Cape Arid N.P.

Beach Camping In Beautiful Cape Arid  14th-16th February

After exploring Cape Le Grand and seeing how busy it was but how lovely the beaches were we decided to head further away and do our own beach camping. After some advice as to where to go from the local bait and tackle shop man, and where we acquired our tide chart, we set off 100km's East to Cape Arid to find a spot along the beach to camp. It is a very weird feeling at the best of times driving to an unknown destination but I do get a bit anxious when we go to a N.P and start driving up a beach towing the camper behind, not knowing the sand condition or if we will be able to get off the beach at the end by driving over the rocky points! But in saying that it is also very exhilarating when you do find such special and uninterrupted places like the beaches in this N.P.

driving along the beach to find a camp spot




our camp on the beach



 

 





looking back at the beach we camped at with
Mt Arid in the background



 We set up and had the beach to ourselves for two days.
 After we had set up and we were sitting having some lunch Tom said "I have never heard it so quiet", ha.
Over the next two days we went for a few drives to do some exploring around at other beach coves and found the most peaceful, crystal clear and calm beach. We stayed for a fish and swim. Pete caught his first fish here, not big, but it was a fish! Later that day around at another beach Tom caught a slightly bigger fish and we all decided that this would be our first fish to cook and eat, it was delishes, I just had to remember how to fillet them!

 





tyring their luck again at this wonderful spot



  

Tom and Charlie enjoying this beautiful beach



Pete's small first catch of whiting



The type of things Tom and Charlie got up to at camp.

One of the drives we stumbled on a little area tucked right into the East side of Cape Arid point where there were a couple of old caravans and a hut built of sheet iron. We drove in thinking it was a way over another point but it was a dead end. We were backing out when an eldery man came out of one of the vans and was in for a chat. He was the caretaker of this area and lived here all summer. He showed us inside the hut and to our surprise there was the greenest grass, a great bbq area all paved with granite stone found in the area and a rather large and very well kept vegie patch with an abundance of tomatoes and  capsicums fruiting at the moment; he very generously gave us some tomatoes and a capsicum. The people who own the vans and hut are fisherman one is a  cray fisherman and they just come down whenever they can, so the older gentleman just watches over their stuff and soaks up the solitude. In winter you cannot drive the main beach to get around to this area so he goes back to his farm in Gibson, just out of Esperance.





The dark sky as we left the beach

 The morning we left the beach we were witness to the most spectacular lightning show out over the water and in front across the land we were heading to. We just got off with plans to head inland and camp at Mt Ragged and do the walk but while we were airing up our tyres a parks ranger stopped and we had a chat regarding the weather. Apparently the whole area was on fire alert, he said we could go to Mt Ragged but if we saw smoke to get out or if it rained to get out cause you can apparently get bogged in there for days! Well our decision was made for us because as soon as we started driving off it absolutely poored with rain.

We went back to Esperance to stay in the C.P and the next morning we got up and drove out to Mt Ragged

with just the car.

What a climb, it took us 1 1/2 hours to walk to the top and only 30 minutes to walk down. An awesome view of the land around and of the road we drove to get in, we could also see the coast line.



view from the top of Mt Ragged




you can see how high we were up by the size of Vector




Mt Ragged, we climbed the highest peak on the left