Camille’s Big Adventure

I spent the night at a rest stop outside of the town of Wongon, my first stop on wildflower way. First thing in the morning I went to town and walked a wildflower walk. I saw many sticky sundews and bright yellow wattles, as well as a variety of other flowers. After I stopped by the visitor center and the volunteers excitedly encouraged me to go on another trail and gave me sooo many pamphlets about the nearby areas. They were so cute.  I went to the trail called Christmas Rock and as I walked I passed by a woman and smiled and said hello. A moment after passing she calls to me, and asks if she can walk with me. She said her husband is worried she’s going to get lost, but he’s working and she still wanted to walk. I welcomed her to walk with me and we chatted a bit. She’s a Filipino woman who recently married and Aussie and moved here. Now she travels with him while he works and she gets to explore the areas he works in, but she isn’t very confident in nature and so she gets nervous hi

The next morning I woke to dark skies and quickly packed up my tent and looked at the forecast. So. Much. Rain. Every day in the 10 day forecast showed rain and a lot of it. I decided that was enough for me and I was heading North to the desert. I texted Quentin and he was already gone to the western portion of the peninsula well out of my path. He has a job in the area and so had planned to part ways in the next 3 days anyway. We texted goodbye for now and I headed north. As I drove the rain bucketed down. Every 40 minutes or so I would end up pulling over cause the road was so wet the car felt like it wanted to hydroplane. Luckily, the route had lots of cute farm towns and I stopped at many a farm stand and got lots of local fresh veggies and fruit. It’s apple season and I got some fresh in season apples that were absolutely delicious. I packed my car with so many good looking veggies and have been enjoying them ever since.  Eventually, a little before nightfall I made it to Swan Val

 From Albany I headed west stopping at the adorable town of Denmark. I walked the Main Street looking at lots of cute shops and got some books at the book store and perused the quaint small town. It was so charming. Outside of Denmark is an amazing National Park, William Bay, which has stunning beaches with huge granite boulders. I met Quentin there. A large cover is protected by a line of the boulders making a perfect swimming area. I took a quick dip despite the cold, but spent most of my time at this park sitting by a tidal pool watching the interactions of the fish. At least 7 different species inhabited this large pool and it was so cool to watch. My favorite were these small (like the size of the nail of your pinky finger) black and yellow zebra striped fish. Their yellow stripes were almost iridescent and they hung out in pairs. They didn’t seem to be too nervous of me and often came close to check me out, unlike the other fish which all scattered or hid at the sight of me unles

 With a sore leg and unsure how badly I’d hurt it I decided to take a few days off hiking. Quentin and I stayed in a few free campsite outside of Albany, but due to endless rain we didn’t actually end up spending much time together. During the days I headed to the library and the rec center and swam a bit to stretch my sore muscles and get a nice shower. Albany is a really cute town I plan to return to if I have time. It’s big enough to have a good variety of quality restaurants, but still quite small. It’s an old whaling town and has a lot of interesting history. The public facilities are really nice too.  The library is relatively new with big windows and lots of space and seems like a great community gathering location. I spent a lot of time in there between my smarting knee and tue endless rainstorms. One day Quentin joined me in the library for a few hours and later we ended up having a funny conversation about libraries and the differences between here and France and the US. I fi

 The next town I went to was Hopetoun next to Fitzgerald River National park. Once again, just a magical place with stunning ocean views and granite mountains. The first day I met back up with Quentin and we hiked along the coast through sunset watching the sky change from blue to a brilliant traffic cone orange reflecting pastel colors on the ocean. Along the hike we saw lots of really co and unique plants known to this region. The most notable is Hakea Victoria. It grows around 6 ft tall and the leaves kinda look like cabbage. It’s quite remarkable and impossible to miss. It was so cool to see.  I stayed in the campground at the national park where I had a really great camp spot a short walk in deep in the shrubs. This was especially fortunate because the winds were howling and the shrubs kept my tent still through the night.  The following morning Quentin and I met up at East Mount Barren and decided to climb despite the gusting wind. It was a short hike, maybe an hour and a half ro

(Google isnt letting me upload photos from my phone anymore so sorry about that ill try to figure it out) Esperance. I am absolutely smitten with Esperance. I could write poetry of the beauty of Esperance and the surrounding areas. Its magnificent.  The beaches are white as snow. The sand is so fine it feels soft. When its stuck to your skin (which is does easily because it is so fine) it doesn't feel itchy like most sand, but instead it is light and you can barely feel it. The ocean water is crystal clear. Standing in the cool blue water you can look down and see your toes like there is nothing in between but the darting silver fish. The shallow water is a bright turquoise  that looks unreal, even in google maps, and the deeper water is a dark rich blue. And the trails of Cape Le Grand National Park. What beauty. Large granite mounds come out of the lush shrubbery. I saw so many species of Banksia that were all fantastic. Some were trees while other looked like ferns coming out of

After a spectacular day of scuba diving, I began the long journey across the nullarbor (Null-a-bor). The Nullarbor is the stretch of land along the southern edge of Australia that looks like a long bite was taken out of the central southern part of the country. It's named the nullarbor because there are null (no) arbor (trees). Although, Australians colloquially refer to the entire drive from Ceduna to Norseman as the Nullarbor, despite the areas with no trees and Nullarbor national park really only being about 400km of the 1200km journey. Nonetheless, the drive is an undertaking.  Ceduna is the last town on the east with a grocery store, until you reach Norseman, which barely has a grocery store to speak of. It's the last chance you have to prepare for your next few days. It's the place to fill up water tanks and buy food. As Quentin and I met up to continue was I told him not to buy much fresh fruit and veg cause I heard there is a quarantine check at the Western Australi

 After Port Augusta we worked our way down the east coast of the Eyre Penninsula. The first night we camped outside of Whyalla on beautiful red beach dunes. I've never seen beach dunes this beautiful rusty iron red before and I was so happy to get to see it in person. It matched the orange sunset beautifully that evening. The next morning we drove south to Cleve. Along the way we stopped at a mangrove boardwalk and saw the furthest south reaching species of mangrove. We set up camp in Cleve near a nature preserve and went on a really lovely walk through the forest there. We found beautiful little orchids and some really unique sundews (a carnivorous plant). It was really cool to see this beautiful remnant forest a bit back from the coast. The path was along a dry river bed and was stunning with so many unique plants.  The next day we headed to Port Lincoln a cute coastal town in the south of the Eyre penninsula. We spent the day there at a french bakery eating pastries and going to

  Quentin met me in Port Elliot and we spent the day walking along the coast, drinking wine, and catching up over a nice dinner. The following day we headed north towards Adelaide. Between the storm clouds we stopped at a few hikes enjoying the lovely scenery of the Fleurieu peninsula. We headed to Adelaide where we spent the afternoon in the South Australian Museum. It was a really cool museum filled with tons of native artifacts, as well as, stuffed versions of native animals and birds. There was also a floor dedicated to different minerals found in South Australia. It was a really cool museum and I could see spending all day there. That evening we stayed in a campground in Belair National Park. Luckily it had a nice indoor area for relaxing in the evening, but on the downside it rained so much and I was really worried about my tent. My tent did end up holding up  though, so it was okay. Its a good rain resistant tent. The next day was supposed to be even rainier though

  I haven't written in a while, I've been a bit lazy when it comes to writing so I'm going to try to do a quick catch up. Following my trip up north I returned to the chilly south and the Fleurieu peninsula to relax for a week while I waited for my friend Quentin to make his way to the mainland from Tasmania. After my late night flight into Adelaide I spent the night in the city before stopping at a few stores and heading south. I rested at Onkaparinga National park for a two days while I waited to see what the weather would do. I spent my days in nearby coffee shops chatting with locals and enjoying some relaxation before I finally decided to head to Port Elliot on the coast. Port Elliot is a cute little town overlooking the southern ocean which attracts surfers and scuba divers in the summer months, during the winter, its much colder though. Most of the week I was in Port Elliott I was plagued by winter winds and rains  with some dreary days. I however did enjoy hanging o