Arriving at Perth Airport was a strange experience, the boarder checkers were there checking our codes of approval for entry, checking our licences but never looking at us to make sure we were who we said we were. As we were all wearing masks, somewhat hiding our identity, I guess it was a mute point.
Collecting our hire vehicle, a Toyota CHR hybrid, we sat in it for a few minutes trying to work out how to start the darn thing. It had key less start and due to the electric motor part we werent even sure if the car was on.
First stop was to collect a tent. Our road trip is 6 nights camping in a tent along the Coral Coast heading Perth to Exmouth and we are doing this on the cheap. We were a little hesitant about this brand new tent from some guy who buys things from overseas.. it looked good in the pictures; a 4 man pop up tent that takes 2 minutes to set up and I guess we will see how it goes.. the next stop is to collect a self inflating mattress, its a bit
used (although the add said like new) but for $20 I wasnt sure what we were really expecting. Stopping at Kmart to grab pillows, a bucket and other fishing things and some cheap camp chairs and Woollies to grab non perishable food for the trip we were ready for our adventure the following day.
Kym and I have a nice habit of finding the local breweries and even though he had been previously we drove to Fremantle and stopped at Little Creatures to sample a beer or 10,well literally ten..and they were all good!
We caught up and stayed with some friends, having a great evening of laughs, wine, BBQ and guacamole and set up our tent and mattress in their living room. The tent is super easy to put up, it is literally 2 minutes and the mattress, once we had aired it out worked okay. Not sure if the tent will hold up outside still, especially if it rains.which is predicted... but we will see
Fairly early start as we have 7 hour drive plus stops to get to our first overnight camping destination. Perth is easy to navigate and on a Sunday morning, there
is no traffic making it easy to leave the suburbs and the city and start our journey. Kyms road trip playlist of assorted rock classics keeping as we drive the highways through to out first stop; the Pinnacles. Lots of greenery on either side of the road its with the occasional views of the ocean, high desert sand dunes are what us.
As we drove past several high white sand dunes, some of them looked like snow covered mountains and we even saw a sandfall (kind of like a waterfall but with sand).
The Pinnacles are located in a National Park, one of several across WA. Park passes are $15 a day, or if you plan to go to more than one park you can get a 5 day pass for $25 and there are other options. The Pinnacles did not disappoint. Large patches stretching as far as the eye can see of jagged rock formations rising from the ground in amongst yellow desert sand. There is an information centre which you can wander through and find out information about these formations, although there is no proof of how they came to be, they are
I felt a kind of vibration emanating from them and took off my shoes to feel the sand under my feet and to feel connected to this place of awe and wonder.
Driving 20 minutes further north we stopped for lunch at the Lobster Shack, sampling their local beer and a lobster roll overlooking a very rough ocean. Well worth a stop for lunch.
A quick look at Jurien Bay on our way through to our first nights camping the wind held us from staying too long.
Although we hoped to watch the sunset, we ran a little behind and instead drove towards pink clouds letting us know that the sun had gone down before the cloud coverage quickly plunged us into darkness. A kangaroo (we think) hid in the bush and we carefully drove the rest of the way.
Murchinson caravan park was full of life, kids playing, riding bikes and adults congregating in areas laughing and drinking. We loved the vibe as we set up our tent.
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