If Alexander McQueen designed a slug…
Posted: July 14, 2025 Filed under: Camping | Tags: nature, Photography, travel, wildlife 4 Comments
When you spend enough time dawdling about in the water, you start noticing things you shot right past before. Case in point, slugs. OK. Sea Cucumbers, or Sea Slugs to be precise. I’ve been swimming past these for years not giving them more than a “Ewww, slug” thought. Then I started actually looking at them and realised they are actually quite beautiful.
It all started when we befriended two really lovely young boys and their parents at the camp ground. The boys were dead keen on coming out snorkelling, regardless of swell, wind, grey skies, or tide, emerging every time visibly vibrating from cold but not admitting to it. One of the boys was desperate to see sharks, the other not at all keen to see sharks but studied the fish book and absorbed names and species at lightning pace. He was a clam fan. These boys had a really big impact on me, forever changing the way I looked at things.
These plain old sea cucumbers are everywhere, but looking with my new eyes, I saw a new decoration, and realised it was a tiny sea hare, around 2cm long. It is a kind of shell-less snail with black trim on the frilly sides, a bit like a flamenco dress. I’ve never seen one before, nor since.
Clams were something else I had also largely ignored, but once I started looking at them I noticed two things: Like fingerprints, no two are alike, but not only that, each one is completely different from the others. Some are like dark chocolate velvet. Others with chocolate and cream animal print, studded with turquoise. Genius.
Once I started looking at slow moving things, I also realised there were tiny landscapes everywhere, with multiple species of seaweed, soft corals, hard corals, and plant life, even within a two metre area. I am also very aware that it is so difficult to show scale in marine photos, so I’ll add in some dimensions.
Then of course, there’s sharks. I’ve been taking photos underwater whilst aloft the kayak on our sunset kayaks. Twice now, I’ve downloaded the pics to find sharks in the shot that I did not know were there. Just when you think you’re cool with them. I’ve found a spot where there are generally six at any time, and got some restless shark footage while snorkelling. But that deserves its own post.
In other camp news, a part of the deal when you try and stay in Cape Range for too long, you have to change campsites a bit. Keen to minimise pack up, Waz closes her down, dumps stuff on top and takes the kitchen mobile.
And of course, a post would not be complete without a photo of Waz.
Life imitating nature.
The road may be sealed, but it’s still remote bro.
Posted: June 28, 2025 Filed under: Camping | Tags: adventure, Camping, Cape Range, nature, ningaloo-backpacking, travel 13 Comments
Before there were roof tents and urban 4WDs with Lane Assist, backpacking Australia meant buying a Ford or Holden station wagon (are they even a thing anymore?), a single Primus burner, a frypan and a spatula/egg-flip, a 10L water bladder you stuck in the sun for showering, and perhaps a small tent if you didn’t sleep in your car. You drove to hot and red places and met the cast of Wolf Creek, people that strove to exist under the radar. You saw snakes on the road digesting whole kangaroos, and something ate through your plastic container of pancake mix. That’s the way my Kiwi cuzzies did it, and both of them ended up marrying the partners they travelled with. A better relationship tester I cannot think of.
Fast forward to 2025. You’re a 23 year old French couple, incredibly lean, light framed (would make great cyclists), deeply tanned, effortlessly beautiful, your standard response to most things is a je-ne-sais-pas shrug, and you are living your Aussie outback dream. But growing up in the arrondissements has not equipped you for this.
Your Range Rover is stuffed to the ceiling with everything from plastic beer tankards to a blue satin sleep mask, empty sunglasses cases, sundry plastic gadgets, empty two minute noodle containers and a hair bandana. And that’s just the front dash. You’ve populated two more car parks with your boogie board, plastic bins, ancient kite surfboard, water container and a Birkenstock. You’ve lost the ladder to your rooftop tent and the cover, so it appears to have collapsed in a heap on your roof and resembles a taco.
Yesterday you lost your only car key. Another key can only be made in the UK factory based on the engine VIN number and will take eight months. You spend two days on the beach waving a defective metal detector with a friend sifting the sand by hand in search of the car key where it probably, maybe, got dropped. Unsure.
Passing strangers show up and sift alongside you with no success. Your partner has to hitch a lift 20km to a spot with enough coverage to call the tow truck guy, then sit there for a call back to say that he was on his way, then get another 20km lift back to meet him. The towie had already been there the day before to break into your car, but only the driver’s door was able to be opened and you couldn’t get to all the stuff jammed in the back, including your food.
Waz and I joined the roll call of those determined to find the elusive key to your kingdom, but after reducing our nails to stubs and 10sqm of displaced sand later, we regrettably returned to our car, just as the towie arrived. Waz was dispatched to retrieve the treasure hunters from the dunes, and by the time they breathlessly returned, the towie had already backed up and told me a joke.
Towie: “Know why Range Rovers have heated back windows?
Me: “They do?”
Towie: “Yep. Keeps your hands warm while you’re pushing them. Hahaha”.
We chatted about how many calls he gets and Vehicles Most Likely to Fail, as you do, and then he predicted, “This car will end up at the wreckers. Had the same thing not long ago. Guy couldn’t get a key, had to trash his car.“
I see this scenario so often, I’ve invented a collective noun for it: A Debacle of Backpackers.
After 200000km around Oz, Waz and I are not eternally surprised when stuff happens. Like this. It was a boiling hot day. Waz had developed a very high temperature and because it wasn’t abating, spent a couple of days in Exmouth Hospital, while causes were unravelled. I was back at camp 80km away, without coverage and a free diary so thought I’d pop down the road for a snorkel at Oyster Stacks. I jumped in the car in bikini and towel, threw gear in the back and roared off. Three kilometres down the road the steering was off, so I stuck my head out of the window to hear a suboptimal sound and pulled over.
The rear drivers side tyre had disintegrated, frilling out decoratively around the rim. I had expected to avoid tyre changes for longer in a six week old vehicle.
First lesson: Tyres on new cars are special cheapo issue, with only half the tread of the type of tyre you’d actually want.
No worries, I’ll get the spare out, bingo, bango, bongo. With Waz away, I had taken the opportunity to empty the trailer of everything I deemed unnecessary without managerial oversight and into the car, a temporary Bin of Abandonment, not dissimilar to aforementioned backpacker vehicles. After 20 minutes, I had unearthed the jack, moved every random item out including the 80L Engel (fridge) but failed to locate the tyre toolkit. Sitting in the back feeling underdressed, with the door up and hazards on, reading a manual I never intended to, the March flies start biting.
As mentioned before, Waz had engaged a crowd in Adelaide to remove the third row of seats, and fit out the back with an extra battery, platform etc. Apparently, the tyre tools went the way of the third row. No worries, I’ll borrow someone else’s. The sparse passing vehicle traffic was driven by a mixture of no idea/infirm/hire vehicle/not getting involved, so I set off in my jandals, bikini and rashie to walk back to camp and hopefully borrow a tyre kit.
I found a guy in a Prado with three small overheated kids on a promise to go to Sandy Bay, who kindly loaned me his tools. I found a campers Starlink dish and may have aggressively texted Waz in ALL CAPS. The camp host drove me back to the car to give me a hand.
Lesson Two: Just because it’s a Prado, doesn’t mean the tyre kit is the same.
The spare is located under the vehicle with access via a flimsy plastic, very small, unnecessary channel, requiring a certain size tool. After a lot of heat, dust, flies and cries from me of, “Just break the bloody thing, I no longer care”, the tyre was liberated. But despite the collective efforts of the host (“It’s not safe to drive up onto the hard seal”), my new Swedish buddy, who had spent half a day combing sand for the French couple and would not leave until I was sorted, and his German friend (“No good. It is time for gin!”), the jack kept sinking in the sand.
Five hours had passed. Dusk was descending. All I needed was the kind of person towing a fishing boat who would have all the tools, break the rules.
“Gidday. How ya goin’?”. Two guys hauling a Jetski, driving home from surfing the reef, simply nod at my expression and calmly pull over. Ten minutes later, done. The sun sank, and everyone could go home.
Lesson Three: People are awesome.
When turtles think you’re a turtle
Posted: June 23, 2025 Filed under: Camping, roadtrip, WA | Tags: adventure, asia, nature, scuba-diving, travel 1 Comment
While Waz is putting finishing touches to the camp, I’m long gone, in the 29 degree water and looking for my old mates Cookie, Blondie, Bully, Kermit and Shark Bait. Right on cue, Kermit rounds up on me and swims right into my camera. Obviously the Rottnest Quokka Selfie phenomenon blowing up has reached Ningaloo and the turtles want Insta cred. I felt I was being given a personal welcome, and I wasn’t wrong. I saw 14 turtles in the space of 30 minutes and they were loving the camera. What they don’t love is moronic snorkellers chasing them with Go Pros on sticks, and hence the answer to the question “How come you see so many?”. I’ve perfected the turtle drift, so much so they regularly swim up beside me and look at me expectantly.
There are only seven species of Sea turtle in the world, and Ningaloo/Nyinggulu host five; Most commonly the Green (endangered), Hawksbill (critically endangered), and Loggerhead (vulnerable), and occasionally the Leatherback (vulnerable) and Flatback (insufficient data), leaving only Kemp’s Ridley, and Olive Ridley, found mainly in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans.
The Green Sea Turtle abounds in Osprey Bay and each year I see many of the same ones. Case in point, Cookie. So named because she is tough, and has been snacked on, probably by a Tiger Shark – turtles being their favourite food. I’m petrified of Tiger Sharks and the only bit of advice given to me by a boating local who told me that OF COURSE they are inside the reef was: “They eat turtles. Don’t swim like a turtle.”
Most mornings I head out for a bay reconnaissance after an early walk. If the tide is low, the walk gets shunted, and the only thing that would keep me out is if it’s high tide, blowing a gale and a massive swell to boot. Ok, well that wouldn’t actually put me off. More often than not I come back in unable to operate my fingers and looking like something the cat dragged in. Because I’m first out, I get to see all manner of species doing the stuff they do when no-one is looking, trying to touch them or chasing them. This includes all the skittish things like 3m cowtail rays and white tip reef sharks.
The first time I saw a black tip reef shark, we both levitated, then took off in opposite directions. My video kept running and documents me panting and effecting a record freestyle time as I swim to shore. Sitting in the shallows, a tiny 2cm Spanish Dancer swam up to my finger and sat on it. In 15 years, I have never seen another. My video of it is back in Adelaide so I will have to add that later. Point being, I probably see the most amazing things when I have stopped looking. Surely that’s a life lesson.
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15 years and counting.
Posted: June 12, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: Australia, Camping, Cape Range National Park, hiking, nature, Ningaloo Reef, Nyinggulu, outback, roadtrip, snorkelling, travel, WA 3 Comments
Osprey Bay is our favourite of the 11 campgrounds in Cape Range National Park. Cape Range is the most accessible entry point for Ningaloo Reef requiring a two wheel drive vehicle, and 20m walk into the water to see reef fish going about their business. We’ve been coming to Cape Range since around 2010, and our first favourite was Lakeside campground before a severe storm washed it away along with someone’s camper trailer, which has not been seen since.
Each of the bays offer something different. Turquoise Bay is Insta famous for its prettiness. Oyster Stacks for the amazing array of fish, and Osprey? The turtles. So many turtles, it’s turtle soup. You can also get a campsite right on the water, with a view of the ocean, sunset, and whales breaching between August and October. Of course, there’s a cost to this. Not the $20 a night we pay for our prime real estate, but eight months prior we get up around 15 nights in total at 2.30am Adelaide time, in order to book a site. Harder to get than an AFL Grand Final ticket, sites are released at midnight Perth local time, six months ahead of the available date, and book out within LITERAL seconds. Waz has it down to a fine art, honed over many nights poring over multiple screens to eventual fail yet again. His commitment and attention to the matter of booking Osprey every year is probably one of his greatest achievements to date. Determined to beat all odds, he had me lurch awake with him at 2.10am and sit in front of my laptop and iPhone with strict instructions and a timing countdown to the second for when I was to repeatedly refresh my screens.
So here we are. At our favourite place, in our favourite site. Over 16 years of travelling around Australia, we have finessed the set up somewhat. We started staying at Roadhouses where there were so many mice the ground looked like it was moving. We stayed in Backpacker Hostels with the great unwashed and your stuff went missing from the line. We’ve stayed in Motels where you wake up with mouse poo on your pillow, freakishly next to your mouth. About 2009 we upgraded to a swag. For the non-Aussies that’s a giant canvas pillowcase you put your sleeping bag in, squeeze into that, and spend the rest of the night claustrophobically seeking air around the canvas covering over head. At Mt Dare in the centre of Australia, we had dingoes sniffing our toes, and awoke to a blanket of frost on the swag exterior, and 100% condensation in the interior.
In 2010 we spoilt ourselves with a two room tent, the construction of which was longer than the time we slept in it, and a solid marriage tester. In 2011 we hired a soft floor camper trailer and giddy with the luxury, decided to buy one off Gumtree located in Brisbane, not so far from Woodend, Victoria. One week after spending four months long service leave around the country in the soft floor, Waz got all excited and bought a hard floor, our first Aussie Swag, a triumph of Australian engineering and practicality. We had moved to Perth at the time, so I was dispatched to QLD to retrieve it. I had nights on the Nullarbor alone, but the busy Roadhouses were actually scarier. To get to your room you have to walk past a line of male guests sitting outside their rooms smoking and holding a tinny of Jack and coke and silently watching you. Then there’s the vehicles that double back when you’re at an outpost service station, and the driver pulls up to chat. No refuelling.
9 years and about 200000km later we are we are in our second Aussie Swag and out at Osprey, we are an oddity. It used to be a mix of hippy camper vans, a chaotic mess of two minute noodles, incense, tie dye, and an interior that looked like it needed a forensic clean, grey nomads in well loved Millard, Coromal and Jayco caravans, and tiny two man tents housing hardy Scandinavians, shelf stable wraps, cans of tuna and boiled eggs. Now it is either enormous caravans, roof top tents, or fancy camper vans, and about every two weeks a camper trailer may appear for a night or two. The demographic has changed over 15 years as well. What were hardy fisher folk, adventurous grey nomads, alternative lifestylers and remarkably intrepid Europeans are now mostly young families doing a one year loop, retirees, 25-30 somethings on a two week break seeking Insta moments, and a considerable representation of the European and South American continents. Campsites are awash with bikes, boats, scooters, skateboards, inflatable stand up paddle-boards, satellite and Starlink dishes. Some sites look like a teenage boys bedroom, others are, well, like ours.
We’ve set up often enough now that the recriminations are long gone and we now have our assigned tasks which we have allocated without discussion. Usually set up occurs in blazing sun, occasionally with a testing wind, so the less said, the better. It takes about two hours to do the full one month occupation set up, after which there is cold beer and a swim to reinstate a sense of humour.
Not at all soft.
Posted: June 6, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: adventure, Australia, Camping, exmouth, hiking, landscapes, nature, outback, roadsides, Roadtrips, travel, WA 1 Comment
As you travel through the Gascoyne region toward Exmouth, Cape Range National Park and Ningaloo/Nyinggulu reef, the terrain quickly becomes deep red and festooned with vegetation that is generally out to get you. Soft looking spinifex will shred your shins faster than you can say “wish I’d picked another path”, and snakes, bull-ants and March flies with anger management issues sit seething in wait. Our eventual destination is Osprey Bay, 80km from Exmouth town, and 1250km north of Perth.
Exmouth was created in 1967 to support US naval operations during the Cold War, specifically a very-low-frequency transmitting station capable of sending messages to submarines. The transmissions are enabled by incredibly high spidery towers, including one that is 387 metres high, the tallest man made structure in the Southern Hemisphere until Tower 108 in Melbourne in 2019 took the title. Not sure why. In 1992, the US Navy passed command to the Royal Australian Navy and it is now run by Defence. For military buffs, Mike Hughes gives a more detailed account and the comments section has some interesting memories shared by those who worked there over the decades. Before Russia got a bit excited once more in recent times and security ramped up, you could walk around the 1960’s American base with the original architecture, bowling alley, swimming pool, and super wide streets, like it was a museum.
Over the last couple of years a veritable farm of radars has popped up, allegedly weaponised, as one undoubtably anti-vaxxer whispered to Warren. This farm turns out to be Australia’s Deep-Space Advanced Radar Capability (DARC), a joint tri-nation endeavour between the US, UK and Australia, to globally track objects up to 22,000 miles above Earth, like weather, space debris, and oh yes, hostile or ‘malign’ activity.
Thundering past the radar farm every morning at around 8am, vehicles and caravans point missile-like to their allotted campsites, whereupon they circle like vultures until the incumbents vacate. Many of these stay the night before at Bullara Station, a working cattle station that started out with a few campsites on offer around 15 years ago, and now offers lodge accomodation, huts, cottages, and fancy safari tents as well for 100’s of people per night.
It features one of my favourite kinds of architecture, I call it Colonial Outback Station. Remoteness, extremely harsh environments and 1400km to Bunnings has spawned incredibly creative and beautiful re-use of practical farm equipment and materials. Horse-shoes become door pulls, windmill blades make signs, wire becomes a chandelier. Giving early settler hut vibes, you see this kind of architecture in places like El Questro, and other stations that have opened their gates to travellers wanting an authentic outback experience. With coffee. And scones. And helicopters. It makes me want to recreate it at home in Adelaide. But then it would be like the crochet beaded top I bought in Sorrento, Italy, that had no business in Woodend, Victoria.
The other thing, perhaps the main thing, about Bullara is the famed ‘Burger Night’, stated in reverential and knowing tones. People the world over book their Bullara stay for a Friday for the station beef burger and live music. Didn’t seem enough of a draw to warrant the fame, until the conga line was mentioned. It was Sunday, and with a dawning state of FOMO we resolved to book Burger Night on the way back. Tomorrow, we finally get to Osprey Bay.
You’re a galah.
Punching above its weight
Posted: May 30, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: Australia, Australian native flora, Camping, landscapes, nature, outback, Roadtrips, travel, WA, wildflowers 4 Comments
For a rural wheatbelt town of around 900 people, Northampton has managed to outdo itself in Aussie Rules football legends, producing 11 players so far. This monument to the first 9 is a stand out. Literally. Each player is life-size and eerily lifelike. I loved it, which, as someone who has zero ball skills and still asks “why has the ref taken the ball off the short guy?”, means it gets my vote as top small town artwork.
Between about June and September, the trip between Perth and Northampton is a wildflower wonder, so much so, that busloads of people tour about just to stop on roadsides to search for donkey orchids and kneel in ant nests.
Of course, it’s May, so only the husks of summer Banksias are left, smoke from burning grain paddock stubble, and a road that looks a bit like this.
You often see the darndest things in the 110km blur that Waz affords me as we speed north as if we stole something. Case in point. An adorable small wombat moseying along on the side of the road. Did I grab it from its mother and run laughing up the road with it? No I did not, American Sam Jones, actually Strable, ‘Wildlife Biologist and Environmental Scientist’, and hunter it turns out.
What a disgrace. Bless Australia, whose wholesale outrage prompted her to flee the country, before I hunted her down and ran my own kangaroo court.
Then there’s the Woodleigh Impact Crater. One of the world’s largest, caused by a 6-12 km wide asteroid smacking into the Gasgoyne wilderness 360 million years ago. Big numbers. Big hole. And yet, inexplicably, this is where people have decided to construct a pile of rocks and manmade rubbish spanning gnomes, footwear (specifically crocs?!) creepy eyed stuffed toys, and r.i.p mementoes. Some things I have no answer for.
It’s getting hot, we must be close to Ningaloo!
Nullarbor crossing number 15
Posted: May 19, 2025 Filed under: Iconic Australian images | Tags: Australia, cape-le-grand, hiking, nature, Photography, travel 5 Comments
It’s almost 200km long, has a 147km section that is dead straight, features possibly the worlds most arid 18 hole/par 72 golf course that spans 1365km, and somewhere out there 100.000 camels roam. And I’ve driven across it 15 times, twice solo. The camels date back to the 1800s when they were brought over from British India and Afghanistan to help build railroads. All that aside, the coolest thing I reckon is its spitting distance proximity to the coast.
Last year we found this spectacular spot at sunset, right on the edge. Feeling immensely lucky to grab this piece of paradise and only slightly concerned one of us may walk over the edge in the middle of the night, we retired ready for another 1200km day driving. At 1am, the wind threatened to rip all the canvas from around us and throw it into the ocean, so we packed up and got an especially early start.
We didn’t make the same mistake this year and although we have a much more relaxed timeframe, for some reason we still feel the need to drive 12 hours a day.
Our first real stop for longer than 8 hours was Lucky Bay in Cape Le Grand, on the south coast of Western Australia. The beach is unfeasibly white thanks to being almost pure silica, squeaky to walk on and super fine. The last time we were here, there were legions of tourists feeding the resident beach-loving kangaroos various kinds of the worst extruded snacks. This time, I was ready to stage an intervention, but perhaps the crowded beach and many vehicles had changed things, the only kangaroos were up at the campsites, no doubt looking for Cheezels and Twisties.
Among the many walks on offer is the 2km and therefore easy sounding Frenchman Peak, a blob of granite rising 250 metres out of the surrounding bush. Kicking off with a wide and lovely track displaying incredibly delicate lichen, things quickly escalate and I found myself frozen on all fours clinging to tiny divots in the rock surface unable to go up or down. Waz took this pause to check his email.
We had packed in a lot. It was time to head to Perth for supplies!
Like Willie Nelson said.
Posted: May 17, 2025 Filed under: Camping, Iconic Australian images, roadtrip, SA | Tags: Australia, landscapes, nature, roadtrip, SA, travel Leave a comment
We’re on the road again! After Waz watching the countdown widget on his phone for a year, it finally said zero months/days/hours/minutes and he was officially retired. Naturally this needed a new retirement car. For a man who will wear shorts that were created in 1293 from burlap and stitched together with the hair of donkeys if it means he doesn’t have to shop, he created a time/space vacuum when he roared into Toyota, grabbed the next available, and redirected it to a 4WD outfitter in Adelaide for the works burger. It has more extras than a Lord of the Rings movie, and is constantly dinging him to ‘sit up!’ and for ‘driver inattention!’. Now there’s two of us in the car.
Our first stop was Lake Bumbunga, known for its pink colour caused by bacteria and algae that produce the magic colour. This location promises a spectacular photo were it not for the procession of travellers inexplicably trekking out to take photos of the man-crafted Loch Ness Monster embedded in the Lake.
Opposite the lake was Copper Coast Meats, a shop of doors and doors and cabinets of every meaty thing you can imagine. Odd location? Yep. Duck and fennel sausages? No worries.
Our first day destination was Coffin Bay for oysters, a more polarising snack I have not encountered. Parking was impossible, so I slowed to 40kph to let Waz roll out at the oyster vending machine and I drove on. After taking several turns I found myself at a single width, dead end, narrow road and proceeded to execute a 90 point u-turn with the ‘driver assist’ system screaming at every cm that I was about to collide with something. It was like having an ancient relative in the passenger seat that didn’t know I had a trailer behind me. The promise of Waz’s oysters with his own red wine vinaigrette at the National Park campground got me over the line without joining in on the screaming.
The next morning we ventured to the Discovery Park for a shower. We were hard pressed to decline the compelling range of goods, but the Nullarbor was calling and it was already 8am. Let’s go!
As I see it 