Day 11

We had to get up early so we could take the car to the mechanic for the service at 8am sharp so that it could be worked on first and we could get away as soon as possible.

The service shop was very accommodating, to be able to fit us in at such short notice (they were willing to do it the afternoon that I booked it), prioritise the job and get us mobile again.  When we dropped it off they even offered us a lift up the street so we didn't have to hang around the workshop for an hour or so while they worked on it.

We chose to have a second breakfast at Dome cafe... mmm belgian waffles with icecream and stawberries.  The time was supposed to allow me to catch up on these blogs, but instead I spent the entire time troubleshooting the blogger app on our tablet.  I'm still several days behind (writing this on the morning of day 13)... it's a bit hard to publish the blogs when the tablet needs to be connected to a decent internet connection (i.e. good phone reception) and the application is buggy and only works half the time.

Soon enough the guy from the workshop was back to pick us up and we were on our way.  He was a nice enough man and we had a good chat about Esperance and what it's like to live there, what there is to see and do around the town, and some of the local news.  I mentioned the railway derailment we saw the day before and he said that happened because they had a heap of rain which flooded the track!  I mentioned that we intended to drive out to Israelite Bay to camp a couple of nights and he said that his mate did it a couple of weeks ago.  He said his mate said "You can choose to get your wheels a bit wet, or you can choose to get your whole car covered in mud", and that basically there's always a deviation route around the big bog holes.  That gave me some confidence that we'd be able to make it. 

At the service mechanic's recommendation we did the tourist loop around Esperance in the morning while the sun was still shining.  The coastline with the beaches and the islands just offshore is pretty stunning - it looks just as good on the ground as it does from the air in a A330 flying between Melbourne and Perth (which was the catalyst for me choosing to explore this area).

After completing the tourist loop we stopped one last time in Esperance to utilise the phone reception - Morgs had to download a book for her Kindle.  At least she wasn't delaying the trip so she could update Candy Crush on her phone again.

So we headed out Fisheries Road to make our way out to Israelite Bay.  I believed the drive would take about 4 hours and we were leaving Esperance about 11:30.  On the edge of town there's a sign explaining which roads are closed - apparently all of the tracks (and therefore campsites) at the southern end of Cape Arid NP were all closed.  That was news for me because those southern camps around Poisons Creek, Thomas Fisheries Camp and Tagon Bay were my backup camps if we couldn't make it to Israelite Bay/Port Malcolm.  For a couple of months before this trip, and a couple of times during the trip I had been watching the Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) website about park or road closures for the areas we'll be visiting and I never saw any notification about Cape Arid being closed.  After seeing the sign  on the road I checked the DPaW website again and there's still no notification that the park is closed.
There were two phone numbers at the bottom of the sign, which I thought I'd call up for more information (as it suggests); The Shire of Esperance and the Cape Arid Ranger. The phone number for the Shire of Esperance went through to a fax machine.  The phone number for the Cape Arid Ranger went through to a message machine.  Not very helpful considering this sign is for people about to head into the park!!!  We don't really have time to leave a message and wait for someone to ring us back when we're sitting on the side of the road with the engine idling.

So we continued along Fisheries Road anyway past Condingup.  We had noticed there were many unofficial bodies of water everywhere; sides of the roads, in the paddocks and crops.  They ranged in size from large puddles to small lakes, and it was quite evident that this area had copped a lot of rain just recently.  There was even a section of road that was completely covered in water - maybe 6-10 inches deep at it's shallowest point on the road.  The water stank too, so it had also been sitting there a while.

Just past the end of the bitumen we saw some black birds that did not have straight beaks; they must be PARROTS!  Sure enough we identified them as Short Billed Black Cockatoos, or Carnaby's Cockatoos (another name for them).  We thought we'd have to go into the National Parks to find them, but here they were on the side of the road.  They weren't too concerned by us being there and there were even a couple in a low tree about 10m away from Morgs, who was snapping away furiously.  We've got lots more photos of black cockies to go with our extensive collection taken from Laura Homestead on the Cape York trip.

Heading further east we could see that parts of Fisheries Road were becoming damaged by the water crossing the road.  Some puddles flowing across the road weren't a problem, but others could only be taken at a crawling pace in first gear, which mandated that all of the unofficial water crossings should be approached at about 25km/h instead of 80.

We got to the end of the formed dirt road and the start of the track to Israelite Bay, still called Fisheries Road, which is on the boundary of Cape Arid National Park.  This track was open to 4WD only, according to the sign back at Esperance, but the main track was covered in water for about 75m and the side track was covered in water for about 100m!  We got out to assess the situation. 

I walked the first 200-300m into the track to discover that at least 50% of the track was covered in water and that from what I could see in the distance it just continued.  This wasn't matching up with the 2nd had report that "you can choose to just get your wheels wet".  The water was dark, but the bottom looked hard and sandy, but who knows how deep the water got and what nasties (sticks) lies beneath. 

Descriptions of the track were that there are holes big enough to swallow vehicles and that there's usually side tracks around those holes, but when the main track and the side track have at least 30cm of dark murky water and who-knows how deep, we decided it wasn't worth the risk in persuing this track and that Cape Arid National Park was going to have to be explored on another trip when it's warmer and drier.
Heading back west, about 500m from the national park boundary we noticed we had a couple of bars of reception, so we tried calling the Park Ranger again - still no answer.  So we called the Shire and asked to be put onto the rangers - success this time!  We asked them about track conditions of Fisheries Road along the Cape Arid NP through to Israelite Bay, and the response: "Gee, uh, I don't know.  It's been that long since I've been up through that way".  I don't even know if the ranger we were speaking to worked in the Cape Arid section.  They advised us to call the Department of Parks and Wildlife, which we did.

The lady from DPaW that we spoke to said "Yeah, we've had a lot of rain recently" (we've figured that already) "and the entire Cape Arid National Park is closed".
"Really?", was my response.  "The sign on the side of the road outside Esperance suggests that only the southern parts of the park are closed and that the roads on the northern side, including Fisheries Road, are open to 4WD only".
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not sure about that."
"How long do you think the park will be closed for?"
"We will be reassessing it this Friday", today being Tuesday.
"Hmmm, I doubt it will dry out by this Friday.  We might head towards a different park instead".

We tried to access Merrivale Road, which runs parallel south of Fisheries Road, to get to Duke of Orleans Bay.  The first 200m of Merrivale road was completely churned up and muddy as all hell.  We got through that section and then shortly after the quagmire road continued.  We turned aroud, being careful not to slip into the drains on the side of the road, back through the slosh.  Following my freshly dug wheel tracks helped a bit but there were a couple of moments we were sliding towards the drain.

So, back onto Fisheries Road again, watching out for the first-gear crawl ditches that were being erroded into the track.

Why were these roads still open to the public???

We made it to the Orleans Bay Caravan Park and greeted by the friendly character running the joint.  A pretty little spot, which gets packed out in summer.  We chose to stay for one night, with the option of a second so that we can have time to explore the area.