By Sam M · Jan 2, 2016
The Trip — Explore four of Western Australia’s eastern south coast national parks for new year
Duration — One week (7 nights)
Type of Trip— Camping, Hiking, 4x4, $$, Road Trip, National Parks
Mode of Transportation — 4x4
Cost — Roughly $200 per person for food and fuel and national park entry fees
Accommodation — Tent!
Food and drink — Three meals a day cooked on portable stove
This trip was a week long road trip over new year with two friends. We started in Perth, drove to Fitzgerald River National Park (East), and then spent the week driving east, through Stokes National Park, Cape Le Grand National Park and finally Cape Arid National Park. We camped a night or two in each one, and did our best to explore as many beaches and coves as possible. Also managed to squeeze in a couple of summit walks. From our last night in Cape Arid it was one long, long drive through the night back to Perth!
The national parks along WA’s south coast are all spectacular, beautiful and rugged. We wanted to do a trip to celebrate the new year where we wouldn’t see many other people along the way, and we certainly succeeded in achieving that! We also wanted to experience WA’s wilderness, so that meant camping in the bush with no facilities as many nights as possible. Well I suppose we did take a shovel, that counts as facilities, right?
The trip was a combination of four-wheel-driving, beaching and hiking, and we managed to do about an equal amount of each! The best hike was up Mt Arid in Cape Arid NP, the best 4x4ing was along whichever beach we came accross that day, and the best beaching was at Hellfire Cove — the water was clearer than what comes out of the tap!
The distances are just astronmical in WA, and in the course of one week we drove 2320kms! That’s probably a little bit too much driving for 7 days; it meant we had to do some driving every day. It would have been nice to stay in each spot for a little bit longer. Next time I would do the trip in reverse; drive straight to Cape Arid and work our way back West, closer to Perth. It would certainly leave a shorter drive home! I would also make sure we had at least 10 days to cover the same ground.
A trip to such remote locations required supply planning too — one day we got a bit low on food! But we made sure we never came close to running out of water or fuel.
Rate the overall trip — 8.5/10
Rate the activity on your trip — 10/10
Rate the ease of logistics — 7/10
Luxury factor — 2/10
Age
25
Gender
Male
My favourite trip as of late
Remote adventuring in the bush
I often travel…
To surf, scuba dive or hike
I would class myself as
An experienced traveller
I regularly go on the following types of trips
Camping, 4x4ing, surfing, wine tours
Continent I know the best
Australasia
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I’m from Perth, Western Australia
My favourite trip as of late is New Zealand, solo travel in lots of nature for a soul-refresher.
My travelling style is to Book the first night, then wing it from there!
It’s a dealbreaker when I’m stuck around large groups of package tourists.
Continent I know best is Asia.
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