One can see why Hartog was not impressed with what he saw it is a pretty barren spot.
The landscape at Steep Point is in stark contrast with the red sand dune landscapes found on the neighbouring Peron Peninsula. Here limestone dominates, forming impressive 200 metre high cliffs or sweeping white sand dunes and secluded beaches. Rainfall is very low and the dry and windswept coast looks barren and foreboding but, somewhat surprisingly, apparently harbours amazing plant and animal life. We saw lots of plants but few animals. 'Tis a popular fishing spot, however – some of the best shore-based game fishing in Australia.
We drove south along the west coast to Zuytdorp Cliffs (some of Australia's least known yet most spectacular cliffs) which form an almost unbroken arc between Steep Point and the township of Kalbarri, a distance of some 200 kilometres. The cliffs, rising ominously out of the Indian Ocean to heights of up to 200 metres, were named after the Dutch ship, the Zuytdorp, wrecked against the base of the cliffs in 1712.
A little further down the west coast, we called at the site of the Nor 6 wreck before heading back across the peninsula to the east coast and lunch where the road drives along the beach. The Nor 6 was a brand new steel fishing trawler which smashed into the cliffs on April 26 1963. 3 crew lost their lives and the skipper, Jack (John) Drinan was thrown free and survived by floating offshore in the vessel’s icebox for 14 days, before making a raft from part of the lid and paddling ashore at Steep Point on May 11.
Further south we headed back across the Peninsular to the Thunder Bay Blowholes formed by erosion holes in the limestone The Blowholes are formed by years of pounding surf, which has eroded its way up through the cliffs to the surface. When large waves hit the coast the water surges up through these holes and is forced out, sometimes with enormous power, to form a plume of seawater and mist that can be tens of metres high.
Back at camp, we walked to the northern end of the beach and up onto the rocks then to the top of the hill following goat tracks along the ridge and back to camp. This is truly an amazing spot.
