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"The journey of making dreams of traveling Australia a reality"
WORDS AND PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRAD PICKFORD AND LOUISE PACOR
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Our trip began in the small village of Bridgetown about 3hrs south of Perth. The 180km 4WD trek took us through some thick and lush Karri forests out to the beautiful and untouched beaches of the D'Entrecasteaux National Park. The unspoiled and uninhabited beaches of Jasper and Black Point were a stunning highlight. The area is known as a real anglers paradise, even I, the worst fisherman on planet earth could jag a Tommie Ruff (Herring) through the backside on his first cast. Both areas had camping facilities nicely tucked away behind dunes, but we decided to drive onto Lake Jasper. We found the tracks around the D'Entrecasteaux National Park to be alot of fun with plenty of sand dune challenges which could be quite narrow and challenging in parts. Our 4WD trip concluded in Pemberton, home to the huge Bicentennial and Gloucester Karri trees.
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We continued along the coast, staying at the holiday town of Windy Harbour. We took a 4WD track out of town towards Broke Inlet. We found that our trusty map, although very detailed and comprehensive, could be out of date, with many tracks being temporarily closed or just to overgrown and impassable. On one such track, we travelled for over 2km not being able to see any road in front of us due to the immense overgrowth of trees and shrubs and were forced to turn around. As we drove into Walpole the trees started to stand a little taller and proud. A visit to the Giant Red Tingle tree just outside of town is a real marvel. It is noted as being one of the 10 largest living entities in the world. After walking around these magnificent and majestic trees all day and visiting the Valley of The Giants, you can truly be rest assured of how insignificant nature can make you feel.
From Denmark, where the forests meet the sea, the coastline once again begins to dominate. The picture perfect waters of Green's Pool and Elephant Rocks in the William Bay National Park are a must see. Towards Albany we journeyed out to Torbay Head via some pretty interesting 4WD tracks. The spectacular and rugged cliffs of Torbay Head are the southern most point of Western Australia. The full power and fury of the Southern Oceans can be felt at The Gap and Blowholes just outside of Albany in the Torndirrup National Park. Instead of staying in the rather large and picturesque town of Albany we opted to camp at Norman's Beach, a free camping spot about 30km east. It was a great little location situated next to the shores of an inlet, which at night fall turned into a reincarnation of the exodus of Noah's Ark , with bandicoots and frogs coming out from everywhere. The nearby imposing heights of Mt Ragged kept an ever watchful eye over the area, with it's cloak like layer of cloud never quite managing to be released from it's grip.
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Just from the little snippets that we had read on Bremer Bay we were eagerly anticipating it's crystal clear waters and laid back atmosphere. The peaceful atmosphere of this little town was about to be rudely interrupted in howls of frustration. The eastern headland of Swamp Point would prove to be the undoing of our relative hazard free driving thus far on our trip. The overgrown tracks coupled with tracks leading off in a spaghetti like maze, with no signposts made finding our bearings nearly impossible. It took us well over 2hrs to travel about 8kms. We finally made it to the secluded Peppermint Beach, which quickly soothed our battered state of mind. The next morning once again would test us with narrow tracks and sections that were heavily washed out. The safety latches on our jerry cans kept getting caught up in the overgrown trees which allowed diesel to spill out all over the car. The worst was yet to come. We passed too slowly over a soft section of sand and became bogged. With the waters edge lapping out at our car only metres away, we raced around to the side of our truck to find our shovel missing. It had been ripped out of its sturdy attachments on our roof racks about 5km back. Luckily, with the help of a kind man and his son, we were able to dig ourselves out with our bare hands and we were on our way again.
We camped in the picturesque town of Esperance for 2 days, to regrouping and restocking our supplies. We did not manage to see much of the Esperance. Whilst in Esperance we popped into the Department of Conservation and Land Management, also known as CALM, to obtain some information on traveling from Israelite Bay up to Toolina Cove on the Great Australian Bight via the old telegraph track. A staff member from CALM gave up nearly an hour of his time to walk us through what we would encounter along the way. On the way to Israelite Bay we stopped in at the very popular and picturesque beaches of Cape Le Grand. In Lucky Bay, we were lucky enough (funny that!) to encounter some Kangaroos on the beach, which are a real draw card for the area, not to mention the sand that was as white and fine as talcum powder. The coastline from Cape Le Grand all the way to around to the bottom half of the Bight was suffering from a huge infestation of seaweed, which unfortunately took the shine off what are reputedly the best beaches in Australia.
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