7 May 2013 - Shark Bay Caravan Park, Denham, Peron Peninsula, Western Australia

The best laid plans are set up to fail, so they say, and today was one such. I had decided we should drop down into the township, check out the Shark Bay World Heritage Discovery & Visitor Centre, then visit the Francois Peron National Park, taking in only the Peron Heritage Precinct rather than taking on the 4WD tracks through the park, finishing off by spending the rest of the day at Monkey Mia, the “must-do” of Western Australia if many tourist accounts are to be believed. Lunch was packed into the eski and we were off after breakfast.

The weather forecast broadcasted over breakfast suggested that there was a storm hovering off the coast; there were strong wind warnings for areas south of Geraldton. The northern edge of the storm would pass no further north than Carnarvon, so I was not too concerned, although realised that the blue skies might disappear for a few days.

Down at the Visitors Centre we found an update on the weather, warnings now stretched right up to Exmouth and there was concern for those entering the National Park, particularly with regard to the birridas.

“What are these,” we asked.

We learned that gypsum clay pans in the region, like those below our lunch spot yesterday, are known as birridas.  Birridas consist of a thin crust over a bog mire kept moist by ground water. Vehicles driving on birridas can become bogged, and of course the surface becomes very treacherous with rain.

We also found that the World Heritage Discovery Centre is an exhibition for which one must pay, fees totalling nearly $20 for us. This was not part of the day’s plan.

We also learned that one must pay more money out just to visit Monkey Mia, because it is in fact a resort, or rather a drafting station for tourists who are ready to pay for a boat tour, accommodation, a camel tour, to feed the dolphins or whatever else is on offer. We just wanted to go and look, not partake of the tourist activities. This too was not part of the plan.

The friendly woman behind the counter had us summed up pretty smartly and suggested we go for a drive into the National Park. Cape Peron was just wonderful; from there you could often see dugongs, manta rays and sharks. The weather was closing in but if we went now, we should be back before the road closed.

Altering the air pressure

And so this is what we did in lieu of all the clever plans I had for the day. The entry to the park is just four kilometres from Denham, and then it is a further five to the Homestead, the Heritage Precinct. It is a “pay” park, however we have our annual pass and for that I am truly glad. At the end of the seal, the entry to the park wilderness, there is a tyre pressure station. Here are notice boards explaining in a variety of languages how you must reduce the air pressure in your tyres by 20 psi and how to get yourself out of the sand should you become stuck. In fact the “how to’s” about 4WD were quite comprehensive. Chris swatted up on that while we waited for our turn at the air pump.

Once deflated, we set off along about thirty kilometres of narrow apricot coloured sand track. A couple of times we met on-coming traffic, and one of us would find a pull off place that looked at least as firm as the road and allow the other through. The straight track traverses the rolling sand plains, once a 100,000 hectares sheep station, in recovery mode since 1990 when it was bought by the state government. Interesting only 52,500 of that area is included in the National Park; I am currently at a loss as to what happened to the rest, although I do know that most of modern Denham is on land that was once part of the station. Now the arid land is covered in low shrubs, dominated by desert-adapted acacias and it is hard to believe that there was ever edible grass, although more about that later. 

We headed for the top with the intention of calling into the side tracks if time allowed on the way back. After the narrow sandy track, often corrugated and creating a sleigh effect, we reached the first of the birridas. We crossed the clay flats enjoying the change of track surface, oblivious of that to come. The last eight kilometres was through deep soft sand, the sort you do not dare stop or even slow in, the sort that causes the vehicle to buck and bounce and the passenger to hang on for grim death.

Birridas on the Cape Peron peninsula

Arriving at the Cape Peron car park, Chris confessed to the driver in the vehicle next to us that he had not liked the sandy part of the track at all. I felt sorry that he had to do it all over again as we returned south, but said little, and was just very happy that it was he who was driving, not me.

It was evident from the cliff edge that the storm was on its way and we were concerned about the track conditions for the return, as well as being sand bogged. It had taken an hour to drive up and would surely take as long to return.

There is a walking trail of one and a half kilometres along the cliff top called the Wanamalu Trail, named for the colony of cormorants who gather on the shore and nest up on the cliffs in great numbers. Initially we thought the smell indicated a carcass close by, but then realised it was the stench of the nesting area. We decided that it was even worse than that emanating from seal colonies. We could see the lookout high on Skipjack Point but were concerned that it would take us too long to walk there and back, give our concern about the weather. It was those same conditions that made the sea too lumpy for us to detect any marine wonders swimming by.

We returned to the vehicle, and despite my suggestion we get back to the Homestead site and dine there, Chris was hungry. He needed to be comfortable and sated before attacking the challenge ahead, so we ate our sandwiches before heading off. Chris was not willing to delay our return by calling into Herald Bight or the camp sites at Gregories or Bottle Bay, nor the Big Lagoon further south. We came straight on down, re-inflated our tyres and parked up at the Heritage Precinct.

I did wonder whether my husband considered the two hour drive to see some smelly cormorants gathered on a beach, worth the effort. I thought better than ask him, but did have a counter comment to offer if he were to raise the issue. We had had a really interesting trip through country harbouring a wealth of hidden fauna: Banded Hare-wallabies, Western Barred Bandicoots, Western Blue Tongued Lizards, Spinifex Hopping Mice, Gould’s Goannas, Chudiches (or Western Quolls) and Malas, according to the officials from the National Park. All of these little creatures were new to me.

It is here that the old homestead of the Peron station stands, built only in the 1950s. Prior to that, the homestead and station buildings were in Denham. In the late 1940s the shearing operations were moved well away from the town because of problems with the shearers finding the pub too much of a distraction. Of course practicalities required that the homestead be relocated too and this very modest home today serves as temporary accommodation for rangers and volunteers.

The lease of the station was taken up in 1883, and by 1888, nearly all of the Peron Peninsula was under lease. The station’s fortunes fluctuated with the weather, wool prices and the availability of ground water. Thick scrub made mustering difficult, lambing was random and although the wool was of fine grade, it contained sand and twigs resulting in low prices.

In the 1950s and ‘60s stocking rates were at a peak, but then dropped off until the drought in the late 1970s. Marginal stations such as Peron were pushed over the edge in the 1990s with rising costs and dropping wool prices. I imagine the lease owner of the station thought all his Christmas’s had come at once when the government offered to take the station over and declare it a National Park.

Today we wandered around the presinct, well informed by interpretative panels, through a small natural history exhibit and around the station buildings, excluding the homestead. The water supply is provided by a 540 metre bore,  artesian water too salty for human consumption but apparently adaquate for watering stock. When free flowing, the bore produces 170,000 litres per day at a constant 40 degrees Centigrade. Today it is capped and used to fill a tub for recreational purposes. This stock trough-looking pool looked most unappealing to us, but not to the ten chaps who arrived soon after us also enjoying bottles of beer. I was glad that we were not going to meet them on that track north!

We wandered about the woolshed or rather, shearing shed, as it is called here. The corrugated iron clad shed reminded me of the woolshed of my early childhood, but that was about where the similarity ended. 

It was interesting to learn about the relationship between the sheep and this unattractive pastoral landscape. Because of the scrub, sheep could not be mustered in the normal way. Instead the sheep were trapped as they came to the watering points. Trapping the entire flock took up to three months after which the sheep were herded along 30 to 40 metre wide fence lanes to the holding pens we saw today. One laneway ran for about 40 kilometres from south of Monkey Mia, a two day trek for stockmen on horse back.

I was amused to see on one panel, that the holding yards, thatched with spinifex to protect the shorn sheep from sunstroke, also allowed them to recover from the trauma of being shorn. That is the first time I have ever read or heard such a sentiment declared. Maybe it was simply dreamed up by a touchy feely womble in an office somewhere?

We returned to Denham, now more familiar with it and its population of a mere 607 folk. The location was a centre for the pearling industry for many years however it was not until 1950 that a road was constructed into the settlement. This would account for the fact that the town seems relatively new and modern.

We parked up outside a real estate office and did our normal research at the advertisement window. Houses are surprisingly expensive, but then we have become accustomed to this in Western Australia. Everything is very expensive. We wandered along the waterfront, admiring a classic pearling cutter anchored out from the shore and noting the darkening skies.

Back at camp we decanted the diesel from the roof rack jetty cans into the main tank. We reckon that we will have no need for reserve fuel for a while as we move further into the populated areas of the state. Our new neighbours, Austrians travelling in a hired campervan, paused on their way back from the swimming pool and chatted until the skies began to open. Chris finished storing everything back on the roof in the pouring rain, however no sooner had he finished that the skies cleared once more, and the sun came out. Perhaps this was just the tip of the low passing further south, and all we will get?