Hutt River

It's hard to complain about waking up with a beach view. After breakfast we drove further north. With Geraldton we arrived in the biggest town between Perth and Port Hedland. It has 15000 inhabitants and several supermarkets. We stocked up on mainly fresh food and bought an additional fly screen for our front car windows. Just in case.

After another hour of driving we arrived at the Hutt Lagoon, also called Pink Lake. The lake looked pretty dry with some areas having no water at all. So that was maybe slightly disappointing. However, instead we could see what looked like a salty crust in a light pink color. So that was also cool. From far the part of the lake with water didn't look that pink but going closer to its shore, that changed and we could indeed imagine that with a drone it would look very pink from above. Polarised sunglasses also have that effect though :)

It was 14:00 now which meant it was apparently a good time to see the lake as it is the pinkest when the sun is standing high. However that also meant it was very warm and we were pretty hungry for lunch. So we continued to Gregory, a village 1 km further right at the sea. Here we had lunch with a pretty view. Then we went to the - this time not free - campsite of the day: Linga Longa Farm Stay.

By now we felt like we had already gotten used to the amount of flies, and more importantly, the types of flies. You see, in Australia they have these bastards called bush flies. They're very different than the house flies in Europe, which are more interested in trash or food than in you. When they do buzz around you or land on you, it seems random. In Australia however these bush flies are definitely interested in you, and fly around your head as if they're orbiting a planet, before they inevitably land and do some further exploration on foot. Their favorite touristic hotspots are your ears, nostrils, and eyes.

When we got out of the van on the Linga Longa Farm Stay, we quickly noticed this place was a bit worse in that regard to the previous days. So many flies. The caretaker was giving us a tour of the campground, asking us lots of questions in the process. In the meantime we were walking around waving our arms around and answering her with our lips closed. I guess she is used to seeing that by now.

Thankfully we did know in advance that we'd find many of them here in Western Australia, so in Perth we bought some fly nets that we can put over our heads. Looks dumb, but it's effective. Inside the van it's also OK, even with all the doors open.

We enjoyed a lazy afternoon, Susanne had a walk to the local beach which looked a bit too wild and lonely to swim but had interesting red sand features, and explored a heritage site building on the camp ground when trying to watch the sunset which again was happening behind clouds.Lue lisää