I’m actually late typing this trip report up as we did the trip a few weeks ago now. However in my defence there has been 2 Grand Finals, Bathurst and a trip home to Tassie inbetween……
It was Friday evening and I packed the vehicle ready to head north. Someone (no names!) had decided to have a few drinks after work, so I was left with the driving duties 🙂
Departing Perth we punched straight up the Brand Highway. It was a fairly good run with minimal rain and hardly any roos. A few hours later we reached the intersection with the Indian Ocean Drive. Turning down it we progressed probably another 10km’s or so until we found a spot to throw the swags down. Think it was around midnight when we pulled in.
A couple of quiet Bundy’s consumed and a good night sleep followed.
Waking up the next morning we discovered we were in grey nomad territory. Hopefully I didn’t give any of the oldies too much excitement getting changed in front of them! Although with a view like this I didn’t care…..
We started heading south slowly. The road meanders along the coastline but there are a number of stretches where you pull inland enough to not see the water. Along the way we found a number of places which had some great views. A couple of them were just a couple of wheel tracks, but they were still perfectly Ok to navigate along – you just have to make the decision to give it a go!
Where able we literally followed the coastline. There was some ‘tight’ areas and a couple of ‘oh shit’ moments, but we didn’t get stuck and we discovered some fantastic areas. It’s probably a good thing most people stick to the bitumen, as it gives us the pleasure of exploring these areas. Bonus being that we barely saw 3 vehicles during our time off of the road.
Just before Jurien Bay we turned inland to visit the Lesueur National Park. The road in was corrugated but it wasn’t that bad at all. After paying the entry fee we wound our way along the bitumen track, stopping at the various lookouts/information boards.
It would actually be a bloody good place to do the longer walks, and the views to the coast were exceptional. I’d love to see it on a really clear day.
Heading back to the coastline we stopped at Jurien Bay and picked up some supplies. It appears to be a ‘holiday destination’ and certainly had that feel about it.
It was somewhere south of Jurien Bay where we turned down a track marked on my GPS. It took us through to the coastline, and basically we just followed wheel tracks through some interesting areas. There was a couple of times where we popped out into some great areas. For people considering this area, be aware that it is very overgrown in places – so if you’re precious about your paintwork then I wouldn’t go here…..
Eventually we popped out at Cervantes and continued on to look at the Pinacles.
South of the Pinnacles the road turns inland a bit to skirt around the edges of a defence establishment. Not long after we turned in to Lancelin where we enjoyed a late lunch, although we had been snacking all day.
I do know that there’s a big area for vehicles to play on the sand dunes, but to be honest I’m starting to get away from that now days preferring to stick with touring. So we continued south with the intention of finding somewhere to set up camp for the night.
Arriving at Ledge Point we found a little track that looked like it headed towards the water on the north side of town. We headed down and found ourselves in a maze of little tracks heading through the sand dunes. At one stage we crested a sand dune to literally find a 6 metre straight drop down onto the beach – that sure got the heart racing!
Eventually we found this great little spot where we set up for the night.
A good feed and a few bottles of wine later resulted in a good early sleep. Waking up at approximately 3am I discovered 100km/h winds, driving rain – oh and the windows in the car had been left open (oops!).
By the time I’d fixed all of the up I was soaked to the bone and had sand stuck to me everywhere – and I mean everywhere. Did I happen to mention that we were at the end of an overgrown track after traversing a lot of sand dunes, with no idea what was north of us. It was around about then that I saw the funny side of it. Thank God Pilchy wasn’t up then, as he would’ve thought I’d lost my marbles laughing my head off – love this shit!
Anyway it was only 1/2 hour before Pilchy got up anyway. Looking at the radar and the forecast we decided now was probably a good time to get out of here. So we loaded up, turned the headlights onto high beam and proceeded to have the time of our lives!!!
Funniest thing about it all is we popped out back in Lancelin, passing through a pretty big gateway. There was a big sign on it thanking us for visiting some ‘sand mine’. Be stuffed if we realised we were somewhere we shouldn’t have been, because there was no indication of mining or that it was private property.
By now we figured it was probably a good idea to head straight home. It rained the whole way and the wind was pushing us all over the place. It was a shame to head home early, but damn we had some great fun.
And it leaves another (probably day) trip to go and see the bit between Ledge Point and Two Rocks now 🙂
Cheers
Chris