I have been slowly making my way along the remote south-east cost of WA, stopping at many places along the way to enjoy a walk on the beaches here. There are a number of national parks on this coast that highlight the beauty of this wild area and they have pretty reasonable camping spots, too.
Because it is getting cooler, there are less people around, which is nice.
The days have been beautiful with clear sunny skies and temperatures into the low 20’s, which is glorious. However, as soon as the sun starts to sink towards the horizon, it cools down rapidly. And the nights are really, really cold!
I am thankful for the heater in the camper; it makes life much more pleasant, especially getting out of bed on a cold, cold morning!
Stoke National Park is on the south coast of WA. Skippy Rock is a remote campground right on the coast and requires a bit of a slip and slide down a sandy track to reach. I don’t know why it is called Skippy Rock, but often places here are named for past identities, so maybe ‘Skippy’ was once a local who fished at this place.
I found myself a nice camping spot, with a bit of shelter from the cool winds and settled in for a couple of days.
Waves crashed relentlessly on the rocky headland below my camping spot.
The headland gave me a fabulous view when I set myself up for my evening glass of wine (it is now too cold to enjoy a beer in the evenings), watching the sky turn pink and then purple as the sun set.
I saw these footprints in the sand, which show evidence of feral cats. Sadly, these animals decimate the native animals and are a major issue in the national parks here.
The surf was pretty wild, as the wind was blowing in from the south and kicking up some decent waves. These were eroding the beach, making it pretty hard to walk along, due to the steep slope of the sand.
A couple of times walking along the beach, I spotted dolphins swimming behind the waves, very close me. Unfortunately they refused to stay still long enough for me to get a decent photograph of them.
Foul Weather
Wow, what a change a day makes down here in southern WA. Because suddenly, overnight the weather turned totally foul. Howling wind and freezing rain blew in from the south and walking along any beach suddenly became a rather unpleasant experience!
It was really windy! I put my full wine glass down so I could take a photo of the threatening sky and the glass blew over. I was not happy!
