Author: Catherine Anderson

Catherine loves painting and photography as well as the great outdoors. Cycling, kayaking, pack-rafting and hiking are favourite activities as well as scuba diving when the location permits. A self confessed geek, she’s the reason details are included in our stories!
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Day 88: 25 August – Back to the coast

Author: Mr A

From: Wooleen Station

To: Kalbarri

Distance: 415 km (220 km more than planned!)

Our final dawn at this station was shepherded in with a storm rumbling overhead, complete with rainbows. The raw beauty of this place just takes your breath away, and Catherine doesn’t have much breath to play with in the first place 🙂 

One last look down the stretch of the Murchison River that had shown us so many different moods in our few days here. 


We hitched up with our usual mixture of feelings when we find a special place. A bit sad to leave, knowing its very unlikely we will ever see this place again, and excitement for what’s ahead. We retraced oursteps to the Murchison Roadhouse. Now if anyone of you have occasion to refill the tank in these parts we can thoroughly recommend the place. Diesel at $1.29 a litre, cheap for this part of WA, spotless facilities, free Wifi that actually works and flowers in the garden! 

Ms Google was taking us to Mullewa, a tiny settlement that would break the otherwise long trip back to the coast. We arrived to find our unpowered site was on a hot, shadeless and dusty gravel car park across the road from any facilities in the main park…so we left in disgust. Why we should pay the local council $20s to stay in a car park I’m not entirely sure. A quick call to our next park and they were able to extend our stay to tonight…so off we roared. 

The most dramatic change in landscape occurred half way to to the coast. We went from the red dirt plains and acacia of the last few months up over a hill and this verdant scene opened up. Fields of yellow rape seed – our first cultivated non-grazing land since leaving northern NSW in early June. 

We arrived at our caravan park in Kalbarri pretty tired and quickly set up, heated up some pre-cooked yummy Spanish Mackerel  curry and flopped in front of the iPad for our nightly injection of Suits. 

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Day 87: 24 August – Hiking the Murchison River

Author: Mrs A

Location: Wooleen Station

Distance hiked: 13 km

Our faithful weather station predicted another day of cloud ahead so we decided to keep things simple and follow the river upstream, checking out visitors of a feathered kind as we went.


This river is a lifeline this time of year, when it becomes a collection of ever decreasing pools. The further upstream we walked, the smaller they became.

Birdlife really does flock here, with more pink cockatoos, ring-necked parrots, black swans, ducks, herons and even a pair of black-breasted buzzards with eggs in a nest. Masked woodswallows, zebra finches, grass wrens, a flock of white-browed babblers and many more brightened our afternoon as we picked our way along the banks and across the sandy river bed.

Along our travels we sprinkled the native grass seed we had been given on arrival – hopefully some will germinate when the wet season arrives and there will be a posititive reminder of our visit for future generations to experience. 


We returned to camp for hot showers and a chilled out rest of the day and, despite the largely overcast sky, another fabulous sunset.  Our weather station is promising a return to blue skies and sunshine tomorrow, as we head off to pastures new.

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Day 85: 22 August – Goin’ bush – Wooleen Station

Author: Mrs A

From: Denham

To: Wooleen Station, Murchison, WA

Distance: 343 km

Travel time: 7 hours (including lunch, breaks)

The alarm was set last night and we were up bright and early at 6.15am for showers and to pack up to head inland. We knew we had a big day ahead of us plus needed to top up with water at the desalination plant. A quick call into the bakery as we left town gained us some freshly baked rolls for lunch and confirmed the ladies working there are always wearing their grumpy-pants.


Before long we were heading up the Butchers Track, 144 km of orange dirt road through a nature reserve. The road was dead straight, the landscape the same the whole way, and you could be forgiven for thinking we were on a treadmill going nowhere. But we did eventually reach the end, and turned onto another orange, straight road. Despite this, the road was in good condition and only one vehicle passed us all the way. Our lunch spot was a flat clay pan at the side of the road, feeling beautifully remote.

Finally we arrived at Wooleen Station. We had been told about this location by other travellers around multiple campfires along the coast, who advised us it had been covered on Australian Story (an ABC television series) on several occasions. The station’s website was impressive, talking about stunning scenery, birdlife and an environment slowly recovering from over 100 years of abuse by overgrazing of cattle and sheep, as well as a huge increase in grazing native animals (predominantly kangaroos and emus) brought about by the introduction of permanent water sources. We were intrigued.

First impressions were good, with a fine welcome at the homestead, where we were handed a pile of walk and mountain bike trail leaflets and encouraged to explore.  We were also provided with a pack of seeds each, and asked to scatter them on our travels around the station to encourage native grasses to return.

It was another 14km to our riverside campground, on slow going farm tracks. By then we had really had enough of being in the car and were ready to arrive. We pulled into camp and first impressions were quite underwhelming. 

We are beside the Murchison River on heavily eroded sand and clay, with little view (on the site we picked, anyway!). We felt conned – we could get a better campsite than this for free, never mind the $30 a night we have paid. We cracked open beers and read some of the literature we’d collected. We felt better – the money from our camp fees goes towards improving the station and returning the Murchison River to its former glory – a tough target to reach, but admirable work all the same.

We decided to get off our bottoms and see the river. It is only about 10 metres away after all, a short walk down the sandy bank…and wow! Fabulous light and scenery awaited us, five black swans swam up the river, whistling kites soured overhead, a pair of Major Mitchell pink cockatoos landed beside us in a tree. Across the bank we saw a pacific heron and a little egret hunting for fish, and a flighty back wing stilt in the shallows. All this on our doorstep, plus more. It really is a beautiful spot.


The light was incredible – the sun low in the sky, bouncing off the water, the salmon-pink river banks and lighting up everything around us – a photographer’s dream. The last time I felt this magical feeling was in Windjama Gorge in the Kimberly, under very similar lighting experience. As the sun set we were in for a fabulous treat. It was extremely hard to pick a single photo to represent it – like a 20 minute firework display across the sky and reflected in the still pools.


We showered and home cooked a vegetarian Pad Thai for dinner (a Jamie Oliver recipe) with a glass of Shiraz – ‘Cat Among the Pigeons’. Delicious. I think we’ll be ok here for a couple of days after all.

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Day 83: 20 August – Another day, another shark…

Author: Mrs A

Distance driven: 12 km

We decided to stay in Denham another couple of nights, not quite ready to leave this beautiful area. As the campground is fully booked, we had to move to a new unpowered site just up the hill. Once settled we decided to explore the Denham locality a bit further.

Our first stop was just south of Denham, a typically quirky Australian feature – ‘the thong shack‘ (flip flops, not underwear!) right behind yet another stunning beach, and providing a great lookout along the coast beyond the rubber footwear.


From there we headed a short distance south to the Ocean Park Aquarium. This is not your typical aquarium – it is run by marine scientists, and many of the creatures have been rescued and are being cared for until they are released. 

Their speciality is sharks, and they have quite a number in a huge pool fed directly from the ocean, but in addition there are stone fish, eels, turtles, rays and many other fish and sea snakes on site. 

We learned a lot about them and also thanked our lucky stars we didn’t take our pack-rafts paddling in the Little Lagoon estuary – it’s full of poisonous stone fish! Ugh! Can you spot the fish in the picture below? We’re not sure we would. Once disturbed, these ugly beasts throw up a number of poisonous spines. Apparently the pain is excruciating, causing tissue damage and potential amputation, if not, death. Not pleasant.


We enjoyed a delicious and affordable lunch with an incredible view (are we still in WA?!) before returning to camp for the afternoon. Mr A relaxed with a good book while I got started on my presentation for my Chicago visit.

We finished off the evening with a seafood pasta coupled with an Italian Pinot Grigio and a fabulous sunset.

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Day 81: 18 August – Spectacular Francois Peron National Park

Author: Mrs A

Location: Francois Peron National Park – Big Lagoon, Cape Peron and Snapper Point

Distance driven: 110 km return

Distance kayaked: 4 km

Distance hiked: 4 km

We left early after a light breakfast heading for Big Lagoon (they’re very creative with the names in these parts. There is also a Little Lagoon) in the Francois Peron National Park. We had been told by the information centre that today was to be both the warmest and least windy day of the next five days, so we decided to take advantage.

By 9.30am we were inflating our pack-rafts and setting off on the beautiful turquoise water for an explore.

It was the perfect way to see the shallow lake, which was unsuitable for motorised vessels. We explored right across to the opening of the lagoon, where it met the sea, and clambered up the iron rich sand dunes, cris-crossed with multiple animal and bird tracks, and no signs of humans at all.

We decided to stop and have lunch here, at the brand new national park kitchen and picnic area with the million dollar view. Not another soul was there!

After lunch we decided to drive up to the tip of the national park. I had read some incredible accounts of the scenery and wildlife up there, and couldn’t wait to visit, however as we drove up the extremely rough roads (corrugations and deep sand) for over an hour, I could tell Mr A was doubting my decision. Thankfully the view at the top was incredible, with spectacular scenery and out of this world colours.

Better still, as we reached Cape Peron and the Snapper Point Lookout the sea life appeared as if on cue – within moments of arriving we spotted several sharks swimming past and a huge manta ray, along with multiple shoals of gleaming fish. We both agreed, we could have spent a whole afternoon just there.

We walked along the headland, reading about the history of the point, with the first European visitors arriving from France back in 1801 and dancing to the maracas to try and convince the local Aboriginal groups they were there in peace. The Aboriginal people of course have been resident on this point for more than 26,000 years, and had never seen anything like it. I can only imagine what planet they thought these strange visitors were from!

Down on the beach we saw hundreds of Little Pied Cormerants, which are regular residents here. The fact there are so many on land in this photo, and not in the water, means there are tiger sharks about. Cormerants, dolphins, manta rays, turtles and the odd pack-rafter are favourite meals for tiger sharks. We remained firmly on land.

We returned to camp exhausted after our busy day, and thankfully had the foresight to defrost a pre-made red curry for dinner. 

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Day 80: 17 August – Are we in the French Riviera?

Author: Mr A

From: Hamelin Station 

To: Denham

Distance driven: 105 km

Distance cycled: 5.5 km

Distance hiked: 5.5 km

A little dusty this morning after celebrating our anniversary a little enthusiastically with our new “on the road” buddies Nick and Laura. A Mr A special of bacon and eggs soon had us raring to go (in our minds at least), so we pulled up sticks and headed off. 

Coming down the hill into Denham we saw this perfect white sand beach, framed by yachts bobbing around on an azure sea…and wondered ‘Did we just get teleported to the French Rivieria?‘


After getting set up in the caravan park we cycled round town, eager to find those lovely little French cafes which the chic looking crowd ambling the markets ….however…the first (and only) cafe-come-bakery in town was staffed by a woman dressed as if she had recently lost a fight with a bag of flour, who,when asked ‘Could madam please make a soy hot chocolate?’, walked away and mumbled something incoherent. After a couple of promts she managed to grunt ‘Nah’, still without making eye contact. Ah well…we are definitely in small town WA where the only caravan park is chock full and every business in town seems to just open its doors and say ‘Take it or leave it, these’s a queue behind you if you don’t like it’. 

On the positive side it is a lovely backdrop to the town…


A popular spot to moor up for the yachties, the water is just crystal clear, and apparently the fishing is good. And in a nutshell that’s the difference between the French Riviera and here. Miles and miles of pristine beaches stretch away into the distance, hardly a human footprint in sight, but those of kangaroos, birds, lizards…..queuing up to be photographed by Mrs A.

We had booked dinner at the one and only restaurant in town (The Old Pearler Restaurant), in a building made completely of shell bricks from the quarry we visited yesterday. As this was a special night, given we ate in on our anniversary, we ordered the seafood platter. Now $115 got us a big plate of seafood each, but no salad, no chips, nothing – just a plate of seafood. Interesting…And they were booked out of course. If you want to eat out in Denham, other than the grotty pub with the pokies clanging away, you have no choice but to come here, whatever the price. 

Now for those of you who are wondering ‘Where the heck is Denham? I must cross it off my gastronomy tour‘ here’s our current location. Very close to Monkey Mia, famous for the dolphins. It is as far west in Australia as you can ride a horse…and amazingly beautiful. 

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Day 79: 16 August – Biking, bubbles and campfires

Author: Mrs A

Distance driven: 452 km

Distance cycled: 14.5 km

We awoke to a perfect blue sky morning and were packed up, hitched up and on the road by 8am. We had a lot of driving ahead of us and we wanted to ensure we made the most of our destination in the afternoon.

Several podcasts kept us company along the way, and by 2.30pm we had arrived. Today we are staying at Hamelin Station on the southernmost tip of Shark Bay.


Hamelin Station Reserve is a 202,000 hectare property, situated on 32 kilometres of coast line and bordering the Shark Bay World Heritage area.  The former sheep station is now owned by Bush Heritage Australia.  The reserve helps to protect Hamelin Pool, one of the only two places in the world where living marine stromatolites are known to occur.

Now, we had no idea what stromatolites were, so on spotting a sign directing us to see them, we jumped on our bikes and headed up to Hamelin Pool. As we rode down onto the beach and boardwalk we spotted Nick and Laura, the couple from Manly/UK who we first met (and last saw) just north of Broome while hunting for dinosaur footprints! On finding they are camped just two spots away from us we made arrangements to catch up for drinks in the evening.


So, stromatolites. These black spongy things are stromatolites, basically towers of living micro organisms, the origins of life on earth. Pretty interesting. We passed several Japanese tourists taking selfies with the rock-like structures – I wondered whether they had any idea what the information boards said or why they were there. Even Mr A and I found them relatively heavy going!

The beach on which we were cycling was made entirely of miniature white shells, a particular type of cockle which grows prolifically in this area. In one area we passed through quarry from the 1800s, where the original settlers in this area had cut bricks from the compacted shells to build their homes.


We returned to Hamelin Station and explored the beautifully landscaped grounds and onsite lake, rich in birdlife.

Before long it was time to pop the cork on our prosecco and raise a toast. On this day 15 years ago Mark and I became Mr and Mrs Anderson, supported by many friends and family at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. Laura and Nick came over to join us, bringing some dips and biscuits, and we set about realising just how many people we know in common. Mr A and Laura in particular – Laura previously worked for SAS and Mr A worked closely with a number of her colleagues in his KPMG days.

We finished the evening under the shooting stars around the campfire with several good bottles of red. A fine end to an anniversary date!

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Day 77: 14 August – Stranded in the Kennedy Range

Author: Mrs A

Distance driven: 230 km

We awoke to drizzle and low cloud, and set about packing and hitching up to the car ready to move on. After a quick visit to the Asian grocer for a few ingredients and the camping store for a replacement gas bottle, we headed inland, first to Gascoyne Junction and then across to the Kennedy Range National Park.


The Kennedy Range is about 160km from the coast, and rises up out of the flat desert region. Like many of the other gorges we have visited, these hills are formed with layers of sandstone and shale, formed from an uplifted ancient sea bed. Apparently there are marine fossils to be found in the sandstone.

The rain followed us the whole way inland, the landscape looking quite surreal with pools appearing beside the road and flocks of birds going crazy for the water. The area we are in is considered arid and very rarely experiences rain outside of the November-March period. Lucky us! As we drove along the red roads into the campground the cloud lifted and the sun shone on the ranges – they looked spectacular with dramatic skies all around.


We found ourselves a good spot right near where the walks start and settled in to make lunch. Before we knew it the clouds had closed in and we were in for a very wet afternoon. We didn’t emerge from the mobile apartment for more than five minutes, enjoying an afternoon of reading and basically relaxing with the sound of the rain on the roof.

At around 5.30pm we had a knock at the door. One of the volunteer campground hosts came round to let us know that she’d just got off the radio with the National Parks office, and they had advised her that all roads in and out of the ranges have been closed due to the rain. We are stranded – couldn’t leave if we wanted to! Apparently the roads are shut after as little as 4mm of rain, and we have had much more than that. We are not planning to leave until Wednesday, so hopefully they dry out tomorrow. The forecast is for increasing sunshine, which is just as well as we now have one day to do all the walks and make up for today’s laziness!

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Day 75: 12 August – Market day in Carnarvon

Author: Mrs A

Location: Carnarvon

Distance cycled: 20 km

Saturday morning meant the long awaited market day had arrived. Carnarvon is the centre of the fruit and vegetable growing region, and today marked the final day in a week long celebration ‘Food week’. Just by chance we happened to be here – usually we arrive a week after these events, hearing tales of how good they were. So we jumped on our bikes and rode the 5km into town and the markets, with mediocre expectations. They were good! Not quite as good as the Forestville farmers markets we experience in Sydney, but also not as bad as the ‘markets’ in Derby with three market stalls, two of which were selling doilies…

Incredible varieties of home made jams and preserves (we bought a green mango chilli jam – yum!), plus well priced vegetables and fruits freshly picked.  There were some celebrity chefs cooking chicken, meatball and catfish dishes, all served up for free, and even the TV cameras there to interview blokes in jackets – presumably regional Western Australia celebrities.


We purchased as much as our fridge could cope with and jumped back on our bikes to continue exploring Carnarvon. We rode down to the water and across an old jetty, still sporting rail lines. This, we then learned, led to a 3km ride across salt marsh to one of Carnarvon’s tourist highlights, One-Mile-Jetty, where you can ride an old train out to sea, around a mile for $5. We gave that a miss and rode back to camp with our purchases.


With 20km under our belts we felt a little peckish and decided to try out some of the local seafood. We picked up some fish and chips, bringing them back to the mobile apartment to consume. By now the wind had picked up and we had heard rumours of bad weather approaching. We weather-proofed the caravan. The fish and chips were ok, but nothing to write home about. Very average.

The afternoon was spent competing tasks – washing bedding, washing the car, supermarket shopping. The wind got stronger and the blue sky disappeared.


A very chilled out evening eventuated as the wind dropped and the rain arrived. It is still warm, and the rain seems to be in showers only – just enough to ensure our sheets don’t dry!

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Day 73: 10 August – Just another day in paradise

Author: Mrs A

Location: 14-Mile Beach, Warroora Station

Distance hiked: 11 km

We decided to stay away from so called ‘civilisation’ today and remained on the station. After a delicious Mr A special for breaky (bacon and egg sandwiches), we drove to ‘Turtle Rock’ (our mid way point from our last big walk here), a headland along the coast, and left the car there, walking north on new beaches. These beaches were more rocky than those near the camping areas, but certainly no less beautiful. Unlike our walk a couple of days ago, the lagoon had waves rolling into shore, making for a completely different scene. The turtles continued to emerge frequently to take their prescribed three breaths before diving again to hunt on the reef, often seen bobbing through a breaking wave. Surfing turtles. Not something I thought I would see!


We did not see another soul today, the only evidence of other life being the wild feral goat hoof prints, dingo paw prints and the unmistakable kangaroo tail and feet imprint upon the sand dunes… 

We stopped for some fruit and almonds at our mid-point, enjoying a scenic location on the beach. Our first choice of snack stop was right beside an Australian Pied Oystercatcher nest – we only realised once I spotted we were getting dirty looks from the black and white birds. Their clutch of three eggs was well disguised but the ‘nest’ was no more than a roughly scraped out dent in the sand.


We returned to camp via ‘Telstra Hill’ for a quick check in with reality (and downloading of recipes for tonight’s dinner), and then back to start preparations as the sun set. Tonight we have honey-mint-rosemary marinated lamb cutlets on a pumpkin hummus with sweet potato chips and peas. I am certainly going to miss the view out of my kitchen window when we move on.


Entertainment wise, I think we are reliant on some free DVDs from Australian Geographic and some dodgy copies of movies such as ‘The Matrix’ gifted to us many moons ago…

We are saving this location in our memories as a very special place…who knows whether we will ever return? Tomorrow we depart and head south to Carnarvon, the capital of the fresh fruit and vegetable growing of Western Australia. I have high hopes (imagining French style fresh fruit and vegetable markets), Mr A has low hopes (based on our experience so far and thinking all the good stuff is shipped to Perth and elsewhere and its a long way from France)…

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