Unfortunately the weather turned over night so we just hung
out the following morning and then went back to the National Park in the
afternoon. It was still overcast and
drizzly but we really wanted to see Frenchman’s Peak and Hellfire Bay. On the way there we got our first windscreen stone chip of
the trip (I’m sure it won’t be the last).
Frenchman’s Peak is a much harder climb than we anticipated
and we loved it. Ben scampered up over
the steep rocks like a little monkey, insisting on taking the lead and finding
the trail markers. It was pretty hard
going and there were parts where one slip would have led to a big slide off the
edge so we strategically placed ourselves between Ben and the edge all the way
up. As we reached the top, the winds
picked up again and it started blowing pretty hard, with some rain droplets
starting to fall so we took in the views and headed back down again, keen to
avoid the added slipperiness that we would face when the rocks got wet.
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| The intrepid climbers half way up Frenchman's Peak |
As with the other Cape le Grand beaches, Hellfire Bay is
beautiful and has its own unique characteristics that help differentiate it
from all the other gorgeous beaches in the area. It is much smaller and has a huge rock on
one side as you enter the beach. The
cove is smaller than the other beaches but the sand and water is just as
divine. The blustery, cool weather meant
that the beach was deserted and it was too cold for us to swim so took in the
sights and headed home.
Wave Rock
We carried on to Ravensthorpe and set up in a rustic bushy caravan
park before making the 2 hour drive North to Wave Rock. It’s an amazing rock formation and Ben ran up
and down the ‘wave’ pretending he was on his bike at a skate park. We saw people above us on top of the rock so
we climbed up to the top, found a fence and realised we probably shouldn’t have
climbed up to the top. Apparently there
is a walking trail… Luckily the fence was low enough for us to casually climb
over while no-one was looking so there was no harm done.
The visitor centre at Wave Rock is pretty cool and also has
a vintage car, dinosaur display, giant cuddly kangaroo and animal farm. The staff seemed harried – with our barista
being lovely to us and then biting the head off another customer who dared
interrupt her. We felt lucky to get her
good side.
Ben loved Wave Rock but was truly ecstatic when we went to
Hippo’s Yawn, which is a nearby cave. He
climbed through and up until we couldn’t fit in the passage after him and had
to call him back. He only came out when
we told him we were going to another cave nearby that had ancient Aboriginal
hand paintings in it. That cave was
called Mulka’s Cave and it is covered with hundreds of red handprints. None of it is cordoned off and we were very
happy and surprised to see that it hadn’t been graffitied or damaged in any
way. Ben took a brief look at the paint
and headed straight for a passage leading up and out the back of the cave into
the forest. We followed and ended up on
top of the cave with a great view of the surrounding land. Previous visitors had built rock cairns up
there and Ben added one of his own there too.
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