After shopping for some supplies in Norseman I decided to head south towards the South-East Coast of Western Australia, with an overnight stop at Salmon Gums. (NO phone, NO internet). It is named after the beautiful salmon gum trees in the area.This is a small community run caravan park with hot showers, clean amenities, some powered sites and a laundry with washing machine. There was only one van there when I pulled in and no-one around but it wasn’t long before some caravanners, Bob and Carol, arrived. (No Ted and Alice!) It was only $5 for an unpowered site so I did some hand washing, hung it on the line and decided to stay.

 There were no flies, which was a bonus, but there lots of little bitey ants. The next morning my washing wasn’t dry so I hung around and it wasn’t long before more vans pulled in. We all started chatting and I decided to stay for another night and enjoyed a great Happy Hour with new found friends. John and Helen were one of the other couples and Helen and I started talking blogging. Helen has a travel blog called www.magfowl.com which is really interesting.

It was Saturday when I left and headed to Esperance to stock up the cupboards and fill my gas cylinder to keep the fridge running. I shopped first – big mistake! After midday there is no-one that will fill a gas cylinder and the only changeovers available were 9kg and I needed a 4kg one. On the recommendation of a friendly customer in the last servo I went to looking for gas, I headed off the 65kms to a little place called Condingup. Yes, they would fill a gas bottle for me! I’m now on my way to Lucky Bay after a 130km round trip for gas. As I came over the crest of a hill Lucky Bay came into view and I thought, yes, this has been worth the hassle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The beaches along here have been voted the whitest sand beaches in Australia and it’s easy to see why. The pure white sand disappeared in to clear aqua waters, the bays curved towards rocky headlands, the Recherche Archipelago was just off-shore – it was picture postcard perfect. See what the WA Parks people have to say about Lucky Bay in the Cape Le Grand National Park here. There’s also some wonderful photos on this web-site and links to other bays in the area.

I enjoyed four beautiful days here for $6.60 per night (plus National Park fees). (NO phone, NO internet).There is a solar shower, a great camp kitchen and believe it or not a coffee van that sets up on the beach most days about 10 o’clock. John and Helen came to visit me while I was there and booked out of their Esperance Caravan Park and camped nearby at Cape Le Grande. My fitness neighbour, Richard, joined me for a walk along the beach one day and we shared Happy Hour that evening before I left the next day.

The other beautiful thing about this camp was the birds and I was really excited to see a stunning finch called a Red-eared Firetail. Typically I didn’t get a photo – all the birds I aim the lens at are extremely camera shy, but I found this one on the internet and can guarantee this is exactly what they look like.

 

As I was packing up my camp one of the camp ground kangaroos got upset with me and growled! Did you know they do that? I thought they only made Skippy noises and I got a hell of a fright. Anyhow, a few days later I wrote my first children’s poem called The Angry Kangaroo. I won’t include it here, but you will find it on the Poetry page of my blog.

Here are a couple of kangaroos that made themselves at home around the camp.

Lucky me – I had spent a wonderful four days in Lucky Bay!