Managed to get away for a few days before the kids went back to school - some photos are on my trip on tripigy.com:
https://www.tripigy.com/user/shanegtr/trips/656719fa-109f-40b3-b137-905ace2de6ad
Below is a copy and paste of my daily notes.
MONDAY, 25 JANUARY 2016
Day 1: no surprise that we found sandy point completely chockers. We continued to held north for billy goat bay but missed the turn off. We continued on north on the Indian Ocean drive on an unplanned route looking for coastal campsites. Inspected cliff head but it was reasonable full, on two clear spots available with no shade. Ended up backtracking to lake indoon to find a basically empty campground. Nice and shady campsites, clear enough around for the kids to play. Should be suitable for the next couple of days. Arrived here late, around 7pm so by the time the camper was setup its was a late dinner. Get the kids showered and in bed. Caleb decides we wants to muck around. After several warnings he's put into the car by himself to settle down. After a bourbon for me to chill out I decide to check on him only to be greeted to a car full of vomit, great! Clean that up and time to do the dinner dishes.
TUESDAY, 26 JANUARY 2016
Day 2: well that was an eventful night. Spent half the night cleaning up vomit. This morning we find there's a beehive nearby so there are no shortage of bees flying around. Now the job of finding somewhere to get the laundry done.
Laundromat was found in Jurien bay thankfully and that made light work of the vomit incrusted sleeping bags, towels, clothes etc......
Had some tasty salad rolls for lunch and decided to head back to sandy point to inspect for any potential campsites. There's plenty outside of the main campground to the south (took the south track at the information bay). It's not real clear if camping is allowed outside of the main campgrounds so we decided not to move camp.
Headed back to indoon lake and decided due to a bee's hive directly above our camper to move sites to another. Unfortunately it didn't really seem to make a difference to the amount of bees hanging around the camp. Seems that there are plenty of them here, guess they don't call the sorrounding area beekeepers nature reserve for nothing.
WEDNSDAY, 27 JANUARY 2016
No moving camp on the cards today! A visit to nambung NP was in order today to see the pinnacles. A slightly overcast morning should hopefully make for some interesting contrast in the photos. Return north run included a trip into Cervantes to have a look around the town, then onto Jurien bay for some lunch in the park. The afternoon was spent at the beach where kids had a play in the sand and in the water. A quick stop at the servo in enneaba for some ice creams before heading back to camp was in order
THURSDAY, 28 JANUARY 2016
First up for the day was a run to stockman gulley cave. Access track from the north is only 4km away from indoon lake. (Note that both tracks from the north and south are not sign posted in any regard about the cave). Then another 8km down a track with a mixture of sand and limestone rock. The cave itself is around 100-200m walk from the carpark which has excellent and shady picnic tables. Torches are a must to take into the cave as its around 300m long and is pitch black once inside. The cave itself is part of a river/creek that forms a gulley, there is also another cave to the right as you walk into the gulley, however it's railed off to prevent entry. For a hot day it's certainly a recommended thing to do as the temp is very cool inside and could be compared to walking into an air conditioned room!
We took the southern access track out of the cave NP, it's much quicker to get back to the bitumen this way, but the northern track is much more scenic, especially if you like the native bush. A quick fuel stop in Leeman was in order (10c per litre cheaper compared to Jurien bay), then we headed back to Jurien bay for fish and chips lunch.
The after lunch plan was to get in some fishing, however I soon realised I'd left the tackle boxes at the camp. We done a quick stop at the tackle shop for some hooks, sinkers and bait. But by this stage the wind had picked up a fair bit and any time at the beach was bound to be unpleasant. We decided to call of the fishing for the day and attempt it after breakfast.
So we started inspecting the coast for suitable spots we both the kids can play on the beach, will be good for fishing and the dog is welcome. Suitable location found at point Louise just north of greenhead, so that will be the location of choose tomorrow.
A quick stop in Leeman on the way home for ice creams and the day was done
FRIDAY, 29 JANUARY 2016
Fairly relaxing last day until the end. Lazed around all morning at the beach (point Louise just north of green head). It was a hot day so the kids spent most of the morning in the water playing and fishing. Only one small fish was caught by me. Had lunch at the beach and then decided to have a drive to lesuer national park to get out of the sun and heat for a bit and also to let the younger two kids have a sleep. Lesueur park was fantastic, nice windy road through the bush, very scenic. Once that was done it was time to amble back to camp. I decided to make a detour through drover cave NP. Soft sandy tracks made up the travelled tracks, dropped tyre pressures to 25 - could have gone lower but we pulled through ok. Glad the pressures didn't go lower however as the Anderson plug at the rear of the car which I power the compressor from lost 12v. See,s it's activated by a redarc solenoid which had failed. So we slowly limped to green head and aired up before continuing on.
Once back at camp we discovered the bees where going bananas over any scrap of water around. The bee numbers at camp had been getting worse each day, luckily no one had been stung - until today! We manage to have 50% of our family stung within an hour, first Rylan who was hiding inside the camper to get away from them on the back of his hand, then Kylie behind the knee as she squashed one sitting down, then Zarah when one got under her foot in her sandal.
It was about this time we decided enough was enough. As we where planing to head home in the morning we decided to back up the camper once the bees had disappeared at night, shower the kids in the camp shower block and then drive home. Bit of a rush around at the last minute, but I think it was the right decision and we don't have to attempt to pack away with the bees