TripRoundUnder

With our time in Geraldton at an end, we made our way up the coast, stopping at the fine establishment that is the Billabong Roadhouse Car Park. Aside from selling us a vanilla slice that was still frozen, it was a perfect spot for an overnight spot on our way up to Shark Bay.

We had booked 2 nights in Shelter Bay, known for being the gateway to Dirk Hartog Island and down the road from Steep Point, mainland Australia’s most Westerly point. What they don’t mention online was the quality of road into Shelter Bay. When I say it’s the worst road in Australia, it’s not totally hyperbole. Three hours of corrugation, pot holes and sand dunes make it a mission to get to, but we were up to the challenge and the views weren’t bad!

Arriving at Shelter Bay, we were excited to be back on the road and back into the camping lifestyle. We definitely got an insight into the Shark Bay lifestyle early on with a “friendly” tiger shark cruising the knee deep water by the beach, definitely making us second guess going for a swim and Steve’s thoughts of diving for some crayfish…

In classic Steve fashion, he decided that it was time for a fish down the other end of the beach off the rocks. In classic Steve fashion, he also decided to fall off said rocks into the sea, the same spot (mum skip this paragraph) he had seen a 2.5m tiger shark cruise through 10 minutes previously. Hope you listened and skipped this paragraph mum because he was also bleeding from multiple cuts on his legs and hands at the same time. In good news for blog readers, he survived this encounter and managed to limp back down the beach to the car. Given the lack of phone service, his efforts to contact Lauren via airdropping a ‘come help’ note were as predicted, unsuccessful. Nurse Lauren managed to patch him up and his fishing dreams were stifled for the time being.

Besides this, we enjoyed our time in Shelter Bay and slipping back into the troopy lifestyle. On our last day, we drove out to Steep point and took the required photo next to the ‘most westerly point sign’ and also marvelled at the migrating whales travelling just off the coast. Such a special sight!

We managed to survive the minefield of a road out of the area and started heading north to our next adventure!