We have two nights to fill in before our
booking at Kooljamin so decide on a spot of beach camping somewhere up the coast. Milton, Rowena, Ryan and Ella decided to come
as well, which is great because it means we can go where the tourists are
not…there are a lot of tourists clogging up the good spots!
But first, a trip to Wyllie Creek Pearl
Farm where we hear and see how the pearl is formed, how they are farmed and get
to go out on a boat to see the naughty oysters in the creek…these are the ones
that haven’t produced good pearls. The
creek is the most astonishing blue, a light blue not like typical sea blue but
more like a pretty turquoisy blue...if that makes sense. And on the bank on the other side of the
creek is a saltwater croc…just a gently reminder that they are still
about. The tour itself was great, and
perhaps the highlight was damper at morning tea, which not only was yummy but
we got the recipe to make some ourselves….the excitement was too much.
Now to a beach camp, some 40kms odd up the
cape we find a nice little spot out of the southerly and set up camp, just over
the back of the beach beside a creek that has a bit of water in it but due to
the low tides has stopped flowing through to the ocean for now. Ahh the serenity, a fire at night, the wind
died down and just us and the sound of the ocean.
Morning arrives and the wind unfortunately
has turned in to an Easterly and is blowing straight through the area we are
camped. The toilet tent is sacrificed
and pulled down, the tent is tied down to full jerry cans half buried in the
sand and the spare tyre out of the car but we are secure and nothing is going
to blow us away.
Now what you are about to read will
potentially scare you away from beach or bush camping for life. We have with us two toilets…a proper chemical
toilet which we have used in places where the pit toilets are disgusting and
there is a disposal point for the waste…and a collapsible toilet seat that we
borrowed from Annie and Ron (they had never found a use for it in motels and
hotels so it was not a pre loved seat) that you put a bag underneath and then
bury your business. At the beach camp we
are using the latter, or at least the rest of the family is.
You see, mid morning rolls around and I can’t
wait another two days to get to a proper toilet, so I grab my collapsible seat
and shovel and off I head up over the sand dunes and find myself a nice little
spot where I can see the ocean, tucked in out of the wind. All in all turning out to be quite a
successful journey when suddenly….splash.
I found out that the collapsible toilet seat is not called that because
it folds up but more so because it doesn’t hold nearly 100kgs sitting on
it. Given I was nearly done, I now found
myself in a right royal mess…and yes sand does stick! So after cleaning myself up as best I could
and burying everything, I went for my first swim in the Indian Ocean to remove
any last souvenirs of my one, and only use of my dear sister in laws and
brother in laws collapsible toilet.
Moving on, the wind did die down in the
afternoon and we had a little drive up the beach and a swim and a play on the
sand. Milton caught a mudcrab which was
pretty cool to see…big too with nippers that I wouldn’t want to play with. A swim, this time because we wanted to go
from a swim, and a roast dinner on the weber followed by another lovely fire in
to the wee hours of the morning was a great end to the two nights on the beach,
although we did pack up in a howling gale in the morning before driving down
the beach and back onto the tracks that would ultimately take us up to Cape
Leveque.
Kooljamin was amazing. We lucked in on a cancellation and turned up
to a site that overlooked the beach from the top of the cliffs with the sun
setting before us. It was low tide so we
walked down the western beach, up around the point and back down the eastern
beach. At the point you looked back and
could see down both beaches, the sun gleaming off the bright red cliff face
making for a postcard moment. Scenically
spectacular, with a proper shower and toilet this place was well worth the
effort getting up to it.
Now for the Kooljamin toilet story….a
family of three green tree frogs lived in these ones and at night when you went
they would appear in the bottom or under the rim of either toilet…was a bit of
a lucky dip really. It made Bron a bit nervous
going and Alex was definitely not going to use them if he could avoid them…but
they were very cool even if their choice of dwelling was odd (although maybe not
for a frog).
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