We’re going on the 4wd tour this morning, so we’re at reception early to get picked up. The tour is with Wula Gura Nyinda, a well-used troop carrier pulls into the driveway and something about the driving says we’re going to have a fun day. Our guide, Jack, jumps out and arranges us in the car, alongside another couple. We pick up one more pair (a mother and son) before heading up the cape.
The energy of the group starts fairly low, everyone is keeping to themselves, except Anna’s right up the front riding shotgun and I’m up the very back with the mother and son.
We pull over as we come to the entrance to the park. There are tyre let down stations setup and we all pick a tyre and begin letting the air out. Jack is telling us about the softness of the sand further into the park and the likelihood of us helping people out.
Jack says he grew up around here, but he’s spent a few years away and just recently moved back. As we begin to drive again, his perception becomes apparent. Even a glimpse of a particular animal’s track has him on the brakes and ushering us over to look closer to investigate. We (eventually) guess: rabbits, snakes, mice and thorny devils.
As we’re driving, I’m being struck by the beauty of the landscape. Bright golden-red sand is baked dry and reflects the warmth of the sun in colour and in heat. Hardy scrub of changing types flicks past. There is low, red salt bush, then woody green scrub, now flat plains with sparse ground cover, and then taller grey trees. The sky is huge and deep blue with silver-lined clouds frozen in place.
I get to thinking about our trip and my feelings of peacefulness and joy; and then about the vast and ancient country.
As my thinking returns to us in the car I notice the mother next to me trying to help her son see the beauty here – to not just wait for the ocean at the end of the drive. I think he’s a little embarrassed to notice how he feels, so I share some of my feelings, which kind of frees him to become aware of his own. It’s pleasing to be able to influence that.
For nearly every new tree or bush that we come across Jack explains its uses and significance. We stop and walk into the scrub a little way. There’s a tree with some branches fallen to the ground around it. Jack has us stand a little back from it and warns us that it is of particular significance, and we aren’t to remove any part of the living tree. He does, however, remove some small twigs and nuts from the fallen branch and passes some to each of us. It takes some guessing before we realise it’s sandalwood. We’ll crack the nuts later to taste them and burn the twigs in our own time.
The difference between our view of the country and Jack’s becomes clear. For us there is beauty, for Jack there is abundance. He seems to be constantly looking at where to hunt or place traps or fish.
We reach the tip of the peninsula and head onto the beach. A deep red cliff rings a shallow bay. We explore the beach and the water before climbing around onto the cliff top to look down into the water below. Jack is restless to get into the water to catch some dinner, he’d do that if we weren’t there, he said. A little way around the peninsula, we stop again to head out to a rock shelf. The scene is ablaze with light, the reddest reds and bluest blues, shimmering water to infinity.
We cook lunch and the group talks about our travel plans. The other young couple are heading north and talking about where they’re stopping for fuel, which doesn’t really match where we have been. The mother and son are here because they’ve been planning a holiday from Perth for a while, but kept being waylaid by other priorities, they’re clearly enjoying the realisation of their plans!
After lunch we have one more stop before heading back. There’s an observation platform which looks over a bay where dugongs come in to eat the sea grass. From the platform a sweeping bay holds crystal clear water. A lone dugong muddles its way through the bay.
Time feels slow on the drive home, taking in the changing landscape. And we return to asking the other couple what their plans are – it all falls into place we they explain that they are flying a light plane for airstrip to airstrip. That explains the strange route and the distances they are covering! I’m immediately jealous of the views that must see from a small plane. Anna would have no part of that trip though.
Upon arriving back at the camp ground I feel grateful that we’re able to travel about and see all that we’re seeing. And argumentative family holidays can’t dampen my mood!
