Quobba Station and Blowholes 19 - 20 October

Well, we said a sad farewell to Coral Bay (which is now officially one of the best place we have been) this morning and headed further south towards Carnarvon. Plans were a little uncertain, as we wanted to go to the "Blowholes" too, and they were a 50k detour off the highway. We finally decided to spend the night at Quobba Station which is just past the Blowholes and the HMAS Sydney memorial, then head on to Carnarvon the next day. Problem solved.

Two significant events occurred during the drive: We recrossed the Tropic of Capricorn and now have no excuse for any troppo behavior; and it rained. Yes, rained! It took two full sweeps of the wipers to clear the windscreen. Thought we were going to have to break out the snorkeling gear for a moment there ;-)
Anyway, we arrived at the blowholes and they (along with the wind) were blowing. You could hear the air rushing out of the tunnels in the rocks ahead of the gusts of spray which shot spectacularly into the air. The coast here is quite impressive, with cliffs which drop down to shelves of rock reaching out into the ocean which the waves continually crash over. It reminded us of some of the areas along the Great Ocean Road. While we were watching the holes blowing their tops a very large pod of dolphins swam past - there must have been at least 50 of them.

Not Troppo anymore

Call that a blowhole??

Just down the road is a memorial to the HMAS Sydney which was lost with all hands after a battle with the German raider HSK Kormoran. Both ships sank as a result of the battle with 645 Australians and 81 Germans loosing their lives. Two lifeboats of survivors from the Kormoran landed near the memorial site.



 

From here it was on to Quobba Station for the night. This looks like a really nice place to stay and we spent some time on the beach here which is absolutely covered in sea shells, from the smallest little cones to clams the size of dinner plates, and chunks of broken coral. I had a more successful session of kite flying too after lashing out on a $19 'stunt kite' from Toyworld in Exmouth. Very relaxing.
We went back to the beach to watch a fairly uninspiring sunset due to cloud cover, but were pleasantly surprised to see even more dolphins swimming past beneath where we were standing in the dunes, which more than made up for it.
That, unfortunately was the end of the 'niceness' as the wind picked up even more and threatened to lift us all out of Kansas. Quite a wild night with not much sleeping and even more rain, but the camper, and both of us made it through in one piece, and just as importantly, in one place.