We are planning to be off the grid for a few days as we head east along the coast to a couple national parks that won’t supply us power let alone internet.  So I’m taking the op to send a little update.

 

We took the ferry to Rottnest Island where we spent a fantastic day biking the perimeter (about 25 miles) on a perfect weather day. The crystal clear water and beaches are the big draw for visitors but we also found the quokka to be a human-friendly marsupial that captivated us. On the ride back to the van along the Freemantle beach we witnessed the most unusual sunset I have ever seen. The next day we were heading east but as we were just about to depart one of our caravan park neighbors backed into one of our rear doors and also shattered the window. I’m pretty sure they were more upset than we were and the incident set us back 6 hours while the caravan company had the glass replaced so we could be operational again. We only got a couple hours of driving under our belt that day but it bought us time to decide what to do the next day.  We opted to detour to Wave Rock, situated about 2 hours off the path of our originally intended destination. It is a geologic formation that resembles a giant surf wave and unusual enough that we thought it worth the trek. We decided not to stay overnight however and took a shortcut over some unsealed roads that were well maintained. This gave us a chance to see the Rabbit-Proof Fence that was the subject of a movie so named from the ‘80s.  In the same vein as the Dog Fence we saw last year, this fence was built to keep the rabbit population from infesting WA.  Our next destination was Kalgoorlie, noteworthy for two reasons: the worst caravan park we have stayed at so far and the site of the Super Pit, Australia’s largest open cut gold mine.  The scope of this mine can only be described as stunning but do you think we saw any gold? We are now on the coast of the Southern Ocean and this is where we are most keen to explore.