2015/10 Australia trip - Capes Freycinet & Leeuwin |
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Monday October 19th
We were staying two nights at Conto’s Field as the other parks with campgrounds were too far away; this Capes area is a bit isolated. The plan was to take a drive through the Boranjup karri forest down to the south coast and Cape Leeuwin. However, as we drove out I noticed that the entry road continued to the west and thought we’d just take a quick look to see where it went. Three hours later we were still there.
The road led us to the Cape Freycinet area, great granite headlands and rock piles, crashing waves, and endless shrubs, some of them ablaze with flowers.
There were tracks leading to a half dozen beaches and overlooks. It was still cool and breezy and for the first two hours we had the whole area, miles of beaches, to ourselves.
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Cape Freycinet (3.24) |
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The Boranjup karri forest is a few miles south of Conto’s. The karri trees towered over us, some growing up to 250 feet, much taller than the tuarts.
They are very different from the kauri trees we saw on our trip to New Zealand, though we read a blurb there that suggested they were closely related. 
The Boranjup Road is gravel and winds through the forest. We thought that most of the traffic was going too fast for a scenic gravel road and we wanted to drive at orchid-spotting speed so we took the first opportunity to get off onto a 4wd track.
We had no idea where it went, but we had a GPS to help us out if we got lost. We 
putzed our way between the trees and over rocks for a couple of hours; at least we could stop and back up for a flower whenever we wanted. There were more orchids, some white clematis, and these glowing yellow shrubs.
Eventually we found our way out and headed south to Augusta and beyond it to the lighthouse at Cape Leeuwin, Australia’s most southwesterly point. The 
cape is where the Southern Ocean and Indian Ocean meet. The water all looks the same of course but there was a definite difference in the breezes from the warm Indian northwest and those from the Antarctic south.
The buildings to the right of the lighthouse are houses for the keepers and their families. Back in those days there was no road access so all personnel and supplies came in by sea. 
There were lots of pretty daisies around the grounds, South African immigrants I think.
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Cape Leeuwin (0.20) |
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Back at Conto’s Field the campground was almost empty when we returned, silent except for the kookaburras.