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Western Australia: Europe Will Have to Wait
Natural Wanders…
exploring the natural world through writing

EUROPE WILL HAVE TO WAIT
by Linda Lee Rathbun

Our progress along the Brand Highway heading north out of Perth was slow. The road was excellent and our rented campervan could do the speed limit comfortably and safely. The impediment to our progress was the wildflowers.
We averaged walking speed as we stopped to examine yet another astonishing bloom. Here was a scarlet banksia shrub ablaze with acorn shaped flowers whose red filaments were tipped with gold. There was a Banksia Burdettii with orange pink protoaceae in various stages of bloom, followed by another shrub of pale yellow banksia. One would have thought the sides of the road had been carefully planted with these fascinating bushes and trees that are endemic to Western Australia.
Then there were the grevillea plants. Each flower was like a vision of a firework in full explosion. The filaments were white finished with green, orange tipped with gold, pale pinks deepening at the stamen, or scarlet dipped in yellow. Each time we stopped my husband and I would say that, after this, we really would have to make some time on the road. Yet just a bit farther along we would find another roadblock: a patch of red and green kangaroo paw, a bottlebrush, feather flowers, paper daisies. As we made our way towards the coast to Nambung National Park, the sun set. It had taken us all day to drive 200 kilometers but it didn't matter. We had reached our destination and we had seen one of the wonders that had drawn us to Western Australia: the flora that turn this State into the greatest garden in the world.
The next day we drove out to the sandy flats along the coast. The Indian Ocean lay before us like a sparkling cut crystal platter. It was a deep shade of turquoise, somehow more ringing than the blue of the Pacific or the Atlantic. The sky was transparent, the clouds were billowing, the ground was splashed with crimson-and-violet wildflowers.
To us, this was the sort of breathtaking scene that stayed in our memories and always brought us back to the bush. We had said many times that we thought we might visit Europe. Yet we always ended up visiting another part of Australia, where we found nature more awesome than man's attempts at creation. We went for a swim and had some lunch. The noonday light started to soften and my husband was anxious to get to the Pinnacles so that we could take some pictures. We drove along the sandy road that led us into another world.
Early Dutch sailors had seen the Pinnacles from the ocean and thought they were the ruins of an ancient civilization. The wind had been sculpting the sandstone pillars for millenniums, and the gallery that stood before us was filled with the personality of the artist. Some pinnacles were comical: a cone-shaped creature in a hurry, with long hair streaming out behind it in a gust. Some were sedate: groupings of elderly scholars, perhaps discussing the meaning of time. Some were like a giant phallus, the artist's symbol of the power of nature. One looked like a seal tossing its head in glee. Others were like the ancient ruins of towers and arches and columns.
Skinks rushed about the odd landscape. Geckos hid from the sun under pieces of driftwood. A blue-tongue lizard baked lazily until we disturbed him, then only half heartedly hissed and threatened us with gaping mouth and protruding tongue. Small armored bugs went about their business. The sun slipped into the horizon and the pillars cast long, eerie shadows on the sand.
The next wonder on our tour was Kalbarri National Park, where the Murchison River meets the Indian Ocean. Along the way we were once again pulled over by wildflowers.
We were also surprised and delighted to find a friend from the Simpson Desert. As we turned off the North West Coastal Highway we suddenly came upon an unmarked reptilian crossing. There, at the crest of the bitumen, were two thorny devils. Their tails were held high in the air, like periscopes searching for danger. As a car thundered by their eyes roamed anxiously about in their sockets. They seemed determined to cross the road so we decided to help. Although they were covered in thorns, they were as harmless as roses. We carefully picked them up and deposited them in the bush on the other side of the road. We said goodbye to them and told them to mind the cars when next they crossed the road.
We only had to stop one more time on the way to Kalbarri to examine a bush that looked like small clusters of cotton balls with tiny blue faces painted on them. When we arrived at the coast, we found a variety of birdlife on the estuary of the Murchison River. As the fresh water gently coiled to the sea, it was met by crashing waves that roared towards the beach. We walked along the shore, but only dared swim behind a natural breakwater. The power of the ocean that day would have killed anyone careless enough to venture in.
Farther up the river were a series of red gorges. Somehow these seemed out of place so close to a holiday resort. We felt as though we were exploring a remote, undiscovered part of the world. We picked our way down natures' multicolored stepping stones to the banks of the river and looked back up to the cliffs.
Well, perhaps this is the place to confess that the real reason we had come to Western Australia was to see the wild dolphins of Monkey Mia. We are both crazy about animals, particularly marine mammals. We headed up to Shark Bay, wondering all the while if the dolphins would be there. As we turned west off the main highway we hit a dusty, pothole-ridden, axle breaking, rocky road. Our progress was slow and nerve racking, but we finally reached Monkey Mia.
A curving sliver of ivory beach separated the red earth from the blue sea. The sun was setting and the owners of the caravan park said the dolphins would be back in the morning, if they were coming at all. My husband slept fitfully and woke at dawn, wandering up and down the beach with his camera waiting for the creatures we had come so far to see. He returned to our van several times to let me know how disappointed he was that the rendezvous would probably not take place.
"They'll be here" I said to him firmly. I decided to get up and pace the beach with him in the hope that our combined telepathic begging and pleading would reach the dolphins' minds. My husband's sullen face broke into a beam of delight as he saw a fin silently slipping through the water. We waded in and were met with the charming smiles and animated chattering of several dolphins. If this had been our last moment on earth, we would not have chosen to be anywhere else. Whenever the dolphins were by the shore, so were we.
Unfortunately and as usual, time forced us to leave our new found friends. We would have stayed for weeks if we could have and hopefully some day we will. Yet there were other wonders waiting for us, so we headed back to see the picturesque southwest corner of Western Australia.
On the way to Pemberton we stopped to wander through dense wildflowers that carpeted the ground and draped the woods. We walked through the lofty karri and jarrah forests. We found a group of white tailed black cockatoos performing aerobatics before settling down for the evening. Port Lincoln parrots chattered and screeched in tall eucalypts. We stopped in Albany, thankfully no longer a whaling village.
Then we headed up to the Stirling Ranges: mountains that looked like soft purple scoops in the distant horizon, but which as we approached suddenly became jagged peaks over a thousand meters high. We breathed in cool, crisp air and found native orchids, iris and lilies.
Continuing north, we made our way to Hyden and Wave Rock. The campground there was populated by several gentle Western grey Kangaroos and a very friendly emu who insisted on being invited to breakfast, lunch and dinner. In this sea of dry land, a 15 meter high wall of granite breaks like a rippling curl out of nowhere. It has been suspended thus for 27 million years, sculpted by the elements.
Several weeks had rushed by and it was time to drive back to Perth. The roads were banked by fields, some in yellow clover, some in purple. The scenery was rolling and pretty and tamed. We enjoyed it but in a way we wished we had stayed up north, where the land was not so cultivated. We spent a few days in the clean, sunny city of Perth and in the quaint village of Fremantle. We visited the Quokkos on Rottnest Island and swam in crystalline coves. It had been a visit filled with many wonders.
At home we unpacked our bags and started to think about where we should go next. We had friends in Switzerland and Italy we had been promising to visit for years. Yet then again, we hadn't seen all of the west. There were unexplored reefs to dive on along the north west coast. There was wildlife to see in the remote national parks. My husband pointed out that we simply had to photograph the Bungle Bungles and the thought of the deserted Eighty Mile Beach was too much to resist. There were the Wandjana Aboriginal paintings to see and the Kimberleys and…….
As always, I know that the urgency to see unspoiled places will win out once again. As usual, Europe will have to wait.

THE END