For The Love of Travel

First stop, chai tea with soy and a drizzle of honey – ‘Poppies at the Park’ is my fave cafe in Dongara. Great laid back music, customer service and relaxed vibe….and on the Brand Highway to Ellendale, there was a cheery crayfish waving goodbye.

Ellendale Pool is a stunning waterhole naturally formed along the picturesque Greenough River, surrounded by magnificent gum trees and a rocky gorge. Its a popular picnic spot and camping ground.

On the way there, passed by 2 wind farms – Walkaway’s and Alinta Energy’s – so wonderful to see those giants working so effortlessly on the landscape, producing energy for us.

Overnight at the Big4 Port Denison/Dongara Caravan Park. Caught up with some fellow campers at ‘Nibbles @ 4.30’….caravan park put out some appetisers and you brought your drink. Very pleasant couple of hours chin wagging about travel plans, travel achievements, fishing triumphs….etc…etc.

Lesueur National Park is a botanic oasis, a haven to over 900 plant species. In spring, the park transforms into a wildflower wonderland apparently, pity I am too early to witness that! But I did like the feathery look of the smokebush.

Sandy Bay lookout was offering lovely views of an impending storm.

Green Head has the delightfully green Dynamite Bay and I wanted to get a drone shot of same….the wind level was increasing but I had a couple of spare batteries so I wasn’t concerned. However when I tried to get the drone back to me, I thought I had sight of it, but it wasn’t responding to my remote control . As I walked along the beach admittedly starting to get that rising sense of panic, I suddenly saw a guy with a remote control…..and we discovered that was his drone (mine was further out in the bay). I pressed the ‘return home’ button on my drone and it faithfully returned. Adrian, from Perth, and I laughed (what are the odds of 2 drones, both DJI Air 2’s in the same location??), exchanged drone stories and parted ways. Stayed at Green Head caravan park overnight – met a lovely Danish couple who had been travelling on the West coast for 4 months. Severe wind gusts and rain interrupted my beauty sleep all night.

Leeman, further north, has a unique blend of caves, fresh and salt water lakes. I hung around the lake area off Coolimba-Eneabba Rd hoping to bird watch, but very quiet this morning.

The Indian Ocean at Port Denison was warm and inviting this morning – lots of beach strollers and surfers about. A HUGE shoal of mullet was swimming close to the shore’s edge and locals were rushing off home to get fishing lines to catch dinner.

The Pinnacles Volcanic Formation formed approximately 23 million years ago, extruded through many vents and deposited atop the granite ‘ basement’ forming a vast volcanic field.

Some pinnacles reach 3.5m. Some are jagged, sharp-edged columns rising to a point, while others resemble tombstones. Many pinnacles display cross-bedding structures, where the angle of sand deposition changes abruptly. As rainwater comes into contact with dune sands, it dissolves the calcium carbonate. As dunes dry out, the calcium carbonate recrystallises and cements sand grains and sea shells together, forming limestone.

Drove a 4.5km trail that winds through the amazing limestone formations that create this strange ‘other world’ environment.