Cervantes

Cervantes is a new town to the south of the more well known Jurian Bay. It provides an ideal home base for exploring the wildflowers at Lesueur NP and the Pinnacles at Nambung NP. There are also some great beaches in the area (especially Hangover Bay). And don’t forget the Lobster Shack.

We stayed at Cervantes on 14, 15, 16 Sept

Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia

Getting There

Geraldton > Cervantes ~ 223kms

History

First Nations

Yued (also spelt Juat, Yuat and Juet) is a region inhabited by the Yued people, one of the fourteen groups of Noongar First Nations people who have lived in the South West corner of WA for approximately 40,000 years.

There are a number of significant sites in the Yued region. These include caves, some of which are the homes of mythological beings, ceremonial sites, rock art, paintings and artefacts. This region is well known for the Moore River Native Settlement which was opened in the 1920’s under the auspices of the Chief Protector of Aborigines.

After colonisation, the number of fluent Yued speakers fell due to cultural assimilation policies which prevented Aboriginal people from practising their native language. As a result, contemporary Yued people speak a dialect of the English language with very few fluent Yued speakers left

Cervantes

The coastline around Cervantes had been known to Europeans since the 17th century – to Dutch and British sailors. In 1801 the French expedition led by Nicolas Thomas Baudin mapped and named much of the area. In early 1803 two ships – Le Geographe and the Casuarina – sailed up the coast of Western Australia mapping and collecting samples of the local fauna and flora as they progressed. The coast was explored by Phillip Parker King in 1817.

Cervantes takes its name from an American whaling ship which was wrecked off the coast in 1844. The Cervantes was anchored off Thirsty Point, the promontory which lies to the west of the town, when a gale blew the ship ashore on an island to the south of the point. The ship was not badly damaged but due to difficulty of repairs all the contents were sold on the site. The island was named Cervantes after the ship.

As recently as 1962 the Western Australian government removed 505 ha from the northwest corner of the Nambung National Park to establish a town. In 1963, the name Cervantes was given to the small township which developed.

Jurien Bay

The first settlement was established in the mid-1850s by Walter Padbury. A jetty was constructed in 1885–87 due to the success of pastoralism. In the early 1900s, a temporary fishing village was built around the Jurien jetty and the coastal waters were used for catching fish.

Permanent residences were only built in the 1950s; however the buildings were only corrugated iron shanties. Initially the settlement struggled to grow due to a poor and unreliable water supply and the isolation of the area at that time.

The townsite was surveyed and was gazetted as Jurien Bay in 1956. Crayfish (also known as Western Rock Lobster) are abundant in the area, and the town’s development soon became influenced by the crayfish industry.

New jetties, factories and an airstrip were constructed so that crayfish goods could be flown south to Perth. Cray-fishing has now become a multimillion-dollar industry, sending live products regularly to international customers.

Today, the town is experiencing a house building boom, as its population and popularity as a holiday destination grow.

Day 1 – 14 Sept – drive to Cervantes

Another cold windy day. The coast had proved relentlessly monotonous.

On our way south, we turned off at Dongara to have a look at this town as we had heard good things. But it was a disappointment – we saw little to interest us and the road through the main area was very narrow – we were beginning to wonder if we could turn around when we saw a sign back out to the Hwy. We did not hesitate.

Soon after we turned onto the Indian Ocean Drive, which hugs the coast although there are no views of the coast. Still, the pure white sand dunes we see occasionally are good. We saw some tracks out to the coast but with Mobi at the rear, we pushed on to Cervantes. The town actually looked sort of interesting, but it was all locked up – you couldn’t even walk up the road to view the buildings from the outside. To me, this seemed absolute stupidity – discouraging people from visiting before the official opening time of 8.30 (mon-Fri). The parking area also did not seem that RV-friendly.

We called in to Green Head, a nice town with a great beach, and a turquoise ocean. There is a large and small jetty we walked out onto.

We stayed at the RAC Cervantes Holiday Park which is a large park, with generally large sites. We had a good sized site which we could drive through, but there were a few trees that made that a bit tricky. But we got in fairly quickly. The facilities are pretty good. But here are a couple of RVs behind us with dogs that are allowed to run free.

While we appreciate that people want to travel with their dogs, the “rules” are quite clear – they must be on a lead. Not for the people in front of us… 2 yapping little things that were never tied up, and a large husky-looking dog that was, at least restrained. The poo deposits were unbelievable. I almost stepped in a huge pile, and pointed out to people to “be careful where you walk, there is a pile of dog poo that someone left”. When I walked back close by, after they had left the Park, it was still there…. THEIR BLOODY DOG FFS

We then went to explore the town, and quickly got to the Lobster Shack.

We were in time for a tour – these are available virtually all day at $5 a head (spoiler, there are no free samples). We went into the a room to watch a video on the enterprise and the lobster catching and export process – a good one. We then got an audio guide and were shown up to a platform that took us around the plant – only a short walk. There are 8 stations and at each you listened to the description. It worked well.

The main things we remember from the tour are:

▪ The West Rock Lobster is the most valuable single species fishery in Australia, worth up to $600M a year, a fifth of the total fishing industry

▪ Lobsters are graded only by size. The smallest, A Grade (most sought by Japan), are between 380 and 480 grams. The biggest H grade (most sought by China), are up to 2.5kgs

▪ To start the grading process lobsters are sedated using freezing cold water. Each is individually inspected – those missing more than 3 legs are set aside for other products

▪ There are 5 production lanes, one for each grade, which in total has a capacity of 20,000 live lobster, requiring 200 litres of water per second.

▪ The lobsters are kept in the lanes without food for a minimum of 3 days to purge them. This does not harm the lobster as nutrients in the sea water keep their nutrient intake up.

▪ The live lobsters are packed with pine timber shavings to keep them secure and undamaged and absorb any excess moisture. They can survive like this for over 30 hours. Not long to get them from here, to Perth, loaded on a plane and to a restaurant in Asia.

On the walk-around, one of the staff picked up a big lobster to show us up close and personal – it was about 2kg. Kerry was drooling. But I thought that one of the smaller ones would have been tastier. Pity about no samples.

From there we went to Lake Thetis, to see the Stromatolites. We had seen these living ancient life forms at Hamelin Pool at Shark Bay, so it was fascinating to see this again as they are so rare in the world. They seemed much more clear here as to what was rock and which were stromatolites – and there were information boards which helped as well, describing the damaged ones and the ones still growing, But it was unclear whether the damaged ones keep on growing.

We continued to the coast first stopping at the Hamsen Bay lookout, which had a number of interesting information panels on Indigenous life.

Hamsen Bay is lovely, although there is a fair amount of wrack around (the decaying sea weeds). We watched the birds for a good while. There were a few Sanderlings here – they are so tiny and move so quickly. Also so many larger birds, very pointy beaks – obviously fishing birds.

We tried to drive around the bay on a sandy track, but had to turn around and get onto firmer ground. Then we went to Thirsty Point. Another lovely beach but also with good views across to the islands.

It as a really good day and we retired early.

Day 2 – 15 Sept – Lesueur NP

We woke early – very windy and very cold. No wonder so many WA folk rush north for winter. It as only a few weeks ago we were snorkelling. It seems totally surreal that we were snorkelling just a couple of weeks ago quite comfortably.

We went to Jurian Bay to check that out before heading out to the NP. But on the way, we spied a track to our left out to the beach – an unnamed beach. A lovely unnamed beach. The colour of the water was brilliant. If it only was not so cold.

Kerry was walking the beach as usual, and picked up a cuttlefish backbone. She turned it over and written on the other side was “Dax”, which happens to be the name of our grandson. An unusual name. Serendipity.

Jurien Bay is an impressive new town and is clearly a great escape point for Perth people. There is an excellent waterfront, a lovely beach and a curved modern jetty out into the bay. There are also some very modern housing developments – big houses, and good shopping. We could quite happily spend a few weeks there.

Lesueur NP is only about 30km from Jurien Bay. There is a good bitumen road to the turnoff to the NP (which is along the east-west connecting road to the Brand Hwy), then a good dirt road (Cockleshell Gully Road) to the start of the one-way drive around the Park.

The 18.5km Lesueur Scenic Drive traverses one of the most scenic parts of the park and takes you past Mount Lesueur and Cockleshell Gully. The road is bitumen with many stopping off points to look at the wildflowers. But remember that it is a one way road. Made it easier for stopping to look at all the flowers, at least you only had cars coming behind you, not both ways.

The Park covers 26,987 hectares and is recognised for its outstanding conservation, landscape and recreational importance. It is home to over 900 plant species – 10% of Western Australia’s known flora. .

It was not long before we were stopping for a look. The flowers here are more what I always think of as native flowers – kangaroo paws in profusion, grevilleas etc not the “everlastings” variety we saw in such profusion up north. There were also so many sun-dews, fastened tightly to the ground looking very enticing to insects I’m sure.

Then Kerry spied a brilliantly coloured kangaroo paw we had not seen before. Just gorgeous.

More stops, more flowers. It is great to see so many bees on the flowers – see last photo below. Many native bees as well as the common honey bees.

We got to Drummonds where there are walking trails. The very short Botanical Path (400m return) is a sealed track to the Ian Wilson lookout. Interpretive signs along the way are meant to explain the biology and traditional uses of some of the plant species, but most are sun damaged and impossible to read.

The Mount Lesueur Trail is 4km return but goes to the top of Mount Lesueur. You follow the Botanical Path to the shoe scrubbing station, where you clean your shoes before you go in. The trail leads towards the almost flat-topped Mount Lesueur. The first section to a lookout, about a kilometre, is flat, before a steeper rocky section to the summit. I did not get to the summit and take their word for it that there are spectacular views to the south, east and west.

I did the walk to the lookout, Kerry remained at the carpark, flower spotting. it was an easy walk with lots of flowers to look at.

At the lookout, I was surprised to see how high up we were.

We continued around the Scenic drive to Cockleshell Gully, with more stops on the way.

At Cockleshell Gully we were disappointed to find that this was closed. Apparently they are doing a new interpretative walk, but everything else there was shut. As the sign said that the walk was to be completed by 2016, we wondered if it every would be. On the bright orange barricades, there were a few brilliantly coloured beetles. I assume they fancied the bright orange and were trying to mate with it. I have no idea what the beetles were, but they were a very iridescent tan colour and very persistent.

On the way back out on the dirt road Kerry spied a couple of what may be stumpy lizard, crossing the road. So we stopped to investigate. There were two poor little ones crossing the road – with cars zooming by regularly. I stopped and tried to encourage one to cross the road more quickly. He glared at me and stuck his big purple tongue out. Des also tried to encourage it to move on, but his shoe got clamped on to very quickly. I ended up getting the level for this little beauty to latch on to as I moved it out of trouble.

We returned to Jurien Bay, then Cervantis, to try to warm up a bit. The new aircon does a good job.

To see photos from Lesueur NP, click here. This is also covered in our video – click here

Day 3 – 16 Sept – Nambung NP (the Pinnacles)

We awoke to sunshine and no wind – what a great, and unusual, start to the day. We went to the Pinnacles – thousands of limestone pillars rising from the shifting yellow sands of the Pinnacles Desert, resembling a landscape from a science fiction film. (Star Wars comes to mind)

But first on the short drive from Cervantes, we took a right turn to the track out to Kangaroo Point – only a couple of km to the car park. Guess what – this is a beautiful beach inside the outer reef. This would be a good place for a swim in much warmer weather. We also saw lots of tiny flattish snails on the coastal plants eating away, as well as some tiny pointed cone shells also eating the plants.

We are soon at the entry point to the Pinnacles – we have a yearly NP pass, and the woman on entry duty gave us the map and explained the drive and walk options. We started on the 4km drive around (one way system). We very quickly stopped for out first look around. These are not giant pillars like we saw at the Southern Lost City at Limmen NP in the NT, but are a max of about 4m tall. But there are thousands of them and they look so striking against the yellow deserts sands. There were signs everywhere asking people to not climb or stand on these limestone “lumps”. A few minutes after we drove in, we were out of the car, taking photos, then Des spotted one absolute nincompoop (an Asian tourist) standing on top of one. I told the bloke “Can you not read? Get off that and respect this place”. He glared, but hopped down immediately… there were lots of those embarrassed giggles from his feral pack of friends.

We moved around to another spot. We stopped at each for a good while and walked the area.

The Desert View Lookout is great with views in many directions. Near there is a hill with so many pinnacles, and great views to the contrasting white sands of the surrounding lands and across to the sea.

More stopping points.

To see photos at the Pinnacles, click here. This is also covered in our video – click here

Back at the entry area we decided that we had actually done most of the walk at our stopping points, so did not do that. We went to the interpretative centre, which was very good. It explained what the pinnacles are and how they were formed. The first mention of the Pinnacles Desert was in about 1934, yet the area remained pretty much unknown until the 1960s when people started to travel more. The area was added to the NP in 1968.

The Pinnacles are limestone and are geologically very young. Scientists still do not know how they were created. They are believed to have formed underground possible up to 500,000 years ago. They may have been buried until a few hundred years ago, or gone through a sequence of exposure and burial under shifting sands. They just do not know.

As in many places, there is a display that shows again how appallingly the early settlers treated the First Nations people. In particular the Moore River settlement – established in 1916 to “absorb natives”. This continued as the official centre for government segregation policies up to the late 1940s. The mission coaxed Aboriginal people to eat and work with the monks and encouraged them to send their children to the mission school. Later the mission’s role changed to that of a refuge to implement policies of assimilation. These sought to “breed out” the Aboriginality of lighter skinned people and to maintain segregation, which aimed to keep First Nations people away from white society. So terrible.

Leaving the Pinnacles, we went back down to the the Indian Ocean Drive and turned south for a few hundred meters before turning off to go to Hangover Bay. This is only a short drive to the ocean on a sealed road, with very large parking areas and great facilities at the car park. And what a beach this is – the only disappointment is that the wind had picked up again, 30-40kms BOM tells us. It is freezing.

It really is a lovely beach with a lagoon protected by the reef, and it even has its own little island. And the colours are sensational – very reminiscent of Shark Bay and further north. It would be brilliant for snorkelling in half decent weather. Top spot. Bet there were quite a few oysters on that rock too.