It’s a slow start to the day and a slow day overall. We walk through Fremantle wandering up and down the streets and taking in the sites and the mood. We have a Yum Cha brunch at Bun Mi.

We take Donna to a well-deserved carwash and bring her back to sparkling glory.

After that, we walk to the harbour to have some beers and food at the Little Creatures brewery. It’s extremely freeing not to have to drive long distances or meet any deadlines, so with light shoulders and light feet that we take in the Fremantle area and enjoy a bright cool and pleasant day together.

Today we will reach Perth. That’s a pretty exciting achievement. We follow the road south sometimes the ocean is in view other times with further in land. Our main stop today will be just north of Perth at the Yanchep National Park where there are a collection of caves.
We arrive in Yanchep at about midday where we go on a guided tour of some caves enjoying the static tights and the stoic mites and the cool air underground.
Once we get into Perth, we stop at a fried chicken place called Drasko‘s and eat spicy, spicy chicken and waffles. With lip tingle unabating, we head into the Fremantle markets to buy fresh food for the next few days that we will spend in Perth. Then we settle into our accommodation, unpack Donna, have a shower, and celebrate our arrival on the other side of the country.

We set off from Jurien Bay down to Lesuer National Park. It’s been raining and the roads are muddy but possible and as we drive, we can feel Donna enjoying some more time on the dirt roads. Lesuer National Park has a loop call the Park Drive Trail. As soon as we turn in we can see colourful patches of flowers along the roadside. We crawl slowly along this drive at maybe 10 to 20 km/h taking in the bright pops of colour next to the earthy road and the low green bush rolling out across the hills in every direction.

The grey clouds overhead are not threatening but they make the colours of flowers even brighter against a dark backdrop. Occasionally we stop to explore a section of flowers or to let a more impatient car pass us by. The range of colour and shape of the flowers is beautiful, though it’s Anna‘s exclamation and joy that brings me the most happiness on this drive. In small moments on the drive the road may turn and dip leading us into a grove where new or different plants and flowers will come into view. Each one is exciting in its own right. The flower are sometime are right alongside the road or other times they extend deep into the brush.

After taking a couple of hours to drive only a few kilometres we reach the end of the Trail. Donna is covered in red mud up to her windows and is looking very proud. We head back to Jurien Bay where we warm ourselves up with clam chowder.

On our way down to Cervantes, we drive past the Lake Thetis Stromatolites. By the time we arrive at our accommodation for the night we’re hungry again for more West Coast seafood and the local hotel really meets this desire with lobster muscles and squid, which are all absolutely amazing.

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Before we leave Kalbarri the motel owner tells us about Cyclone Seroja which had about five months ago. It had caused wide spread damage to the town, and to the motel as well. They’ve been using the motel mostly to accommodate the tradies who are helping to rebuild everything, and she’s telling us how nice it is to start seeing a little more tourist activity. We really hadn’t noticed the extent of the repair work in the town (we’d mostly be out and about anyway), but as we were leaving the Palm Resort sign is also showing signs of the storm.

Lots to see today – we’re heading about four hours south to Cervantes, but we’ll be detouring to chase more wild flowers. Our first stop is Pink Lake. Some kind of algae activity which makes the water pink, and it’s quite a stunning sight! There are a few good places to stop and get a good look. At one there are some tourists wading deep into the water, but it just seems slightly gross to be getting right into it. So we walk by the water’s edge finding good angles to photograph the lake.

We arrive in Geraldton for an early lunch, we’ve been reading that this part of the WA coast is good for seafood, so we splash out and order oysters and lobster at Skeetas. Even since eating oysters in San Francisco I have a new-found enjoyment for them. And these are great. From time to time the holiday feeling is more noticeable, and there’s something about an early lunch with few other guests on a sunny day that brings that feeling.

A little research over lunch tells us that wild flowers info can be found at the Mingenew Visitors Centre. We drive an hour and half to Mingenew to find the visitors centre closed and sparse info on wild flower locations. So we wander back in the direction of the highway keeping an eye out for any we can see. There are a few distant field with some flowers, but nothing very accessible. Then we come across a field of purple flowers so we stop for a few photos. As I walk back to the car a bee gets blown behind by glasses and in a panic stings me right below my eye. As my eye swells and waters, Anna is yelling to get off the road (in my pain I must have walked backwards). Anyway, Anna takes on the driving for a bit to let me regather my composure. I support bees should be predicted around flowers!

Another three hours down the road we stop at the Pinnacles Desert. The landscape here is truly unique. It’s reminiscent of some of the landscapes in Iceland, in the sense that it feels otherworldly and special.

The pinnacles are towers of limestone, some in clusters, others standing on their own. The towers are mostly human-sized, and so walking amongst them is like walking with sentient beings firmly rooted in place all around me. The towers have characters too, they might be leaning in towards each other like speaking in hushed tones; or standing proud and tall and alone; or some like a family with the smaller children playing nearby. At times the place feels much more like a graveyard, packed with headstones all around the place, then it begins to be like hallowed ground. Long shadows grow as we take our time walking in the sandy remnants of an ancient sea.

Eventually we leave and check into a motel in Cervantes.

Good walking weather when we head off from the Palm Resort – we’re off to the Loop and Nature’s Window this morning. Puffy clouds streak the bright blue sky overhead as we drive into the park. The heat of the day is building, although right now it’s more of a sense of the heat that will come.

There’s a small crowd of people at Nature’s Window when we get there. After waiting our turn we get some photos through the window and set off on the rest of the walk. It’s about 10km around the rim of the river, eventually head down to the sandy shore before climbing back up to the Window again. The short walk from the car park was easy, past the Window, signs begin warn walkers of dehydration and risk of death (one person died here last summer).

About a kilometre into the hike, the ridge gives a vantage point directly along the Murchison River. We come across a group of six walkers, with young children and a single 600ml bottle of water. They nervously ask us about whether they should continue on the walk, we send them back knowing that between us we have nearly six litres of water and the temperature is rising fast.

The land is hard rock is all directions, with plants clinging to every available crack. Low bushes and grass are all that can grow in the higher places, but large trees find life closer to the river. We are lucky to have timed our visit with wild flower season, so pockets of colour are all around us. Yellow, red, purple and white flowers bob in the breeze, giving us small stops along the walk.

The track begins to descend below the ridge that we’ve been walking along, the river to our right and the ridge line gaining height on our left. Plates of rock jut out from the walls. Looking above us, the red rock stands proud against the blue-grey sky.

The plates of rock are our path as we round blind corners, sometimes stepping over gaps in the rock with the water gently coursing below. Now the rock shelf opens up wide and nearly level with the water. Black swans float in the centre of the river. As we walk on the rock shelf becomes sand, and much more vegetation has taken hold. Whole fields of yellow flowers, and then whole fields of red-branched flowers fill the view.

The water cools the air down in the valley has given some respite and we take our time through the flower fields. The final kilometre of trudging through hot red sand brings back the heat in an instant, and the scramble back to Nature’s Window gets our legs really burning. We both finish our water at the Window, taking some final photos before heading to Donna for a drive to the lookout over Z Bend.

At Z Bend there’s a huge cantilevered look out spearing right into the river cutting. The steel has weathered and nearly disappears into the red of the rusty reds in the landscape. A short walk through more flowers takes us to another look out.