Just before going back to work, Liam and I managed to squeeze in a road trip to the beautiful south coast. It’s getting very hot up north now, so we took advantage of lower temperatures and fewer visitors before the holiday season over here. Our destination: Cape Arid, over 700 km southeast of metropolitan Perth.
Back in Lucky Bay
Whereas on our last trip down Esperance way, we stopped in Hyden to visit Wave Rock to shorten the drive, we decided this time to push through in one go to beautiful Lucky Bay in the Cape Le Grand National Park near Esperance. Since we’d been there before, it was just nice to get somewhere you know after the 8-hour drive, instead of having to figure out a new camp spot late in the day, let alone look for one.
It was relatively cool down in Lucky Bay but nevertheless as lovely as ever to be there. The bay with its white, super fine sand is incredibly beautiful and it’s known for frequently attracting kangaroos onto the beach. Sure enough, we had kangaroos visiting our campsite every morning, and one night I woke with a start from what sounded like a kangaroo colliding with our tent. The poor thing must have tripped over the guy lines of our tent when hopping across our campsite.
We didn’t do much exploring of Cape Le Grand this time around since we’d already been, but in contrast to the last visit, we did manage to hike Frenchmen Peak, at 262 metres the second highest peak in the national park after Mount Le Grand (345 metres). The hike is a steep 3 km return, and visitors are informed to allow 1-3 hours for it. We made it up and back in an hour, but my airways were definitely pumping on the way up. The walk is easy to find from the car park and on the top, hikers are rewarded with 360-degree views over this beautiful piece of land. I wouldn’t recommend this walk in wet weather though, it’s almost all rock and would be very slippery and dangerous.
Cape Arid
Cape Arid is about a couple of hours from Cape Le Grand, making it a lot more remote. All roads bar one in the park are four-wheel-drive (4WD) only. The Park covers a whooping 2,794 km². Last year, a young man had to walk 60 km to get help when his car got stuck en route to remote Israelite Bay, a 85 km 4WD road from the Thomas River area, where we stayed.
Even though we like our four-wheel-driving, there’s only so far off the beaten track we’d go without another car that could help get us out of sticky situations like that. We didn’t go to far into the National Park, and stayed in the Thomas River area at the park’s west end. There are two campsites, one on the bottom next to the river (Belinup) and one higher up (Yokinup Mia Mia). Campsites cost 11 AUD (7 EUR / 6 GBP per night and per person) cannot be pre-booked but I was sold on the top one as soon as we got there during our drive in search for the best camp spot. Yokinup Mia Mia offers stunning views across the vast coastline and the clear blue and turquoise waters of the Australian south coast – not directly from most of the camp spots, but you only need to do a few steps to see it. Every campsite is sheltered by high trees, so we had very little wind considering the area is quite windy in general, and no mosquitos, which probably would have been a different story near the river.
Cape Arid for me truly is one of the most dramatic, lush, and wild places I have ever been to. When I read about Cape Arid in the brand new printed off-road map book that Liam had purchased before our trip to make us less dependent on the flailing phone reception in remoter areas of Australia, it said that Cape Arid is basically like Cape Le Grand without all the people. While the people part of this statement is true, I’d also add that it’s so much wilder and even more incredible. The plants are taller and more out of the ordinary, there’s an abundance of wildlife, especially birds, singing the strangest songs. One morning, Liam filled up the basin of the tap next to the bush loos and at any given moment, at least ten birds used it as a bird bath, excitedly chattering, rustling their little feathers while refreshing themselves.
As soon as we entered the national park in the car, we saw our first tiger snake, and it wasn’t a small one. Cape Arid is known for having these venomous snakes around so we made sure to wear ankle boots and long trousers especially whilst we were bushwalking. One morning, we were just chatting to another camper in the kitchen when a 1.5 metre dugite, another type of venomous snake in Western Australia, slithered past us, not even a metre away from the kitchen. We monitored it from far away as it made its way towards our campsite through the bushes while being dive bombed by birds, before it disappeared over the path and into the bushland, away from the campsite and clearly annoyed by all the commotion.
Another day, Liam came running up barefoot from fishing down by some rocks and told me to just take my camera and come because he was just about to make my day. He was right for when we came down to the rocks, a curious and rather big seal was floating in the water right next to the rock, head and tail out of the water and the curvy body submersed, curiously investigating us from not far at all with its big, beautiful eyes. We watched him for at least half an hour, swimming around, scratching his belly while floating on his back, poking his head out of the water, and seemingly just enjoying himself. At some point, the seal, who we named Henry after this rare encounter, mounted himself onto the rocks and took a nap in a rock pool right next to us, almost as if we weren’t there.
Aside from the wildlife, the camp kitchen is the highlight of this campsite. It’s relatively new, very spacious and faces the ocean, so the views across the park and along the coastline are truly one of a kind. It’s also great for meeting other 4WD enthusiasts, and it is where we met Karen and Antony from Adelaide.
Four-wheel-driving (4WD) and hiking Mount Arid
The drive along the beach to the Mount Arid car park is 25 km, and as mentioned before, it’s very wise to go on drives this length and into unchartered territory with other people in another car. Even better if they’re seasoned 4WD enthusiasts like Karen and Antony. Together with the couple, Liam and I embarked on our journey after breakfast, after making sure that the tides would be low pretty much all day long. There’s an information sheet about this as well as the condition of the roads in the camp kitchen. We got a little confused along the way, despite Antony’s off-road GPS, because we weren’t able to find the right way off the beach and towards Mount Arid. On the way back we discovered that we only needed to keep following the beach as there is a sign directing drivers to the Mount Arid car park. This detour rewarded us with some truly unique driving through a desert-like and barren, sandy landscape.
Mount Arid is accessible via 4WD only and the hike up to the top is a described as a challenging 5 grade, 4 km return. The first third of the path is through ankle-high bushland, before the ascent starts. It is a steep ascent but all in all, I perceived Frenchmen Peak to be more challenging. Just like in Cape Le Grand, the peak rewarded us with views all around the coastal plains and even bays further east that we wouldn’t get to see from anywhere else. We again made it there and back in an hour, not taking into consideration the lunch break with a view we had at the peak. On the way back along the beach, we stopped for a little dip in the pretty chilly ocean before we rewarded ourselves with a few drinks in the camp kitchen to celebrate the lovely day trip.
Hiking the Tagon Coastal Trail
The longest hike in the Thomas River area of Cape Arid is the Tagon Coastal Trail. It’s a 15 km return via the sheltered Dolphin Cove (2.5 km from our campsite), Little Tagon Beach and Tagon Beach to Kennedy Bay. The hike is very varied until you get to Tagon Beach, after which it’s a long 2 km walk along the beach to Kennedy Bay. At this time of the year, there were still many wildflowers in the lush coastal bushland. We also encountered emus, a snake, and a goanna along the track. On the way back, we took a little dip in Dolphin Bay which is also accessible via car, for those that don’t feel like hiking.
I was quite sad to leave Cape Arid after three nights, but at the same time we had seen everything in this area that we wanted. I can’t wait to go back to Cape Arid one day for more exploring of this vast piece of land. The next day we were en route back to Esperance and on towards Skippy Rock in the Stokes National Park.
