Trip 48 – Easter camping

This year’s Easter and ANZAC Day public holidays provided the perfect opportunity to take three days’ annual leave to get a ten-day break. Although we took four days to ensure we missed the mass exodus on Easter Friday, getting away on the Thursday to head South-ish.

Our original plan, proposed by ChatGPT, was to camp at Peak Charles, an ancient granite peak, towering 600 metres above the relatively flat surrounding woodlands. Peak Charles is approximately 180 km north-west of Esperance, and our trip down would have us drive the last 120 km along an unmaintained gravel road. But two days before we were due to leave, the whole area received over 120mm of rain and a couple of quick calls to the local shires confirmed my suspicions that the dirt road in would not make for a fun, or safe drive, so it was a quick change of plans and instead we headed to Norring Lake, just out of Wagin.

Arriving just after midday, we’d beat the masses and had the pick of the spots, choosing the prime position on the point overlooking the mirror flat salt lake. A quick setup, and we were sitting back, enjoying our first beverage of the trip, looking out over the view and thinking we’d need to get the fire started soon, as the breeze off the lake was pretty brisk.

Whilst gathering some fallen twigs for starting the fire, we’d noted a couple of signs in the nearby pavilion (approx. 50m away from our camp spot) that the local Wagin church was coming down for a dawn service on Easter Sunday and had reserved the tables under the pavilion. No stress, we thought, we were camped a fair distance away and had no intention of using the tables.

Night one passed uneventfully, sitting around the warm campfire, swapping tales and chilling (literally). Jules knocked up a cracking Spanish-style baked beans for brekky, and after a coffee and the dishes, Bushy and I headed off for a local drive to find some drone and photography options, whilst Jules chilled out with a book at the van.

We had an enjoyable drive around the area, exploring some old farmhouses and taking some drone shots of the local salt lakes. Then another night, warming ourselves around the roaring campfire, trying to spot satellites through gaps in the briskly moving clouds overhead, and partaking in vanilla slices we’d bought at the Wagin bakery on the trip in.

Saturday dawned a little overcast, and following brekky, it was off to explore the busy metropolis that is Wagin. Another stop at the bakery for a coffee, we then did the obligatory visit to Bart, the Giant Ram, before taking a slow drive around town to see what else there was to see, and to waste a few minutes so we could time our arrival at the Palace Hotel for the 12 pm lunch service. Two Chicken Parmis and a Pizza later, we were off to Puntapin Rock for a looksee before taking the circuitous route back to camp.

You guessed it, another night spent around the campfire, with a drink in hand and plenty of stories rolling off the tongue to top off a nice day. As we were still pretty full after lunch, we finished off half the pizza leftover from lunch, followed by some Hot Cross Buns, toasted over the fire with plenty of butter. What a spot, life couldn’t get much better!

5:30 am and there’s noise, then some more noises, followed by some talking. WTF, we thought, what’s going on out there? A peek through the curtains in the van revealed a number of cars parked, with more pulling up, before we remembered the churchies and their Easter Sunday vigil up at the pavilion, approx. 50m away. All good, we thought, good luck to them, braving the chill breeze, so we snuggled back under the covers. 5:45 am, and this car was getting closer and closer, finally parking between our car and the van, with the front bumper of the car ending up less than a metre from our pillows. i.e., they were parked up close, real close… Then, to top things off, the lovely and very considerate church people proceeded to drag rows of chairs off the back of the ute. Remember that sound of fingernails screeching down a blackboard at school?? Well, that’s what these chairs sounded like, and we were now firmly awake and peering angrily through the curtains at what was now a gathering horde of churchies.

Just when we figured it couldn’t get any worse, the guitar and hymn singing started. Chucking on some clothes, we rolled out of the van to find they’d set up approx. 50 chairs directly behind our van, no more the 2 metres away, so they could sit and watch the sunrise over the lake. Now, whilst we’re not of the church going disposition, we are generally respectful to all persons and their beliefs and doings, however, when they are very clearly taking the piss by parking so close to our van I could feel the warmth coming off their engine, and they’d strategically positioned their sunrise viewing chairs that Bushy and I had to hike a good distance to find an alternate bush wee spot, well, we thought this was rather rude and not very Godly like. But rather than cause a ruckus, we opted instead to park our arses by our campfire and chucked some leaves and twigs on it to get it going again, generating a reasonable smokescreen which was drifting their way, as we sat and grumbled about the injustice of it all, whilst preparing ourselves for a couple of hours of the hymn singing. Luckily, they only sang (although there was a lady who couldn’t justifiably be called a ‘singer’) two songs, before re-screeching their chairs back onto the ute and retiring to the reserved pavilion tables for a cuppa and a chat. One lady did have the thoughtfulness to have a quick chat to Bushy, asking “Did you know we were coming down this morning?”, to which Bushy very politely replied “Yes, but we thought you’d be up at the pavilion tables as per your reservation notices”.. To be fair, it was a lovely sunrise and an experience we spent the rest of the trip talking about, but if we ever return to Norring Lake for the Easter weekend, we’ll be a bit more strategic on where we set up.

Following our own Easter Sunday brekky of toasted Ham and Cheese Croissants, we packed up and headed further south east to find our new camp at Holland Rocks, just north of Pingrup. Following the track behind the tank, we found a large open area facing rocks and set up camp.

The Holland Rocks were covered in pools of water, with a deeper section of water down at a small rock-walled funnelled section, on the lower end of the rocks. Whilst sitting and enjoying the afternoon sun, we noted the early call of a frog, which Jules soon identified as a Western Spotted Frog via its call and her Frog ID phone app. A quick search revealed the muddy burrow of the frog, but he was well covered and we couldn’t see it. We did, however, notice a large wolf-looking spider, approx. 50mm end-to-end, which was covered in spiderlings and living in a burrow not far from the frog. I managed to get a quick pic of the spider before it retreated to the safety of its burrow and refused to come out again for another pic.

As evening fell, the skies cleared of clouds, and the satellites were numerous, counting nearly 30 that night. Also, the frog chorus started in full, with many Western Spotted Frogs now calling, and at least three other frog species clearly heard in the frog song. On with macro lens and out with torches, we quickly became amateur amphibian hunters, spying a number of Motorbike looking frogs in the pool at the end of the rocks. On closer inspection, these turned out to be Spotted-Thighed Frogs, which look very similar except for the clear patch of yellow spots on the, you guessed it, thighs of the frog. Bushy and I then found a Western Spotted Frog, which quickly became the frog model of the evening, despite its bulbous and not overly glamorous shape.

Bushy and I were off exploring again on Monday, looking for more photo and drone opportunities. First heading south via backroads to Jerramungup, where we stopped for an iced coffee, before heading into the Lake Magenta Nature Reserve. What started out as a well-marked gravel road soon became very old, sometimes indistinguishable tyre tracks alongside the fence marking the boundary of farm land and nature reserve. But we pushed on regardless, eventually getting to within 2 km of our intended salt lake destination, before we decided on discretion rather than valour and sent the drones up to cover the last couple of kms. There were a couple of nice lakes to view and photograph via drone, but they didn’t have the colours or shapes we were hoping for, so it was back into the car, and further north along the Lake Magenta Rd to another grouping of lakes I’d spied on Google Maps. A couple of attempts at finding a way in eventually led us down the no-through road, Brocker Rd, where we just happened to turn into it, as the local farmer in his huge monster tractor turned into it. Parking up near the roadside lakes, we waited for the murder tractor to pass before sending up the drones for some beautifully coloured salt lakes.

Salt lake satiated, it was back to camp for another night of campfire, satellite spotting and frog hunting; however, this night we were visited, some may say ‘stalked’ by a number of large wolf spiders, most of which were carrying hoards of spiderlings on their back. We did manage to get some good macro shots of the spiders, but it was pretty unnerving lying on the ground in front of the spider (to get the right angle), only to then have the spider run at you, towards the camera.. We even had one spider, with spiderlings wander up to the campfire and sit right beside the very hot fireplace for a good 10 minutes, before wandering away again. We were amazed it, or the spiderlings, didn’t simply roast themselves there as the fire was so hot we were unable to hold our hands anywhere near that close for more than a few seconds.

With a few days left of our trip and some rain coming through, we opted to start heading homebound again, this time camping for a couple of nights at one of our favourite haunts, the Dryandra Woodlands. Pulling into the Congelin Campground, we were surprised, but happy, to see there were plenty of sites available, so we set up and headed out for an afternoon Numbat hunt. An hour or so later, we got back to camp, Numbatless but confident we’d find one tomorrow when we had more time to go searching for them. Wednesday dawned a bit bleak, with intermittent drizzle overnight and continuing throughout the day. Confident and cheery, however, Bushy and I headed back out to hunt Numbats. 5hrs later, we’d seen four echidnas and some kangaroos, but nary a Numbat to be seen. After packing up camp on Thursday morning, we left the van and did a final swing through the park, but again, an hour later, returned utterly defeated. After more than 7 hours of Numbat hunting, the Numbats won and remained incognito. But that’s no problem, as it just gives us more enthusiasm to come back and search again in future.

After the short drive back into the big smoke, we dropped Bushy off at home and got home ourselves to unpack and commence the post-trip van and car cleaning routine.