A Feast Of Fossicking @ Yalgoo

On the surface, Yalgoo just could be one of those blips on the map to be driven past. At a rate of knots. During our time there, the main street wasn't been exactly jumping with activity. In fact, cannon firing could be practised with impunity.  There was one hill of substance from which we perused the surroundings. There was an interesting trail of historical landmarks with useful interpretive panels, as the original buildings were either entirely absent, behind wire or not particularly attractive. The exceptions were St Hyacinth's Chapel and the Museum. Both can be visited with local Tourism Guide to the Stars Helen, who also efficiently runs the beautiful Yalgoo Caravan Park.

A mecca for travellers passing through or a fabulous central location for exploring the surroundings for a day or two or for those into serious fossicking, Yalgoo is manna from heaven. Following Trevor and Ray's heroic efforts to obtain us some diesel, we felt slightly obliged to stay another night. Given Ray's disclosure of the tip's location, the decision to stay two more nights happened without any hesitation.

Along with the Cue and Marble Bar old tips, Yalgoo's tip is fossickers' paradise. I tried to capture the magic of the surroundings, but for the uninitiated or the uninterested, the landscape resembles a not-terribly-exciting mix of red dirt, scattered scrub and a seemingly endless horizon of rusty metal.

Until walking amongst the relics of a bygone era. Sturdy boots and jeans, leather gloves, sensible hat sprayed with insect repellent to keep the pesky flies at bay and a pair of keen eyes scanning at the slowest of paces can reward the enthusiast with treasure.

Michael and I usually do not fossick together. We tend to be focused on different goals. Shape and usability are as important to him as are the stories he creates in his mind. I have become very choosy and an item really needs to speak to me before I tuck it into a bag or my pocket.  We also often lose hours in these adventures into the past.

The canopy of Lily's ute became so jam-packed that we were forced to engage in some serious rearrangement. The piece-de-resistance of my experience was a slightly odd-shaped wagon wheel that I could not resist. This entailed a great deal of swearing and grunting as we endeavoured to manouvre it over the tractor grill (see Marble Bar) and heave it diagonally into position so we could close the back of the ute. We were eventually exhausted but triumphant.

Yalgoo was also a place where other slightly left of centre travellers congregated. The prospectors, the bottle collectors, the semi-precious stone hunters, the fossickers like us, the outback dreamers. We met Catherine who only uses wood for her spoons, spurtles, shawl pins and decorative pieces. Bev and Bill, travelling in a converted school bus creating exquisite jewellery from stones, crystals, metal and wood. There are stories to share, drinks to be enjoyed and the Gascoyne sunsets to savour.

Then there was the unexpected. Walking to chat with Bev and Bill on our last evening, I could have sworn that I heard a chorus of bleating. Stopping to listen, I then viewed the culprits. A white goat with her black baby had somehow breached the barrier fencing and ended up inside the caravan park. Or perhaps they happened upon a handy pole-vault and sailed over the top to check if the grass was really greener on the other side.

Anyway, I think Helen and Ray were somewhat disbelieving of my assertion that there were a couple of goats inside the caravan park. Ray's quiet Sunday evening was a tad disturbed. Anyway, once he ascertained the truth, he and a bunch of impromptu goatherds persuaded the slightly indignant goats to leave the premises. Stella would have loved to have helped...

We left Yalgoo yesterday morning, rather reluctantly. However, we were on our eastwards quest towards the Agnew Loop. The weather was warming, the sun was glorious and all roads were open. But first of all, a night at the Alice Atkinson Caravan Park was on our agenda...

Remains of a chook pen - Yalgoo outskirts...

Then there are the utterly unexpected wildflowers -

Emerald Hotel ruins with St Hyacinth's in the background...

Next door to the Emerald Hotel!

Where to begin?!

Lily's boot after repacking...

With Stella...

Yalgoo Sunday afternoon - 

Yalgoo Caravan Park images -

Farewell, Helen and Ray. Until next time!

Yonder To Yalgoo!

We actually left Shark Bay rather gratefully. Tourist season was in full swing, so
Denham was jumping for the entirety of our stay.  We appreciated the location, the permanent residents and the facilities but found the wind, the sand and the crowded venues rather difficult. Methinks that the Beverley Hillbillies are definitely becoming Grumpy Old Farts.

We headed out the Shark Bay World Heritage Area and turned south on the North West Coastal Highway. We had bought excellent sandwiches and cakes at the Denham Bakery and stopped for great coffee at the Billabong Roadhouse. The wind dropped, the country was changing and the sandiness was being replaced by the more familiar terracotta hues.

We drove on into the afternoon, stopping at Galena Bridge free camp for the night. The landscape was supporting eucalyptus and open ground with tantalising snippets of wildflowers. On the banks of the flowing and picturesque Murchison River, we parked Digger and Lily away from other vans in a secluded spot. We enjoyed a lazy walk along the river and sat in the late afternoon sun.

With the onset of darkness, the last piece of the jigsaw concerning our caravan's dodgy power issues was revealed. The rooftop solar panels work beautifully during the day when the sun is shining. But the batteries which are supposed to store all that yummy sunny energy... don't. Come night, all turns black, including the inside of our caravan. Which we can accommodate with the addition of a few more portable lights and a biggish water container for plein air dishwashing. We just didn't quite have these items whilst camping at Galena Bridge. That will have to wait for Jamie and Cora's excellent Murchison Hardware in Mt Magnet.

Come the morning, we continued south to Northhampton, before finally turning eastwards. The northeastern Wheatbelt consisted of mammoth open pastures of canola, wheat and other grains. Thanks to some decent rains, these more marginal parts were looking forward to decent returns on their yearly gamble. And then, quite suddenly, we left the monoculture of the Wheatbelt into the  Northern Goldfields.

Our destination was Yalgoo, which was a tiny blip of a settlement I'd never visited. We sailed through Mullewa without stopping for fuel. I was driving and was confident we had enough diesel to make Yalgoo. Unfortunately, that was not quite the case, with the fuel light making its presence felt about thirty kilometres out of our goal.

We used our precious twenty-five-litre jerrycan to continue onwards. We arrived at the very pretty Yalgoo Caravan Park in the late afternoon. Michael's memories of Yalgoo from a very long time ago had not been complimentary and I'd almost had to bully him to come back. Upon turning into Gibbons Street, and then into the caravan park, his bad attitude immediately somersaulted. We had arrived at an absolute gem.

Helen and Ray, who run the caravan park are hosts of sparkling rammed earth bathrooms, a comprehensive and sheltered campers' kitchen, beautiful shade trees, reticulated gardens, a central grassed washing line, boundary fencing, a sizable firepit and extensive tourism information and excursions to local historic sites.

As pensioners, the tariff was twenty-two dollars for a powered site. We initially booked for two nights, as we needed to catch up on clothes washing and general tidying of Digger. We enjoyed a relaxed pace on our first day tackling three loads of washing, shaking out our bedding and cleaning the caravan from head to toe.

On our second day, we decided to cruise around the town, visited the lookout and engaged in a touch of fossicking on the slope opposite the original canvas hospital. As a low-key Friday afternoon wore on, we headed for the self-service fuel station on the main road. We needed diesel before we left. A couple were already there attempting to follow the instructions to fill their vehicle. The automated system was refusing to play ball. The helpline assured us a technician was on the way.

We were suspicious.  Where was the technician coming from? How long until the technician arrived?  In our unease, we drove up to the Shire office to ask for assistance. The Shire was aware of the problem and awaiting a call from the fuel distributor. We asked if we could get some fuel from the Shire. Reception pointed us in the direction of Shire worker Trevor. He tried to contact the CEO for classification if we could have some fuel from the Shire Depot. With no success.

Meanwhile, Yalgoo was becoming a bit less attractive. The pub was closed due to COVID19, the General Store was closed as their owners had gone to Perth and we had no idea if or where or when we could get fuel to travel on to Mt Magnet.

Trevor, bless his cotton socks, was the Shire gardener, but was doing all he could to solve the fuel issue. He promised he'd come to the caravan park with a solution before evening. He was as good as his word, pointing us in the direction of Ray, in his other role of Shire Depot Supervisor.

An hour later, Ray had pumped an extra twenty-five litres of diesel into Lily. Our faith in Yalgoo was restored back to five stars. And then Ray mentioned the location of the old Yalgoo tip to Michael.

There was suddenly no way we were leaving the following morning...

Shark Bay wildflower carpets -

Murchison River at Galena Bridge -

Local historic attraction near Galena Bridge...

Into the Wheatbelt once more -

Yalgoo lookout information...

Michael in fossicking mode on the slope below the lookout and opposite the original tent hospital...

Further historic information.

Sometimes Stormy Shark Bay...

Our last morning epitomised the flavour of our stay in Denham. Beautiful, if somewhat chilly dawn, a calm sea, and a leash-free beach at the base of the caravan park with myriad smells and sights. Stella and Pip, let off the lead and joyfully careering around, approached an older man with two Boston (or similar) Terriers, both tethered. He stiffened and tightened his grip so I approached to haul away an enthusiastically hyper-excited Stella.

"She's friendly"...
"They're all friendly until they attack..."
"You know you this is a dog-friendly beach and you could let them off..."
"They'd tear your dog limb from limb. That's their immediate form of defence now...to attack..."

So why did this irritable (and deaf, so I had to repeat myself) old codger bring his unhappy dogs onto a beach that allows for leash-free play? He could have walked them anywhere. The foreshore has a lovely path, a beautiful outlook and a fascinating history. This I know because we have walked the length of the foreshore ourselves. He chose to come to the beach instead and dampen the spirits of other dogs and owners. His sense of entitlement overrode all others on the beach and damned the torpedoes...

 And that is another contradiction that has tempered our stay here in Denham. Glorious location with several caravan parks. We chose to stay at Denham Seaside, primarily due to the lure of the dog beach. Although there were lots of guests, the sites were roomy, the facilities were excellent and the owners, the Johnson family had the reputation of Mandalay in Busselton, prior to taking ownership of this park in Denham.

What the staff and management couldn't control was behaviour. The grumpy old git on the beach. Fish waste being chucked on the ground instead of being taken away. Badly behaved children throwing sand. Parents who were too apathetic to check the rules of the playground equipment. Maybe I'm over popular locations.

And due to its popularity, Denham Seaside was expensive. As was the local IGA, which was crowded with absolutely no social distancing measures. I understand that transport coats add to prices but a dollar and fifty cents more for each litre of lactose-free milk seemed a bit rich to me. On the upside, the local Cellarbrations liquor outlet offered similar prices to elsewhere and Kellee sang the praises of Denham as a local.

The Shark Bay Cafe was wonderful with attentive and welcoming staff, great food and coffee, reasonable prices and a sunny courtyard where the dogs were treated as well as their human companions.

Of the two pubs in town, we bought beer and wine from one and allowed ourselves a glass of wine each at the other. Nine dollars for a standard glass of ho-hum vino was a tad steep, even though the beer garden was pleasant.

Yet the Discovery Centre and its displays were stunning. We watched "Fire On The Water", an absolutely brilliant documentary on the sinking of the Sydney and Kormoran. Using only narrative and stills of the wrecks, this feature was so much more powerful than if they had shown a recreation of the battle. Be warned - the final view of random boots of the seafloor took my breath away.

The Little Shop, run by Mahalia, an elderly lady who also provides weather information, was another delight to visit. We spent a very pleasant half-hour there, buying Immy's Christmas gift and chatting about her life in Shark Bay. We were later amused by the lack of minimum temperature reports on the official weather channels. I suspect Mahalia doesn't often rise early enough to read the thermometer!

We also thoroughly enjoyed Little Lagoon, three kilometres out of town, which provided us with a magical (and leash-free) playground for both the dogs and us. Connected to the ocean by a narrow channel, Little Lagoon has still and shallow water, good fishing, covered BBQs and loos, sandy shores and plenty of room for everybody, both on two or four legs.

Denham is a fabulous holiday destination, a long way from anywhere. We had a spectacular site overlooking Shark Bay across to Dirk Hartog Island and even Useless Loop's giant salt pile. The sea's changing hues provided us with a beautiful vista.

Even so, we were not sorry to leave. We found that the constant wind was a trial. Lighting around the caravan park and to the beach was not sufficient for me to feel entirely sure-footed. Plus, we still had to walk down slopes and stairs to access the beach, difficult after dark.

I'm really glad I took Michael to Shark Bay. In spite of being born in Perth, he had never been to this particular part of Western Australia. Thank you, Denham, for the memories.

Mahalia in her Little Shop...

The Little Shop's location...

Sydney Memorial of all six hundred and forty-five men who died...

Pearl lugger...

Tourism information...

Waterfront sculpture...

The Old Pearler Restaurant constructed from local shell...

Ahoy, me hearties...

Denham foreshore...

A glorious afternoon...

The navigatable channel from the boat ramp...

Sunset...

Lazy landlubbers!

Michael at Little Lagoon - 

Little Lagoon images -

Still life of channel and anchor...

Happy as Larry!

Last Denham sunset.