Seven destinations, four day, two girls and one big adventure!
Last weekend I grabbed again, my backpack and a friend (the Dutchie I already had with me on the trip to Margaret River), hired a Campervan and went off for a new adventure. We had four whole days (Friday to Monday, but we already drove three hours on Thursday night) to explore everything between Perth, Esperance and Albany, and I’d say we did pretty well.
Some destinations I’ll write about more deeply another time, just because I have so much to tell and say about it, but this post is about that trip in general. So off we go:
Campervan: As usual I hired our Van with Wickedcampers.com from Thursday till Tuesday (so we don’t need to stress on Monday) for $480 – including insurance, under 21 Age Fee and obviously the van itself; if you don’t have a proper Creditcard (so “only” a Debitcard) you need to “pay” a $500 bond, which you’ll get back if the van isn’t damaged after your trip – and as usual I was really happy with that decision.
Thursday night we went to a free Campground at Kulin Overnight Stop.
On Friday we started with Wave Rock, which is pretty famous if you’re thinking about something in Western Australia. But I must admit, I’m not its biggest fan. I’ve been there now twice (once I drove there and back in one day – 4h each way; and now we only stopped there on our way to Esperance) and I do think it is interesting and a beautiful picture worth, but I wouldn’t suggest driving there JUST to see Wave Rock.
Next to Wave Rock is Hyppo’s Yawn, which I kinda really liked and a bit further away from the “main road” is Mulka’s Cave. If you’re around take your time and have a look, if not, you’re not really missing out.
The rest of that day wasn’t really interesting cause we had to do a lot of driving. At the end of the day we arrived (in the dark) at Lucky Bay, had some dinner and tried to capture the beautiful starful sky.
Expenses that day: Wave Rock: $10; Cape La Grande NP: $12; (Lucky Bay Campground: $10 pp – but we left so early in the morning that we did not see the Ranger who collects the money); Petrol: about $100
This morning we woke up together with the sun and saw a beautiful sunrise above the Lucky Bay. After that we had breakfast there (a quick peanutbutter sandwich) and we were actually really lucky and saw Kangaroos (also one ON the beach) – I know that Bay is famous for seing Kangaroos there at the beach but I met a couple people who went there lately and they never saw them.
After this super-experience we drove to Esperance (tried to charge my Camera at McDonalds, but wasn’t allowed to) and quickly continued to drive along the stunning Gread Ocean Drive. The water there is unbelievable blue-ish and I wished it would have been warm enough for a nice swim it the sea.
From there we actually wanted to go to Fitzgerald River NP, but that road we needed to take was completly flooded and washed away a few month ago. It took me some minutes to calm down and accept the fact that I wouldn’t see this NP, but then Dutchie and I agreed to drive further dirrection Albany and go to the Stirling Ranges next day instead.
Expenses that day: Petrol: about $60; St George Jerramungup Caravan Campground: $13 pp
Around 9am we arrived at the Stirling Ranges and we decided to do a hike up to the highest point at those Ranges: Bluff Knoll. It was a freaking exausting hike and I already thought after 500m that I couldn’t do it, but I did it. I’ll definetly write about this more detailed another day, but every step was worth it. The view from up there (1099m high) blew my mind (literally, it’s super windy up there) and in the end I was so proud of myself managing doing this 6km hike, which felt like maybe 100km.
That hike took us about 4h so most of the day was gone already. We wanted to go to our next campground and arrive once durring the day when you could actually SEE were you are.
We wanted to go to the free Campground Torbay Inlet Camp Area west of Albany, but on our way finding a spot the “road” suddely turned into a 4WD-Sandroad and we got stuck with our van. With help from a superfriendly Australian, we got out of there and somehow decided to spent our night somewhere else. Which also meant, that we wouldn’t see our campground in daytime. Again.
Expenses that day: (Bluff Knoll Parking: $12 – we accidentally didn’t pay for the parking, but some nice guys gave us their ticket); Boat Harbour Chalets Campground: $10 pp; Petrol: about $35
Monday was mainly our drive-back to Perth, but we still had enough time to do the Tree Top Walk at the Valley of the Giants where we had an amazing view over all the massive Karri Trees. It was defiently fascinating and surprisingly not scary at all (altough you’re 40m above the ground). I think this was a great end for this roadtrip and I definetly enjoyed it.
Expeses that day: Tree Top Walk: $21 pp; Petrol: $45
I really enjoyed the trip and I am so happy that I could share this experience with my lovely Dutchie, who’s sadly about to leave Perth and me soon. Thanks for your more than great company!
Have you seen Esperance and Albany? Would you like to? And if you hiked up Bluff Knoll, please let me know your thought about it!
See you, Saskia xxx
TravelWithSaskia 