Apologies, dear reader, for the long pause since my last post. Apologies also in advance for the tone of this blog post—I just finished Quichotte, by Salman Rushdie, and I’m sure I won’t be able to keep some of that literary-ness from seeping into my writing. I’ve always thought of myself as a clever writer and I’m in the mood for self-indulgence, so you’re just going to have grin and bear it. (Don’t worry, it wears off pretty quickly as I slog through this update.) Also strap in because it’s going to be a long one.

Anyway, it’s been a minute! I’ve covered a lot of ground! Happy new year! I had a great new year’s day in the general area around Port Augusta, SA. First I went to the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The aridity of the experience was enhanced by a hot and sunny day, and my stroll around the grounds was a sweaty one. It was nice and peaceful with basically no one else there. I got to spot lots of cool critters, including a sweet lizard, lots of birds, and buckets of kangaroos. So lots of playing with my camera. After that I went for an absolutely delightful hike at Dutchman’s Stern, so named because the vertical cliff face of the peak looks like the vertical stern of a Dutch ship from back in the day. Beautiful forest, another cool lizard, tons more kangaroos, and a handsome goat were the highlights here, beyond just the beauty of the forest and the hills themselves. I had a great time.

After that it was time to head towards Adelaide. I spent the night at a beautiful free camp and went for a nice hike the next morning in a place I can’t remember. I’d been stressing out about trying to get an oil change for my van during the holidays but after a couple of calls was finally able to book it in with a very friendly mom-and-pop (technically pop-and-son, in this case) shop, so that was a big relief. After a couple of hours of driving I was on the outskirts of Adelaide and ready for some food. If you ever find yourself in the very far northern suburbs of Adelaide do yourself a favor and eat at Mama Rashida’s African Cuisine. Mama Rashida herself was incredibly nice and my fried whole Barramundi, rice, and plantains were divine. I ate way too much and didn’t regret it one bit.

The next day I took the van in and hung around a couple of cafes. They were quick with the service so I said my goodbyes to Adelaide and headed out of town towards Mt Gambier, in the very southeast corner of South Australia. This area is perhaps unimaginatively known as the Limestone Coast and is known for a string of sinkholes, including some filled with crystal clear water. The first one I visited was Umpherston Sinkhole. This one is right in town, and it’s famous because some crazy rich guy back in the day wanted to turn it into an attraction, covering the walls in huge mats of ivy and planting tiered gardens in the bottom. He did a great job! It’s beautiful! I especially enjoyed it because I hadn’t looked it up beforehand and only stumbled onto it while looking for a bathroom, so it was a delightful surprise. After that I went to walk around Blue Lake, which is exactly what it sounds like. The color really is a tremendously deep blue and very beautiful. Lastly I went a little ways out of town to check out one of the dormant volcanoes in the area, Mt Schank. It’s pretty neat because it is really clearly a volcanic crater. A short hike up gets you to the rim, which you can walk around. When I got there I could see dark clouds and rain on the horizon and coming fast, so I packed my dry bag and decided to hustle. Sure enough the storm moved faster than it seemed like and I ran the last third of the crater, getting caught in the deluge for the last bit of the descent. It was really nice.

That was it for South Australia. I spent the night at a beautiful free camp next to a waterfall which I checked out the next morning with my morning coffee, friendly neighboring farm dog in tow. Now I had a few days to check out Grampians National Park and the Great Ocean Road before I needed to be in Melbourne to meet up with my dad and his girlfriend Jean and to watch some tennis. I went to the Grampians first. I have to say, I’ve been pretty annoyed with my experiences at visitor centers so far in Australia—they seem to be oriented entirely around convincing you to stay in stupidly expensive caravan parks and trying to scare you out of doing any substantial hikes. The Grampians Visitor Center was a delightful exception to this rule. The ranger gave me great advice about where to camp and which hikes to do, and I left feeling good about the few days I had planned. Since I’d gotten there in the early afternoon I headed for camp and went for a short stroll to check out a few waterfalls cascading over beautiful red rock faces.

The next day I headed out to hike Mt Gar, dubbed much less poetically by the white people as Mt Difficult. It was an absolutely stunning hike. I don’t know the geology of the area but the rock formations were just astounding. One in particular was a large face made of black rock perfectly criss-crossed with cracks. I don’t even know why I’m trying to describe it, and the pictures certainly don’t do it justice, but I just could not stop staring at it. I also got to spend some time hanging out with a decidedly unbothered echidna and saw a nankeen kestrel crying from a cliff edge, so that was cool.

I changed campsites that night to a slightly more isolated one in the middle of the park. My reward was a morning coffee stroll looking at approximately a million billion kangaroos grazing away. Once I was properly caffeinated I headed to a lookout, which turned out to be completely clouded in, but still a nice spot. Then I went over to Mt Rosea for my first hike of the day. It was really nice, beautiful forest and rocks, and a great view at the top. After that I headed into Halls Gap, the town in the middle of the park, for lunch and to agonize over whether to continue south or stay another day in the park. Ultimately I decided to stick with my original plan, head south for another hike that afternoon, and then call it for the Grampians.

The next hike was Mt Abrupt and Signal Peak, and it was great. They’re neighboring peaks at the very southern end of the Grampians, so in one direction the view is mostly farmland, but looking the other way shows the whole sweep of the Grampians rising away to the north. I started up Mt Abrupt, following stone steps up the ridge right to the top. I was a bit tired and daydreamy but a brown snake suddenly slithering away between the rocks right next to me snapped me to attention and got me staring at my feet the whole rest of the way up. After a quick snack at the summit and with afternoon slowly turning into evening I started to head down, excited to check out Signal Peak and then get to a campsite at a reasonable time. Some combination of fatigue and this wanting to make sure I made the right move made me perfectly susceptible to the absolute worst trail sign I’ve ever seen, which guided you through a fork in the road not by signaling to either take the right or left trail, but rather by seemingly indicating the actual angle of each trail, which functionally made it look like three arrows pointing in the exact same direction. I looked hard at it and even thought “that’s weird, those three trails shouldn’t be in the same direction”, but who was I to question the sign? This wrong turn ended up having pros and cons—it added a bit of time to my hike, but going down the much less traveled back side of the mountain let me cross paths with several more cool snakes, which I managed to snap a couple photos of. The forest back there was also just tremendously beautiful with the late afternoon light filtering through. I laughed at myself for taking the most obvious wrong turn in history, laughed at the sign for how unbelievably ill-conceived it was, and double timed it towards Signal Peak. That section of the hike was also beautiful, and I got treated to a couple of sightings of some beautiful parrots (or rosellas, I’m not quite sure), but at that point I was pretty tired and it was pretty late so after a quick look around the summit I scampered on down to the van. The short drive to the campsite saw me nervously pass about a dozen kangaroos or wallabies staring at me from the side of the road, never letting on whether they were going to suddenly bounce out right in front of the van. Luckily I made it without incident and the campsite was beautiful.

The next day it was time to head to the famous Great Ocean Road. Being just a couple of hours from Melbourne this is a huge tourist attraction and I simply was not ready. The traffic. The crowds. The tour buses. It all took some getting used to. The coast was beautiful though, cliffs and sea stacks carved by the wind and sea. It reminded me a bit of the Nullarbor but the cliffs were yellow and orange rather than white, and, again, the crowds! I spent the day poking along slowly, pulling into each viewpoint. Besides the cliffs the big attraction in the area is the Otway National Park, which has towering Mountain Ash trees mixed in with lots of waterfalls and ferns galore. I spent the night at Beauchamp Falls, where there’s a short walk through absolutely gorgeous forest to a beautiful waterfall. I went in the late afternoon and got to enjoy a bit of tranquility in spite of how slammed the campsite was for the holidays.

The next day I got up and headed to Triplet Falls, another gorgeous walk through damp tree fern and mountain ash forest to a thundering waterfall. This walk is a little bit more out of the way and I had it completely to myself in the morning. After these tastes of the forest it was back to the coast—the plan was to finish driving the Great Ocean Road and then cross Melbourne to go stay with my friend Georgia’s parents. Georgia and I met out in WA but she grew up next to Melbourne. When I said I was heading that way she told me her parents would be happy to host me for a bit. Sure enough, they gave me a very warm welcome, with a delicious dinner waiting when I arrived and lots of good conversation over a drink or two. The next day I got myself, my van, and my laundry all clean, and had a fun night hanging with them and a few friends they had over for dinner. It felt great to get a little bit of that family feel and social interaction again.

And then it was off to the airport. Luckily dad and Jean’s flight got in without a hitch and airport pickup was as smooth as can be expected. We got checked in at the hotel and thankfully the parking situation they’d promised did in fact work out, even for my annoyingly tall van. The next week was a bit of a blur—I pretty much overdosed on tennis by going four days in a row and lost all bedtime discipline, staying up late watching the night matches on TV when I wasn’t there myself. The weather was a blessing, a bit cooler and decidedly more overcast than usual at the Aussie open, which frankly was the only reason I made it through four days in a row. We took full advantage of the hotel breakfast and I very quickly lapsed back to caffeine consumption at my usual city levels, minimum 3 cups a day. It was great catching up with dad and getting to know Jean for the first time, and we had lots of good meals, enjoyed the tennis together, went for a nice trip out to a sculpture garden where Jean’s cousin has a piece, and generally just soaked it all in. Jean was also gracious enough to take my haircut to its final destination, full mullet. It ended up a little shorter and more bogan (American translation: redneck) than I’d necessarily meant to shoot for, but hey, go big or go home right?

And before we knew it that was it. I dropped dad and Jean at the airport and then headed to the library to get my life in order a little bit. I had thought I might leave Melbourne that same day but ended up having a few extra things to do, so I stuck around. This gave me the chance to hang out with a friend from Sydney and her beau who were also in town for the tennis. It was great catching up and I got to see a couple of trendier, cafe-ier neighborhoods that I hadn’t checked out. She was also gracious enough to help measure me for a custom freediving suit that I just ordered and can’t wait to try out in Bali, so that’s exciting. These days I’m quite frugal and find myself mostly interested in nature when I travel so it was nice to have a few days’ reminder that it can also be nice to go to a new city just to enjoy a few great cafes, a stroll, and a book.

And that finally brings us up to the present day. I managed to tear myself away from Melbourne and was stoked to break in a bunch of my new hiking gear that dad had graciously brought over to replace what was stolen in Alice Springs. Holy cow did it feel good to hike with a good, light, properly-fitting backpack. Good gravy was it exciting to hike in shoes with actual tread rather than soles worn completely flat. Sweet lord how I had missed my hydration reservoir, I can’t even tell you. The hike I did, Mt Saint Leonard, was decidedly underwhelming, and I was draggin’ ass after a bad’s night sleep, but I’m still stoked to get back to it. After the hike I spent the night last night at a ski/mountain bike resort that lets you sleep in the parking lot, and since it’s been raining all day I’ve just been hanging out in my van, finishing my book and composing this astonishingly long post. There’s a short walk to a summit lookout from here which I’m planning to do later this afternoon, though with the clouds being as they are I can’t imagine I’ll have much of a view. For simplicity’s sake I’ll probably spend the night here again tonight, and then tomorrow I’ll have to decide where to go next. The plan is to do lots of hiking in the Victoria high country for the next week or two, scoot over to Canberra to see a friend from way back in my Microsoft days, and then just head straight to Sydney to catch up with friends and sell my van. My flight to Japan is in exactly one month, which feels crazy. I’m excited to try to get the most out of my last month here in Australia and really looking forward to the next step as well. You can find videos for this post here. I highly recommend this edition—we’ve got terrifying ants, hiking views, echidna trundling, and health and safety fables, among others.

Well, it’s been a fairly eventful week and a half. I’ve been making pretty quick progress and seeing a lot of beautiful places, so if you usually just read these in email format I would recommend going to the actual website to see all the pictures in this one. I started off according to plan, going back down the Albany highway for some hiking. My first stop was in the forest along the way, to stroll through a portion of the famous Bibbulmun track, which is a long backpacking route from somewhere to somewhere else. I think maybe Perth to Albany? Anyway, for these purposes it’s enough to know that it includes a beautiful stretch of forest where I had a lovely walk, with highlights that included a bunch of tiny psychedelic looking spiders and some black cockatoos, which I love.

Next I continued down to Stirling Range National Park. This park is a weird rectangle of “mountains” (they’re hills, really) that rises up out of what is completely flat farmland as far as the eye can see all around. It’s beautiful though, all untouched desert scrub forest stuff, and there are really a pretty large number of different peaks. The first day I hiked a couple of the less frequented ones in the western side of the park—Mounts Maggog and Toolbrunup. It was a great chance to destroy my out-of-shape quads, get some solid views, and enjoy the scenic drive through the park. I don’t know what it is about this area but every day as the sun gets low the whole Stirling range seems to get shrouded in mist/fog/dust, and I couldn’t get enough of the jumble of misty peaks fading into the distance.

I decided that I needed a bit of a break the next day so I headed down to Albany for a relaxed day in town. I followed the classic van life circuit, shower—coffee shop—library, and generally just recharged. Then I headed back up to Stirling Range to be ready for a semi-early start on Bluff Knoll the next day. Bluff Knoll is by far the most popular hike in the park, with the huge parking lot and stretch of boardwalk to prove it. I was excited for the standard hike, but extra excited because there is the option of continuing along a ridge trail that goes east along the rest of the Stirling Range to the edge of the park. It’s over 20km point to point, so given that I would have to hope to hitchhike back from a barely used trailhead (and, honestly, that I’m in terrible shape) I made the wise decision to just hike out as far as I could handle and then turn and head back. It was a bummer looking at the ridge stretching out ahead of me so invitingly and having to turn around, but it was definitely the right move that day. And I still had an awesome time on the hike.

After that… it was time to go! I was headed back into the absolute middle of nowhere and, frankly, quite happy about it. Hanging around more populated places seems to drag me from good habits to bad, and doesn’t bring me that much joy. In the middle of nowhere there’s really no reason to stay up late, (hopefully) no service for me to anesthetize myself staring at my phone, and untouched landscapes of almost every kind bring me a lot of happiness and wonder. The only “major” “metropolis” for the next 1,000+ kilometers would be Esperance, population just under 14,000.

East of Esperance the famous Nullarbor begins, and the official Nullarbor Conservation Area starts just across the border in the southwest corner of South Australia. Every single person here I’ve told that I’m doing a lap around the country has pretty quickly gone “Oh, you’re going to have to cross the Nullarbor!”. I didn’t know too much of what to expect, besides the fact that it’s flat, largely barren, and there is a stretch called the 90 mile straight, self-explanatorily.

Well, I absolutely loved the Nullarbor. It certainly is flat, and the road is straight for long stretches, but it’s not nearly as barren as I’d been led to believe. It’s what I’ve come to feel is pretty classic Australian desert scrub bushland, and as the kilometers roll by you can see subtle shifts in the size and density of the bushes. There is a specific area called the treeless plain (again, descriptive if artless naming), but otherwise there are a decent mix of trees, huge bushes, and small shrubs. On the Western Australia side the road follows the coast to the south with a bluff rising up in the desert to the north. Right before the South Australia border the road climbs that bluff, which pretty suddenly turns into a couple hundred kilometers of cliffs being pounded by the surf of the Great Australian Bight, turquoise where it meets the land and darkening to a deep navy blue towards the horizon.

It is an absolutely spectacular landscape. The skies are gigantic. The wind howls constantly. The ocean is beautiful and forbidding, whipped into whitecaps, crashing into the cliffs. Rugged is the perfect description of this area, and camping out by the cliffs, van shaking in the wind, that ruggedness is transmitted faithfully into your bones in the best, most awe-inspiring way that only nature can. Obviously the people who’d felt the need to warn me about this and the 90 mile straight have never driven through Kansas…

After crossing over from WA I spent the night just on the other side of the border in SA, out by the cliffs. I bundled up against the (welcome, after so much roasting in WA) chill and drank tea out by the edge of the cliffs, soaking it all in. The next day I woke up to just the perfect weather for the area—partly cloudy, patches of blue sky here and there, and a couple of narrow columns of rain with the occasional lightning bolt cascading down dotted throughout the massive landscape. I made slow progress east, pulling in to every clifftop viewpoint I could find, appreciating the rumble of the thunder, and generally just having a great day.

But of course all good things must come to an end, and as the saying goes, after cliffs, farmland. So much farmland. Agriculture is a big deal in SA, and, yeah. The next few days were mostly spent trying to stay awake and focused as field upon field rolled by. This was what people should’ve warned me about. One night camped next to a field I at least got treated to a truly spectacular sunset.

I’ve spent the past few days driving around the outside of the Eyre Peninsula, which is basically just farmland in the middle and a string of cute beach vacation towns with massive grain silos along the coast. It’s pretty and sleepy and that’s about it. One highlight was going to Coffin Bay National Park, where I went for a beautiful couple hour stroll and saw lots of emus, including one with a gaggle of babies following it.

That brings us roughly to the present day. I’ll get to the end of the Eyre Peninsula either today or tomorrow, and then I’ll be quite close to Adelaide. I’m juggling the timing to get an oil change once auto shops hopefully reopen next week while also exploring around here and leaving town to check out a few places in Victoria before I get to Melbourne. We’ll see how it all shakes out. You can find videos for this post here—turn on your sound for howling wind and silly commentary.

After another little while in Perth not doing much it was time to head out for another quick trip. This time I set my sights on a loop down to Walpole, across through Denmark to Albany (these are the real names of the towns), and then back up to Perth. Walpole is famously a place to see giant trees—tingle, jarrah, karri, and marri, among others. They’re all different varieties of eucalyptus, maybe except the marri, and they make for beautiful forests of tall bare trunks with spreading canopies up above. On the first day I went for a lovely stroll through the forest to a spot where they’ve made boardwalks around a couple of especially big tingle trees. The giant trees here are similar to the sequoias back in the states in that fire is an important part of their lifecycle, clearing the underbrush and triggering their seed pods to open. They’re also similar in that the adult trees are very fire resistant, and you often see live trees where the base of the trunk is hollow and burnt out. There used to be a tree that any visitor could come drive their car into, but they eventually (after that tree fell down, I think) realized that the trees have shallow roots and trampling them hurts the trees, much less driving over them. I also hiked Mount Frankland, a nice chill walk through beautiful forest and up onto a granite summit.

The next day I checked out the treetop walk, where they’ve built a sequence of walkways that slowly bring you up to the level of the canopy, topping out 40m/130ft above the forest floor. It’s a cool way to get a different perspective on the forest, and I had a nice time lingering, hoping for a bird or two to pose for me in the treetops. After that I went to see Elephant Rocks, a beautiful beach where huge granite boulders rise out of the crystal clear water. I had a nice little ocean shower and then headed up to Mount Lindesay where I camped out in the forest. The next day I had a nice hike up Mount Lindesay, and then went over to the beach next to Denmark, where I finally got a nice surf in. It had been forever and I was frankly getting pretty frustrated with the whole idea of surfing as a hobby, but finally the swell, wind, and crowds all lined up, and I had a fun time and even caught a few waves.

The next day, after a very slow and relaxed morning, I went over to Albany to hike Bald Head. This hike came very highly recommended and it absolutely lived up to the hype. The trail follows a ridge over granite hills out to the end of a narrow peninsula. There are lots of different viewpoints of a variety of beaches with incredible blue water, and the views out across the bay and of Albany itself are also magnificent. It’s just hard enough to give you a sense of accomplishment, but easy enough not to leave you feeling ragged. And, after wondering where they’ve been during my whole year in Australia, I saw two snakes! The second one made for quite the panorama, basking in the middle of the trail, and it immediately jumped out of the landscape when I came over a rise, even several twists and turns down the trial. Don’t ask me what type they were, I don’t have a clue, but I know that they both glistened pretty menacingly in the sun.

After some hurried research I found Porongurup and Stirling Range National Parks, both a bit north of Albany and home to some cool hikes. I swung through Albany just long enough to grab groceries and be surprised at how big and cute it was. Most of the towns along the coast are sort of little nothing vacation towns, but Albany obviously had some sort of actual industry going on, as evidenced by the big refinery-looking buildings along the water and also the size and age of the town. I was only there for 30 minutes or so, about 25 of which I spent in a grocery store, but it was enough for me to want to check out the town a bit more when I go back.

The next day I got up early and hiked the Nancy Peak circuit in Porongurup National Park. It was a really pleasant hike with a little bit of elevation (a true rarity in Australia) and some sweet views of the surrounding farmland with the Stirling range rising up out of it. There isn’t much hiking culture in Australia so I had the trail to myself and really enjoyed the solitude. After quickly snarfing a PB&J I headed over to another part of Porongurup to check out the granite skywalk. This is a shorter, easier trail to a boulder pile where the parks department has built a ladder up to an observation platform. It was, accordingly, way busier, so I was dodging families the whole time and had to wait a solid while at the end for people ahead of me to make their excruciatingly slow way up or down the ladder. It was still a nice walk and a nice view, but I have to say I prefer my hiking trails a lot less busy and manicured.

And that was it for that little trip. That afternoon I headed back up to Perth, where I am now, catching up with a couple of friends I made up here before leaving forever. I got a chance to play one more soccer game, which was great, and otherwise am just taking care of a couple of errands before I go. The plan from here is to head back down to Albany with a couple of hikes on the way, notably Bluff Knoll. After that it’ll be time to head east, and quick! I have to get to Melbourne, which is apparently a 40ish hour drive, by January 12th to meet my dad and his girlfriend, and to watch the Australian Open. So I’ll be trying to find some nice places to stop here and there, but mostly on the road. You can find a couple of videos for this post here—watch with the sound on.

Well, as is always the case, an extended period without much to do has resulted in me slacking on the blog. I spent another few days kicking around Perth, not doing much, but did manage to get my tire situation sorted. Then it was time to head south. SCUBA at the Busselton jetty was really, really fun. It was a bit of a production renting the gear, getting our waivers sorted, and getting out to the dive spot, but the dive itself was just beautiful. It’s delightfully simple, just swimming out and back around and between the supports of this jetty. The pillars are covered in all kinds of incredibly colorful coral, which was a nice change of pace from the less colorful hard corals that I’d seen up around Exmouth. We also saw some fun critters, including an octopus and a couple of cuttlefish.

The next day I kept moving south, down to the Margaret River area. Margaret River is famous for two things—surfing and wine. While these are both things I enjoy, unfortunately in this case things worked out such that I didn’t partake in either. While the surf is world famous in Margaret River that doesn’t mean that it’s especially accessible to a mediocre-at-best surfer like me. There was pretty much no swell when I was there, which meant that the spots that I could conceivably have tried to surf were flat, and the spots that had waves were either overrun with hordes of much better surfers than me, breaking in two inch deep water over sharp reef, or both. So I drove around peeking at all the pretty beaches and cursing the frustration of being a casual surfer. As for the wine, going tasting is fun in a group but not especially fun or practical by yourself, so I skipped it.

I was very tired from a couple nights of short sleep, perfectly primed to get cranky. Which is exactly what happened as I started to realize I wasn’t going to be able to surf, and on top of that found out that, like all touristy places, Margaret River is pretty aggressive about squeezing out every last dollar and not letting you float around and free camp and whatnot. So I was in a bit of a foul mood when I mercifully found a national park campground (still more expensive than the standard ones, annoyingly) nestled in a beautiful area of Karri forest. Karris are a type of eucalyptus found around the southwest that grow very tall. After so much time in desert and scrubland it felt amazing to wander into real, bonafide forest. So after a good night’s sleep I kicked the crankiness and spent a couple of nice days relaxing and checking out the forest. I also discovered that this area has a huge network of caves, two of which I toured. They were spectacular!

After that I came back up to Perth to have someone investigate the intermittent check engine light I’ve been seeing on the van, which turned out to be nothing serious. On the way up I stopped in Bunbury to check out the dolphin discovery center, where you can stand in a shallow bay and the resident dolphins may or may not swim right up to you. As you can see in the videos the visibility was unfortunately terrible, but you could clearly see them above the surface, and it was a cool experience.

For this second stint in Perth I finally looked for a pickup soccer game, and have now gotten to play a couple of times. I have to say, it feels absolutely incredible. For weeks, if not months, I’ve been thinking about how much I miss playing sports. Getting back out there for the first time was honestly just bliss. I’ve tried to figure out what it is about playing ball sports that I love so much, even when I’m doing other fun things. My guess is that it’s the flow state combined with pushing myself to physical exhaustion. I love the feeling of running as fast as I can, stretching as far as I can, jumping as high as I can. And I love the total concentration that sports require, absolutely all of my attention focused on the movement of the players, where the ball is, “watch that run!”, no space for thinking about anything else.

So that’s pretty much where we’re at. I’ve made a couple of friends in Perth so I’m hanging around for a bit. I may do another little mini-trip to check out some of the other nice places further south and then come back, or I may just stay here another week and then start the full on eastward journey. You can find videos for this post here.

Kalbarri turned out to be a fun, quick stop for a last taste of the incredible rock formations in this part of the world. The park is actually split into two parts–there’s an inland part where a high escarpment has huge gorges carved into it by a river, and then a section where dramatic cliffs zigzag along the coast. I met up with a friend there and we first went to take a look at the cliffs, which were really beautiful in the afternoon light, and then to go for a nice refreshing dip. The next day we headed inland. It was pretty hot for the hike, but not bad compared to the temperatures I’d been getting up north. It kind of felt to be a bit like a mini Karijini, and going in without any real expectations was perfect. We did a couple of short-ish hikes, had a nice refreshing dip, and checked out a couple of cool viewpoints.

After a chill evening there was nothing left to do but keep heading south, down to the big city of Geraldton. With a population a bit under 40,000 it was the most populated place I’d been in a long, long time. I spent a couple of days just kind of kicking around, took advantage of the honest-to-god restaurants in town to get a couple of nice meals, and filled up on water and groceries. Geraldton provided the first substantial cloud cover I’d seen in a long time, and I took advantage of the incredible light one evening to play around with my camera. After a few days I left town and went to check out the pinnacles, an area where the desert is pierced by hundreds of rock pillar things. There wasn’t much to do besides languidly stroll around, but it certainly makes for an unusual landscape.

I spent that night parked in the driveway of a friend’s house in the little town of Cervantes, and as it happened her mother in law was unexpectedly up at the house for the weekend, so in the morning we had a nice long chat comparing notes on coffee preparation and such. And then… Perth! The only city on the west coast. Freeways! Traffic! Neighborhoods! Trees! It was certainly a bit of an adjustment getting here after several months in various degrees of the middle of nowhere, but luckily I had friends to help me make a soft landing.

I’ve been staying with Luciana and Peter, friends I met in Cabo San Lucas way back in the beginning of 2020. As always happens when I mooch my way into a comfortable situation I’ve spent the past week largely sitting around the house doing nothing, watching sports, and zoning out. Perth… doesn’t seem to have too much going on, though in fairness I haven’t looked very hard. Everyone I’ve asked about things to do has helpfully pointed out that “Perth has the best beaches”, as if I didn’t know where to find the beach when I’m in the mood for it. Unfortunately, while I love the ocean, I don’t find it overwhelmingly interesting to just sit at the beach for hours, especially alone. On top of that, while the temperature is lower here than up north, the UV index is somehow even higher, so you really cannot be sitting out in the sun for too long.

Anyway, I’m moving on from Peter and Luciana’s place tonight, and I look forward to that being the kick in the pants that I need to start looking for more interesting things to do. I’ll be hanging around town this coming week, getting a couple of new tires and an alignment, and waiting to hang out with a friend who’s coming down from Broome. Next weekend Luciana and I are planning on SCUBA diving down in Busselton, a couple of hours south, so that should be fun. It’ll also begin my exploration of the southwest, which is supposed to be really beautiful. So hopefully lots of surfing and hiking are in my future!

It’s been a quiet few days with a couple of notable highlights. First, Charles Knife road and the Badjirrajirra walk, in Cape Range National Park. Cape Range National Park is the park on the exmouth peninsula, which includes the Ningaloo reef. Or maybe it’s the land, and there’s a separate marine park for the reef. Regardless, the reef and whale sharks are the main attraction around these parts, but the cape range itself is pretty magnificent. As far as I understand it’s actually millions of year old coral reef which has been compacted and petrified and whatever else happens over millions of years, and then thrust up into mountains. You get a feel for this on the walks because a lot of the rock is razor sharp, just like the coral-formed rock right be the sea. The walk is a nice easy (besides the extreme heat) 10km stroll around a loop, with views into the gorgeous Shothole Canyon as the highlight.

After the walk I meandered 1.5 hours south down to Coral Bay, quickly stuffed my face, and set out for the shark sanctuary. This is a spot where reef sharks congregate, particularly pregnant females and juveniles. The best time to go is around high tide and I was a little bit late, so I wasn’t quite sure what I’d see. Right at the beginning of the bay there were a handful of sharks milling around, which was neat enough. You’re not allowed to swim here, since it’s an important area for the sharks and if people were flopping around all over the place they would get scared off. So I watched a few refracted blobs circling around and went, “huh”. Almost everyone who comes to look at the sharks just hangs out at the closest part, but the bay itself is beautiful and I decided to just go for a nice long stroll. This turned out to be a great decision. It was a beautiful day for a walk, I got to see cute little shorebirds and hovering ospreys, and there were more groups of sharks farther along, with one particularly industrious one beaching itself hunting something onto the shore.

The last thing I was interested in in Coral Bay, which a friend had recommended, was the Ningaloo Marine Interactions tour. They check all the boxes with a small conservation-focused operation and an owner/skipper who’s finishing a PhD in marine biology, studying the local manta population. On top of that, they have a plane spotter, and besides the standard visit to a couple of fixed snorkel spots, they spend a couple of hours each tour just cruising around the bay, looking for anything cool to check out and potentially jump in with. Mantas are the focus, and with a resident population and a manta expert at the wheel you’re almost guaranteed to swim with them. Our other highlights were a couple of blotched fantail rays which were at least 5 feet across, and a friggin’ tiger shark! I’ve included a couple of screengrabs below but the videos are definitely better.

So that’s the past few days. I have to say, I enjoyed the Ningaloo Marine Interactions tour tremendously, and I left thinking “Damn, that’s the kind of tour I would’ve loved to work on for a season.” The team seemed really nice and like they were genuinely having a good time, and going out looking for whatever cool animals you can find for 8 months is pretty literally exactly what I would love to do with my life. Something to keep in mind for the future I suppose. Now I’m in a town called Carnarvon getting some library time before I attend to all the necessaries like food, water, trash, etc… The next stop will be Kalbarri National Park, which looks pretty sweet, and then the southwest beckons. You can find the videos for this post here—I recommend checking them out!

I’ve finally made it to Exmouth and the Ningaloo reef, which I’ve been hearing so much about the whole time I’ve been in Australia. The Exmouth area reminds me a fair bit of a much smaller Baja California—it’s a thin peninsula, pretty much barren desert with a mountain range through the middle, and lots of very cool deep water marine life. Just like in Baja there’s a seasonal whale shark aggregation here and migrating humpback whales, as well as the possibility of seeing manta rays, orcas, sharks, turtles etc… Unlike Baja, however, Exmouth has the Ningaloo reef.

Exmouth itself is a bit of a weird place. It’s a tiny town of only 2-3,000 people that swells to somewhere like 10-12,000 during the height of tourist season. Everything is very expensive and there are generally only 1 or 2 options for whatever you need. During peak season absolutely everything is totally booked, so lucky for me I arrived right after school holidays, which is pretty much the close of the high season. If I had gotten here earlier I’m not really sure what I would’ve done—all the campgrounds book out well in advance, and the town is notoriously strict in stopping people from free camping. Happily that’s only a hypothetical, because while the town certainly hasn’t been empty during my stay, I haven’t had too much trouble getting campsites in the national park.

I made an especially soft landing in the area thanks to an extremely hospitable guy named Roger that I got in touch with through Couchsurfing. He turns out to be a park ranger in nearby Coral Bay and had lots of useful information about the area. He’s traveled all over the world, often meeting people through Couchsurfing, and nowadays hosts travelers when he’s at home. He was extremely generous, hanging out, feeding me dinner, letting me fill up my water tanks, and helping me plan out my stay.

Exmouth town sits on the east side of the peninsula, and is really just a place to get supplies and go on tours. The reef, which is the main attraction here besides whale sharks, runs along the western side of the peninsula, which is all a national park. Some fun facts—it’s the biggest fringing reef in Australia, at 260 kilometers (160 miles) long, and at certain points it’s less than 500 meters (about a third of a mile) from shore. I guess the proximity to shore is what makes it a fringing reef rather than a barrier reef like the, um, Great Barrier Reef, which is way way way bigger but also much farther from the shore. What all this means is that you have your pick of absolutely incredible snorkeling just swimming out from the shore.

After a couple of nights staying with Roger I loaded up on supplies and headed over to the park for 4 nights camping and snorkeling my little heart out. As it happens, besides the departure of the whale sharks, tourist season wraps up this time of year because it gets very windy, extremely hot, and infested with flies. And I have to say, I think I have a reasonably high tolerance for these kinds of things, but this was a bit of an exercise in finding exactly where the limit is. The first few days I spent in the park, where there is essentially no shade or shelter, all saw temperatures getting up over 40C (104F), with several days around 43-44 (109-111F). Overnight and into the morning the wind would blow in from the east, over the desert, bringing hot air and really giving the sensation of a fully body hair dryer. Temperatures would be over 30C (86F) by 6am and heating up fast, so sleeping in was pretty much impossible. And the second you emerged you would be absolutely swarmed by flies looking for all the nooks and crannies (mostly eyes and nostrils) of your face. Videos don’t capture it that well, but they give you an idea.

The saving grace of all this was that the main activity I was interested in, snorkeling, solved all these problems. So the thing to do was just spend 6 hours every day snorkeling, covered up as much as possible to blunt the sizzling sun. And the snorkeling here really is amazing. I saw buckets of turtles, lots of skittish reef sharks, tons and tons of fish, sea cucumbers, some octopus, huge groupers, fields of beautiful coral, one very well hidden stonefish, and probably much more I’m forgetting. You can take a look at a handful of videos here.

On my first night getting into the park I pulled up to my campsite, looked across the road at my neighbors hanging around outside their trailer, and went “holy crap, I know that guy”. It turned out that the lovely family I’d spent a day walking around Leliyn Falls with a month and a half ago were in the site right next to mine. What a world! It was great to see them again, they’re very nice and fun to spend time with, and it was good for my little heart to spend some time in a family dynamic again.

Another big attraction in Exmouth is the navy pier dive. This is a pier on an active navy base that they allow the public to SCUBA dive at. The pier supports are covered in all kinds of beautiful coral, and there are massive schools of fish, sharks, octopus, and truly titanic groupers that hang out there. It was fun to strap on the ole SCUBA gear again and the marine life was really amazing, all in this small area. I enjoyed the dive tremendously. The next day I did a dive out in a bay where the main attraction is a manta cleaning station, but unfortunately we didn’t see any mantas, and it wasn’t nearly as interesting as the navy pier dive. I did get to see a couple of sea snakes though, which was very cool.

There are also a couple of gorges in the national park that you can walk through, eventually climbing up onto the rim and getting a view out to sea. I was keen to check these out for a change of pace, and of course I went for it on the hottest day I was here. The gorges were nice, the sun was sizzling, and the flies were ravenous. I still had a pretty good time and got that good bone deep tired feeling by the end.

Lastly, Ningaloo is an important breeding ground for green, hawksbill, and loggerhead turtles. There’s a beach in particular where you can see huge numbers of massive loggerhead turtles, either doing the deed (frankly a pretty brutal sight, the males are relentless) or resting on the beach. The giant sand dune right there gives a great view down onto the water, where there are dozens of huge splotches showing turtles hanging out in the bay. In a little while the females will be nesting, and in another month or three the hatchlings make the dash for the ocean, but right now mating is the show.

That brings us to the present day, and the end of my time in Exmouth. Today I’ll be kicking around town writing this blog post and stocking up. Tomorrow morning I’ll get up early and head to Charles Knife canyon and the Badjirrajirra trail, and then continue south to Coral Bay, hopefully in time to catch some sharks at the shark nursery there. After that I’ll just be making my way down the coast, picking stops here and there, and eventually getting to Perth and the southwest, which I’ve consistently heard is beautiful. I can’t wait! You can see videos for this post here, that’s where most of the good stuff is.

It has been a tremendous few days exploring Karijini National Park and driving through the Pilbara region, though it didn’t get off to a very auspicious start. After my night spent outside of Port Hedland, at a free camp right next to a mine, I got up and headed towards Karijini. When I got to the last roadhouse before the park I discovered that the road was closed. Apparently there was a terrible accident, “car vs road train” as one Aussie described it to me, and the cleanup and/or forensics work was ongoing. To make things even trickier, no one had any idea how long the road would be closed, but several days was a distinct possibility.

It was only about 9am and I couldn’t decide what to do. I could just hang out at the roadhouse, in truly the absolute middle of nowhere desert, with nothing to do and 100 degree temperatures for $30 a night. I could go back to Port Hedland, get an alignment, and just kick around. Or I could try the alternate entrance into the park, going across the north and looping around to the west side, which would entail around 90km of dirt road. There was no real risk of getting stuck, and the road sees a fair amount of traffic from the several mines in the area, so it was more a question of whether my van (or my teeth) could handle what might be several hours of bouncing along a corrugated road.

I hemmed and hawed for a long time, chatted with some other travelers, and after hearing from a guy who worked in the area that the road was well maintained and in decent shape, decided to go for it. Good news, he was right! The road was fine and the drive went by pretty quickly. I got to my first stop, Hamersley Gorge, right around lunchtime.

The deal with Karijini, as it turns out, is that it’s a huge area in the middle of an iron-rich desert where there are a collection of deep gorges that the rainwater flows down through. There is also a long geological history along the lines of: ancient seabed, silica and other things filter down and get compacted forming distinct layers, tectonic activity causes the seabed to buckle and lift up, erosion smooths everything back down. The result are these massive gorges where the rock is all stripey, where it’s not just bright red because of the iron, and it is absolutely stunning.

So, first stop Hamersley gorge. Similar to most of the gorges, there was an easily accessible pool, amazing rock walls on either side of the gorge, beautifully carved smaller pools and rock structures, little waterfalls, and lots of fun scrambling to do.

After a couple hours of exploring and taking pictures I drove down to a campsite right next to Mt Bruce, the big hike in Karijini. It’s apparently the second highest mountain in WA, standing a towering “not really very tall for a mountain” meters tall. The hike is not especially long and not especially steep, but it’s entirely exposed, very windy, and very hot. The views are expansive: open desert in one direction, a string of mountains to oen side, and a huge iron mine to the other.

Since you have to get up early to beat the heat, after my 3 hours on Mt Bruce and a very lazy lunch it was still only around noon. The next destination was the Weano area, where there’s a lookout along with Weano and Hancock gorges. My first move was the Weano gorge loop, which lets you stroll through the scrub for a bit before descending into the gorge. The scrub is beautiful and the gorge is absolutely spectacular, with narrow passages opening up onto crystal clear green pools. The main attraction is handrail pool, imaginatively named for the handrail that helps you negotiate the steep and slippery rocks down. Thanks to reviews I’d read ahead of time I knew that you could actually swim across the pool and keep walking along the gorge for a bit, getting to another narrow pool that you also swim through, and ending up at a view of a narrow chute leading to a big drop down to a pool at the bottom of a 3 way intersection of gorges. I first got there around 2pm, with the sun still high enough that it cast a line of light across the various pools. It was, frankly, magical.

After two trips through handrail pool (I ran back to the van to get my gopro so I could take pictures of the other side) I moved on to the lookout. After being down in the gorge it was amazing to get a view from above of this red plateau covered in scrub with a few deep gashes cut into it. Finally, I crossed the road and checked out Hancock gorge. I’m going to be honest with you here—I’m pretty sure it was beautiful, and the pictures look quite nice, but at this point it had been a very long day and I just don’t really remember it that well!

I spent the night at the Karijini Eco Retreat, which in spite of the fancy name was only $22 per night given offseason pricing. This was well worth it for the water alone—with temperatures right around 100 every day (and it feeling much hotter than that in the sun), I was probably drinking somewhere around 8 liters, or 2 gallons, of water per day. The only other water source in the park is at the visitor center, it’s untreated, and I don’t have any purification equipment besides boiling, which would be a real last resort. At the eco retreat the water is all potable and they’re fine with you filling up water bottles as long as you don’t fill your van tanks, which I’d say is fair. I must have gotten more than 5 liters from them, which was the perfect amount to tide me over for my time in the park.

The next morning I started with Joffre gorge, which you can walk to right from the campsite. It was a nice quick stroll through the scrub before lots and lots of stairs to get down to the bottom of the gorge. With the weather heating up it’s the offseason now, and man am I grateful for that. I never saw more than a handful of people anywhere I went, and on this morning I had Joffre gorge entirely to myself. It wouldn’t be any kind of exaggeration to say that sitting in this beautiful space all by myself was a spiritual experience.

The stairs let you down to a first spot with a large pool. To the right is the main attraction, the amphitheater. When there’s been rain there’s a waterfall, but currently it’s just an enormous bowl of beautiful stripey rock with a pool at the bottom. After clambering around and checking out different views for a while I headed back the other way. Skirting the first pool and going the opposite way, a short rock scramble leads to a very narrow passage where the only option is to swim. The water filled the gorge past the next bend so I couldn’t tell how far the swim was, but luckily this time I’d at least come prepared with my gopro. The previous day’s experience told me my personal preference was to swim with my shoes on—everything dries insanely fast when it’s 100 degrees and bone dry, and shoes are more comfortable on pointy rocks and less slippery on smooth rocks than bare feet. So I dropped my pack, stripped down to my shorts, put my gopro in my pocket, and got in the water.

The swim turned out to be pretty long, 10 minutes of casual breast stroke in each direction. It was a pretty incredible feeling (and you don’t need to worry now knowing that I made it out alive) to just keep swimming through this incredible landscape, completely alone, not knowing where it was leading. The walls of the gorge widened, narrowed, and widened again, and eventually I got to a large pool that gave onto a wide expanse of dry land. After a bit of gravel I got to a section which was just huge pieces of the stripey rock that makes up the gorge, all broken along the layers that they’re made up of, each sort of reminiscent of a boxy stack of pancakes. After scrambling over and around them I got to another massive amphitheater which funneled down to a thin waterfall with a huge boulder wedged into it, and then a long drop to another pool farther down. It was stunning.

After all that exploration I had some lunch and then looped around to check out the viewpoint on the other side of Joffre gorge. Once again, the shift in perspective to see the place I’d just been exploring from above was extremely cool, giving a whole different sense of scale. Then I continued down the road to Knox gorge. The descent into Knox is, rather than a staircase, an actual, honest to god, rock and dirt trail, so of course the many Aussie safety signs warn of the incredible difficulty. After the trip down I again explored as much of the gorge as I could. I was able to stay dry this time but got to walk a fair way down the gorge, eventually getting to the Aussie safety stop sign and cordon, which was fair enough since at that point continuing would have meant going down a steep, narrow chute which led to a sheer drop and a pool a long ways below. The towering walls of the gorge are all bright red, right angled-rocks, and the effect is spectacular.

This wrapped up all the gorges I could get to on the west side of the park so I hopped in the van and headed for the east. The east side of the park has the visitor center (closed when I was there unfortunately), and the Dales’, both gorge and campground. I was pretty tired by this point but it was only around 4:30pm, and the thing about Karijini is that sitting around in the heat in your van at the campsite is way less comfortable than going down to the cool gorge. I initially planned to just go down and have a dip, but ultimately I caught a second wind and went for the loop walk of Dale’s gorge.

Dale’s seems to be the more popular one, unsurprising given its accessibility and proximity to the huge campground. The way down is just a series of stairs and boardwalks, and gets you to beautiful Fortescue falls. A short stroll to the right leads to shady Fern pool, where everyone was hanging out hiding from the heat. After Fern pool I turned back and headed down the gorge. Dale’s is one of the bigger gorges, quite wide at the bottom, and seems to have more water, so that the whole thing is full of trees and grass. The walk criss crosses the water a few times before getting to a staircase back up to the rim. From there I checked out the circular pool lookout, which was absolutely spectacular. Finally, with the sun setting, I strolled back to my van along the rim of the gorge, enjoying the changing colors of the red rocks and the mercifully lowering temperature.

The next morning I went for a quick dip at Fern pool and then said my goodbyes to Karijini. It’s a short drive to the next town, a mining outpost called Tom Price, apparently after an American geologist who helped them realize how rich the area was in minerals (hurray…). Mines aside, the area is absolutely stunning, and just looking around from town gives great views of the surrounding hills. I was feeling pretty tired and puttered around for a while, getting coffee and lunch, grocery shopping, and filling up on water. By mid-afternoon there was nothing left to do but head on down the road.

This region is called the Pilbara, and I have to say, it is absolutely spectacular. Several people had told me about the Kimberley, which is the very northern region of WA, and it certainly is beautiful up there. After today’s drive from Karijini, through Tom Price and Paraburdoo, I have to say I think the Pilbara gives it a run for its money. It didn’t hurt that today was the rare cloudy day, making the light play on the various rolling hills and mountains, but man I spent the whole drive to my campsite tonight just yelling “It is SO beautiful out here!”. I’m not sure when I’ll come back to Australia, but if I do you can bet that it’ll be to tour around WA in a 4 wheel drive. This is my kind of place.

Greetings from the industrial paradise of Port Hedland. Every single person I talked to told me it wasn’t worth stopping here, and, well, I get it. As it turns out I’m here for a regular service on my van (nothing actually wrong, hopefully) because with industry come qualified mechanics, at least. So today’s a relaxing day of hanging around cafes and libraries, and I’ll be off to another free camp outside of town tonight.

I actually just left Broome yesterday, so those couple of days I thought I would stay turned out to be a couple of weeks. Diving over the long weekend was great—I got out 3 days in a row, and it felt great as always to give tips, do safety dives, and watch people hit PBs and generally have a really good time. Sometime the following week I then had to move, because Graham and Linda rent one of their rooms as an Airbnb, and for some reason the listing doesn’t mention a vagrant living in a giant van in the driveway. As it turned out this became a chance to mooch even harder when Anna and Sam, an incredibly nice couple from the freediving group, said I could stay at theirs.

I thought I would just be parking in the driveway but when I got there Anna said “We’ve got a whole granny flat empty in the back, just move in there”. People, let me tell you, what a life of luxury. Two rooms! An actual kitchen! AIR CONDITIONING! A shower! Seriously, air conditioning! The temperature in Broome has been hitting right around 40 degrees Celsius, which is 104 Fahrenheit, every day. Air conditioning!

Even better than the, I cannot stress this enough, AIR CONDITIONING, was the company. Anna and Sam are the kinds of people who really fill their schedules, so I didn’t see them the first couple of days and worried that I’d just be a weird stranger haunting their back yard for a week or two before disappearing. Luckily it didn’t turn out that way, and I was able to join them for a couple of dinners, a couple of breakfasts, and a couple of hangouts with their group of friends, most of whom are also freedivers. Every single person I had the chance to hang out with was really genuinely nice and friendly, and it did me a world of good to slide into their social group for a week or two. I distinctly remember, during the first dinner that I joined in on, thinking “Man you know this is really a totally standard social situation, just a group of friends having a low key dinner, but wow it feels great!”.

I think it’s been pretty clear throughout, well, several of my past posts that I was having a bit of trouble finding my footing, in the broadest possible sense. So I’m glad to be able to switch it up in this post and say my footing feels firmly found. I’d started to feel like I was turning a corner in western Queensland, but then took a bit of a step back with getting robbed. After that, through Kakadu and Katherine and the beginnings of WA, I got over the robbery and felt like I got back the momentum I’d had, until I really started feeling like myself again right before Broome. I think this really contributed to my having such a good time in Broome. Mostly it’s just that everyone was really nice, but also my feeling better and more comfortable with myself helped me jump in, make friends, and just enjoy the time. So I’m grateful for that, and excited to keep the momentum going.

Next up is Karijini, a huge national park smack in the middle of the desert. I’ll spend a few days there [Spoiler alert: I’m finishing this post from Karijini, and hoo boy, strap in for the next one because it is gorgeous here. Dylan, there are great rock pictures incoming.] and then head to Exmouth to dive my little heart out. Exmouth is apparently tiny and I’ve heard accommodation can be a real struggle, so we’ll see how that goes. Worst case I’ll just have to pony up for a caravan park, and I’m pretty confident that’ll be worth it.

Hello from beautiful Broome, Western Australia. It’s been a slow few weeks and I haven’t felt like I have a lot to write about, but I’m way overdue at this point so we’re back. Nitmiluk gorge was beautiful. The first day I went to Leliyn, or Edith Falls, at the northern end of the park. It was an easy stroll along the water to a swimming spot, where I met a very nice family, got to chatting, had a swim, and ended up walking the rest of the day with them. The area was pretty but not necessarily a standout for me, but the company was nice and swimming felt great in the heat. I spent the night at a free camp and the next day went to Nitmiluk Gorge itself for a hike. This was much more impressive—the huge, deep green river meanders between sheer cliffs of red rock, each bend giving you a new view to enjoy. I had a tremendous day, hiking for several hours in the increasing heat, barely crossing any other people, getting views of the gorges completely to myself.

After that I was ready to hit the road to WA. I did a big grocery shop, filled up on fuel and water, and then just as I was laying my head down that night I thought “Wait, did someone mention something about an agricultural quarantine for WA?”. Sure enough, apparently Western Australia is devoid of certain agricultural pests and they’re intent on keeping it that way, so you’re not allowed to bring any fresh fruit or vegetables in. Good thing that, in my enthusiasm after getting my broken fridge fixed, I’d done an extra big shop and had a fridge absolutely crammed with vegetables and a pantry full of fruit! So I did what any reasonable person would do and spent 2 days sitting around Katherine with nothing to do, eating an entire week’s worth of fruit and vegetables.

Eventually I got my stocks low enough to finish the next day and was able to hit the road. All of the landscapes in this northwest part of Australia are just absolutely stunning. The rocks are red, there are huge boulders and rock piles reminiscent of the desert in Southern California, and it’s sort of surprisingly desert green. Unfortunately this is the region where you really actually do need a 4 wheel drive to get out and explore a lot of things, so I had to stick to the main road. Even still, I spent most of the drive just blown away, staring out at the rocks and hills passing by. I stayed at a free camp up on a cliff with incredible views out to the north and west, and the next day it was a quick trip to the border. It felt a bit uncalled for when, after having me open my fridge, the border guard remarked “That’s the saddest fridge I’ve ever seen”, but he was very nice and the whole check was quick and easy. After that I drove straight to the library in Kununurra, the town right across the WA border, to get my bearings. I’d made it to WA, the promised land that everyone had told me I would love. So far I think they were right.

I spent a nice couple of days in Kununurra, with Mirima National Park, right in town, as a highlight. I also spent a day running around town to confirm that my check engine light was nothing to worry about (it wasn’t, and it’s back off now). On my way out of town I went to Emma Gorge, where a nice, fairly short walk up along a riverbed leads to a beautiful large swimming hole surrounded by tall cliffs, with a waterfall and a small hot spring bubbling away in one corner. Luckily I made it over in the morning and got to enjoy a bit of stillness and snap a few pictures with no people in them before the hordes descended.

Then there was nothing left but a 10 hour drive to the ocean. I split the drive into two relatively easy days with a beautiful free camp in between, and got in to Broome in the afternoon, ready to hit the beach. I wasn’t sure what the swimming situation was since this is still saltwater crocodile territory, but I guess they monitor the area or something, because everyone swims at Cable Beach, which also happens to be the van life center of the city. The reviews I’d been seeing made it sound like the local council was quite strict about van life, but I guess that’s mostly just during the high season because no one seems to be checking anymore.

In the weeks before heading out to WA I tried to find any freediving instructors/schools/clubs/whatever that I might be able to work for or just dive with. It was not an especially fruitful search, with the notable exception (so far) of the Kimberley Freediving Club, based here in Broome and powered almost single-handedly by an affable Kiwi named Graham, who’s an extremely knowledgeable and experienced diver. Looking at their website I wasn’t really sure how active the club was, but I figured it was worth taking a flyer and sending a quick message. Graham got back to me right away, confirmed that the club did weekly pool training and line diving pretty much every weekend, and said I should come by and check it out. At this point I’ve trained in the pool twice and gotten out to line dive twice, including getting the chance to do a 40 meter dive today. And man, it feels absolutely excellent. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel line diving for the first time in a while, but it really just confirmed, again, how much I love freediving. On my first dive I slowly pulled 10 meters down and then hung for about a minute, holding the rope and listening to the whales singing, and I just did not want to come up.

Besides the diving (which it’s not really known for) Broome is… a sleepy town. I’ve been spending the vast majority of my time shuttling between the beach and the library, enjoying body surfing and my online biology class in roughly equal measure. I also spent a night at the Broome Bird Observatory, where, besides just enjoying a beautiful campsite, I got to see lots of birds and wallabies and play with my camera. Graham and his wife Linda have graciously adopted me and let me park up at their house, where I have free access to a bathroom and Wifi and shade and laundry—a real deluxe experience for me. As payment for my club dues I’ve been sprucing up the club website a bit, which has been a fun project, helpful enough to feel good about but small enough to limit any frustration. It’s been a slow, relaxing, relatively civilized couple of weeks for me, and if I had a single complaint it would be that I haven’t done that good a job of making friends or filling the days. Par for the course, I’d say, and a minor worry.

It’s a long weekend in Australia so we’re planning to line dive each of the next two mornings, which I’m really excited for. Most of the club members are fairly inexperienced divers, and after today’s deep dives I’m excited to focus more on coaching and helping for the next two days. After that I may spend another day or two in town running errands, but I think pretty quickly I’ll start the shockingly long drive to Exmouth. When I was in Sydney, way over in the opposite corner of Australia, I often scrolled around the map, eyeing this area where the diving is supposed to be so good. I’d heard Broome and Exmouth were the main tourist destinations, and from where I was sitting they looked more or less like neighbors. Turns out, in a country that’s also a continent, neighbors are over 14 hours apart. So it’ll probably be 3 slow days on the road to Exmouth, and I should really look up cool things to do on the way. Either way I think it’ll be a beautiful drive, and Exmouth is supposed to have decent surf and amazing snorkeling right from the beach, so I can’t wait. You can find videos for this post here.