Jules and I took a short’ish 4WD trip today out to Herald Bight on the inner (east) side of the peninsula. Nice and quiet spot, beautiful flat ocean and lots of sand, perfect for whiting so out came the light flick rods and a pack of lures. The next few hours past quickly with us wandering up and down the beach casting little hardbody lures out to the schools of whiting. Despite the conditions and plentiful fish, we only hooked a few however it was a fantastic way to spend the day, topped off by a cold beer out of the engel and a packet of BBQ shapes for lunch (meal fit for kings).
It’s amazing to think that as early as the 1880’s, Herald Bight was a pearling camp and in the early 1900’s it became a fish (whiting) processing plant. Whilst it’s a beautiful and relatively sheltered location it’s miles from anywhere and the guys that worked and traveled here back then must have been real pioneers as the conditions would have been very harsh.
On the way back to camp we came across a card load of Irish blokes, bogged to the axles in their X-Trail. Typically, they had no recovery gear whatsoever and didn’t have a great understanding of how to get out as they were alternating between digging the sand out with their hands and then pushing the car whilst the driving rev’d the crap, and spun the wheels bogging it deeper. Out with the maxtracks and a few mins later they were on their way with with a lower tyre pressure and some advice that the track was pretty bad up ahead as well. Just when you think people can’t get stupider, along comes, heading the other way, another bloke (Pom I think) in a low profile Subaru all-wheel drive. How he managed to get up the track is anyone’s guess but predictably he hit the soft sand at Cattlewells and bogged to the chassis…. More tyre de-pressuring, digging and maxtracks and he managed to get out. He was very thankful as I think he realised that being out on this track, all alone, with no recovery gear, no experience and in the wrong car was a bad idea. I assume he made it all the way back to Shark Bay…
The following pics are from around our campsite at Gregories, not Herald Bight..
Another beautiful sunset
Sunrise
Star trails over the Goldy
Wild Zebra Finches around camp
Red sand dunes glowing in the afternoon sun
Turtle bones in our campsite
Shadows in the red sand dunes
