Featured Image: Checking in at Red Bluff

After a false alarm for surf at Warroora (pronounced Warra) Station we changed our plan. It seems that an error in our reading of maps & judging scale meant we were too far away on too rough a road to get to anywhere for a good surf or a snorkel. We continue to have issues dealing with the scale of this country.

So back out onto the main road over another 10km of corrugations.

So we headed South with both of us feeling a bit nervous about leaving the tropics as we crossed over the Tropic of Capricorn.

We diverted to Carnarvon to stock up on fuel, water & food and then made our way to Quobba Station via Quobba Point Lighthose & the infamous “King Waves Kill” sign. 

The Quobba Point lighthouse was the last place we managed to get a patchy phone signal for about a week.

From the KWK sign it was another 8km of gravel road to Quobba Station but not too bad. We checked in for 5 nights.

The imposing sign is meant as a general warning to those who play near/in the ocean around these parts. The coast here gets some impressive long period swells that inherently have the odd rogue  wave every so often that may be twice as big as the average size wave for any given swell size. Surprise king waves have caught and drowned a number of visitors.

Once settled at Quobba camp I drove the 110km round trip over a variable gravel road to check out the surf at Red Bluff. Actually, the main purpose was to check out the road conditions to see if we could get the van in. I was a bit iffy about the conditions but we decided to go slow & give it a go. Quobba & Red Bluff camps are owned by the same people so our remaining 4 nights were transferable to our new camp.

Some of the 55kms in were a bit rough, but we took it slow, stopped a couple of times to check the van & did OK. A few things moved around a bit in the van, the coffee  machine wandered about the floor as it’s want to do,  a few loose screws, a shelf in the fridge broke, some detached knobs & a few more broken drawer latches (we have many spares). Nothing serious. The rough trip was truly worth it.

Sunsets over here are awsome

A glass of rough red at Red Bluff makes the sunset even sweeter and leaves you with a warm after glow, to the horizon.

I did the trek over the rough rocky path out to Red Buff point for my first surf in a while. It’s a fast left handed break. Luckily it was only about head high. I need a bit more practice & paddle fitness.
The shot above was from the day before when I drove in for a look. Getting into the surf was just a jump off the rocks. Getting out of the surf was more entertaining.  Some managed to make it look more graceful than others as per the clip below.

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We saw lots of clam shells on our walks along the beach

What was more amazing was a fossilised clam protruding from the cliff face. It looked identical to the size & form of the ones on the beach. The cliff walls appear to be made up of a conglomerate of fossilised coral reef from thousands of years ago. Clams haven’t evolved much in that time, but at least they are still here!

Another feature of this camp were the open air pit toilets. They were pretty special & the cleanest we’ve seen. They utilise a sawdust compost system that seems to work really well. I.e. No flushing, no smell, just a couple of handfuls of sawdust down the hole each time you go.

As luck would have it the swell dropped off after my one surf. Not to worry, we had a few of the most chilled & relaxing days so far on the trip.
No radio, no TV, no internet, no mobile coverage, no olympics. We’ll be back.

15 Aug This entry was published on 15/08/2016 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.