Steep Point 28/9/2013

Matts birthday today, I was still feeling a little down and I hate missing the kids birthdays. We had had virtually no sleep, the wind was howling all night, the tent was flapping like mad and the car was rocking from side to side. We decided that one night was enough and after doing some more exploring we would start heading back towards Carnarvon and find somewhere to stay along the road. 

We went for a long walk along the beach, collected some shells, and picked up some plastic bags that had been left by others. We noticed campers had left a full garbage bag behind, we had no room in the car, so made a note of where it was to let the ranger know.

 After our walk we went back to Steep Point, Iain looked at the maps and found that there was a headland that was slightly more west, he was determined to photograph the most westerly point. We went walking along the cliffs and found lots of holes – full of salt. Obviously when the tide is high the spray wets the top. We found some beautiful places for photos, so spent some time doing that. Before we left I collected a handful of salt to take home, it looks clean and white.

Iain had found out about 2 stations on the peninsular that you could camp at, Cararang and Tamala. He had emailed Cararang and they had replied saying there was always plenty of spots, so we should just call in. The ranger said we would be very lucky, they are very difficult to get hold of and as it was a long weekend and school holidays everything would be full. Damn – we hadn’t realised. We decided to go there and try anyway, when we arrived there was no-one home, we decided to leave money in the box provided and see if we could find a spot. We had a look, but it all seemed full, it was then that I read the fine print on the instructions from the box, that said to only camp in the spot you booked. Disappointed we left to look for a gravel pit.

We were passing Tamala, so thought we may as well just stop in and see if they had something. The lady was very friendly, and asked if we had bought lotto. She then told us that because we were not towing, she had the best spot on the property available for us. We drove down to the spot allocated, and it was magnificent – a little bay all to ourselves. It was still very windy, but it was so lovely it didn’t matter.