We are doing a day trip today into Hopetoun. There are numerous beaches and look outs along the way to visit – before crossing Culham Inlet and then on to Hopetoun. This morning is overcast and overnight we had just a slight sprinkling of rain. Another crazy day that starts out heavily overcast and then by lunch time there isn’t a cloud to be seen.
The park has the replica railway ticket office. In the early 1900’s there was a train line between Ravensthorpe and Hopetoun.
The pub was built in 1901 and was nicely placed at the end of the railway line and the jetty – it would have been a very popular spot in the busy days of Hopetoun.
A view of the main street. Yes, it’s a little town just ticking over. A new IGA has been built, there is a chemist, doctors, bakery and a general store which doubles as the post office and newsagency. Tourism is what now keeps it alive.
The beach has lovely white sand, but unfortunately a lot of seaweed being pushed in with the wind.
One thing that was great was the very large car wash and fuel depot just outside the main street. Glen washed the car which was long overdue. The bays were big enough to wash a caravan and they had a platform so that you could wash the top of your van – good idea.
Coming in this morning, it was so overcast we didn’t stop at the beach points or take photos, so we caught up on our way back to camp.
This is the front door to Fitzgerald National Park.
My first thought was how much did they pay for this interpretative art? and then I realized that the concrete was the ocean and the pebbles the land and the (abstract artwork) was actually the mountains behind and it was of the actual coastline and mountains.
Above is Hamersley Inlet.
The writing listing all of the headlands and inlets was very difficult to see and I am sure a lot of people would not have realized exactly what this is.
The Royal Hakea, they are really the yellows and oranges that they depict. The flowers are at the case of each leaf and they do have cones (small) like Banksia. A very strange plant, but very attractive.
Above is the Oakleaf Banksia, it is funny the way the end of the leaves are straight, just like someone cut them straight across.
Another Banksia we are seeing lots of. We don’t have the name of this one as yet, but we are working on it. We really like the corkscrew flower effect of the cone. Below is the full tree. A very nice weeping effect.
The name must have “weeping” in it surely.
This is Mt Barren East. The road is on that plateau. We discovered that the rocks found here are the same as at Casey Station Antartica. This is a very popular location with geologists. The black sharp rocks are layers of fine silt (not ash, as I thought) and are technically named schist.
This shows the separation of the land mass and explains why the rocks are the same. The plateau and the ones in the photo below were shaped by the waves when the water level was 80 metres higher.
This is very scary coastline, yet people continue to rock fish and get swept away.
Looking north (Mt Barren East) and south from Cave Point.
We found this pretty fellow on the track. They are such posers! Very intricate pattern on his chest.
We approached him from behind and at first I thought it was a snake (all black from behind), then thought it was a burnt stick and then finally realized it was a goanna. So the patterning obviously works well for a reason.
We are packing up and moving tomorrow. We have found a place to refill our water tanks in Hopetoun and will head off to Esperance to grocery shop before our next camp tomorrow night.
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