For what would be the final leg of my lighthouse odyssey I was joined by my son Hewie in Perth to travel the south west corner, cross the Nullabor and close the loop when our eastward path would intersect with my northbound route at Port Wakefield at the top of the Yorke Peninsula in SA.

Not only would this be a long haul of some 3,000kms, but it would be an interesting experiment traveling with a 23 y.o. who’s love of surfing is matched by my fondness of lighthouses? More than anything it would be a unique opportunity to spend time together and explore parts of our country that would be new to us both.

The first compromise arose when I agreed to backtrack up to Kalbarri, 600 kms north from Perth and where I’d been the week before. Generally I try and avoid backtracking but as it turned out it worked out well.

I met Hewie at Perth airport at 2.00pm and we’d originally planned to overnight in Geraldton but were both traveling well and decided to keep going all the way to Kalbarri, arriving at 10.00pm to find all accommodation options closed and soon discovering the limitations of sleeping two up in Max!

A fresh swell was forecast later the next day so in the morning we took the opportunity to visit the Murchison River Gorge which is just outside Kalbarri, and which, by chance, I’d discovered the week before. It’s well worth a visit and is at least as spectacular as anything else I’d seen in my travels!

As predicted the swell arrived and Jake’s Point began to show it’s teeth, a hard breaking left hander over a shallow reef with a memorial to two surfers who’d died there as a reminder that this is a serious surf break and not to be taken lightly. Not only that but like most easterners we’d heard stories about how sharky the waters off WA are, after a tentative enquiry with a couple of locals we were reassured that there are sharks but it’s not as bad as it is down south…this was to become a recurring theme!

After a couple of enjoyable days together, surfing, sightseeing and soaking up the local WA (Wait Awhile) vibe we started our southbound journey planning to meet friends for dinner in Perth that night. What should have been a leisurely six hour journey was rudely interrupted by the appearance of multiple warning lights on the dashboard and a dramatic loss of power – Max was not well!

We were just north of Geraldton, it was 11.00am on Saturday morning and after limping into town it soon became apparent we weren’t going to find a mechanic on duty and the only choice was to call the RAC who fortunately have reciprocal membership with the NRMA. The RAC guy turned up more quickly than expected, plugged his computer in and quickly diagnosed the problem – a hole in the turbo intercooler hose that was obviously caused by another pipe rubbing on it, no doubt a byproduct of the thousands of kms of corrugated roads we’d driven on over the past year! That was the end of the good news, the bad news was that there was no VW dealer in town and the part would need to be shipped up from Perth (if there was one there), or the other option was that Max would need to be trucked back to Perth at a cost of $ 3,500, and either option would not happen until the following Wednesday! As much as I liked Geraldton the prospect of being stranded there for five days was not an attractive one!

Desperate times call for desperate measures and fortunately I had my Sydney mechanics mobile number and he was very gracious about me interrupting his Saturday afternoon, and in contradiction of the RAC guys advice suggested we buy some silicone tape from a local auto parts store and and wrap the hose with it. He did caution that it would probably not solve the problem but might help, and, most importantly, continuing to drive Max wouldn’t do him any harm but without turbo it would be long slow trip to Perth. This seemed by far the best option so we went looking for an open auto store which Google soon found.

Suffice to say the tape didn’t do much except to add a loud farting sound every time I tried to accelerate and we soon discovered a 2ltr non-turbo engine isn’t enough to propel a 3.2t van at anything like a respectable speed, especially going up hills. Nevertheless, greatly relieved we set off on the 420 km journey to Perth, at an average speed of ~ 70 kph which dropped to ~ 40 kph on inclines (thankfully most of the journey was flat) and while being overtaken by roadtrains was pretty scary being overtake by the dreaded grey nomads and their caravans was down right humiliating! Finally after about seven hours we made it to our friends place, to late for dinner but just in time for unwinding with a couple of drinks around the fire pit! Thank you Geraldine and Richard!

We’d originally planned to overnight on Rottnest Island on Sunday and head down to stay with a friend at Yallingup but the need to try and get Max sorted on Monday precluded this so we decided to make it a day trip to Rottnest (which, as it turned out, proved to be more than enough time).

This change of plans enabled me to introduce Hewie to a notorious Perth institution, the legendary Sunday Session at the OBH (Ocean Beach Hotel) at Cottesloe Beach, where we joined a rowdy crowd in the public bar, sampled a new brew with a familiar name and embraced the local philosophy!

We also managed to get a room upstairs for the night where on a previous visit, 20 odd years ago, I was kept awake for hours by some marathon man pleasuring his rather vocal lady on the other side of a paper thin wall – thankfully no such interruptions this time!

On Monday the first order of business was to visit the nearest VW dealer at Melville who thankfully found the required hose in a warehouse in Perth and said they could have Max fixed that afternoon. This was great news and meant we had a few spare hours to take in some of the sights of Fremantle.

With the plumbing fixed and Max raring to go we headed south to the promised land. I’d been to Margaret River a couple of times in the past and had very fond memories of the place and the people which were reinforced on arrival at my friend Mike’s holiday house at Yallingup. A beautiful home situated on 2 ha overlooking paddocks with views to Smiths Beach, a quantum step up from van life to be sure!

Mike kindly took us on a guided tour the following day and it was sad but inevitable to see how the place has changed so much in the intervening 16 years since I was last here, Margaret River has definitely grown up and out but still retains the diversity, charm and lifestyle that so many, including me, find so attractive.

However paradise comes at a cost, not only in dollar terms but also the power of the surf is not to be underestimated with a local big wave rider drowning at the Margaret River bommie the week before we arrived and a local kite surfer being attacked by a shark the day before we arrived. Timely and cautionary tales for us to consider!

Mike headed back to Perth on the Wednesday and we were back in the van. With no surf and a gloomy weather forecast we decided to do a lighthouse intensive visiting three lighthouses in a day (Cape Naturaliste, Casuarina Point and Cape Leeuwin), and ending up in Augusta overnight. The following day we made our way back up the coast to await a forecast pulse of swell and accompanying cold front. Staying on the beach at Yallingup I promised Hewie a dinner at Caves House where I’d enjoyed a memorable NYE back in 1992, the meal didn’t disappoint but the walk back to camp on an unlit path through a spooky forest raised the adrenaline and saw us both break into an adrenaline fueled gallop and happy to reach the comfort and safety of Max.

Overnight the cold weather arrived but the swell didn’t!

After an excellent breakfast at the Yallingup Gugelhupf, which I think is “Bakery” in either German or the local indigenous dialect we hit the local laundromat and library to stay warm and catch up on a few blogs hoping the promised swell would fill in the next day. In expectation of this we camped at Prevelly hoping to join the dawn patrol the next day only to be greeted by a confused swell, onshore wind and unseasonably cold temperature. Main break would have to wait for another opportunity to entertain us!

When in Perth Geraldine had put Hewie in contact with one of her sons hot shot locals from Margarets called Evan, H called Evan to get the low down and he mentioned he was heading down to Albany where conditions looked more promising, so we decided to do the same.

It’s about a 400km run to Albany via Pemberton and Denmark through a mixture of rolling green farmland, vineyards and native karri forests and as we travelled east the weather seemed to improve. Arriving into Albany one is struck by the sheer size and complexity of King George Sound, comprising of a number of bays, isthmuses and islands, with the surprisingly large and historic city of Albany bordered by the waters of the sound and national parks on all sides. Albany takes great pride in its history as the last point of departure for ANZACS heading to both World Wars and the poignancy that this was the last sight of home for so many seems to hang heavy in the air and is appropriately memorialised in the ANZAC Centre and Convoy Walk and lookout which overlooks the sound from ANZAC Hill.

With the weather we left behind at Margaret River catching up with us we decided it wasn’t conducive to camping and stayed in a motel for the night, $ 150 well spent! H called Evan who suggested we meet him at the Salmon Holes the next morning which is about 20 km out of town past the old whaling station next to the unfortunately named Misery Beach (perhaps it was named by a whale)!

Next morning Evan and H had the waves to themselves at Salmon Holes after which we visited some of other the features along this wild and untamed coast including “The Gap”, a vertical crevasse in the cliff face with a cantilevered viewing platform above the churning waves (which, like it’s Sydney namesake has the unfortunate reputation as a suicide spot), and “Sand Patch”, a tiny patch of sand along an otherwise unbroken 50 km cliff face which is accessed by a 350 step stairway if you can be bothered (we couldn’t), and as luck would have it, the Cave Point lighthouse which is next to “The Gap” and has a direct line of sight to the Eclipse Island lighthouse. So we both left Albany content with what we’d seen and done.

Rounding the corner at Albany, the south western extremity of Australia we were now heading north east toward Esperance and the Great Australian Bight. However Wayne, my friend I’d stayed with on the Gold Coat and who spent time in WA about two years ago had strongly recommended visiting Bremer Bay and doing the Orca tour. This involves an eight hour boat trip out past the continental shelf to witness a resident pod of “killer whales” at work and play. Evidently it’s quite an unforgettable experience to interact with these large and intelligent mammals and awesome to see them hunt as a pack at dinnewith usually a whale or great white shark on their menu, they truly are the apex predators of the ocean. Unfortunately it wasn’t Orca and the surf wasn’t happening the nearby Native Dog Beach but all was not lost as we got to enjoy a very cruisey Sundowners at the cathedral like Bremer Bay pub, but don’t be put off by the World’s ugliest mermaid the entrance which could very easily have the opposite effect to her siren sisterhood!

One of many contradictions about WA relates to it’s coast, the amazing Indian Ocean aquamarine water, glistening white sand beaches fringed by red rocks or native forrests, and usually abundant surf but there is a fear factor, especially for us lily livered Easterners – the men in grey, Les Dents de la Mer, SHARKS!

The weird thing is, as we discovered at Kalbarri, that despite a history of fatal attacks all along the coast everywhere we went the locals said things were worst at the next place we were going, when we were in Kalbarri it was down south, in Margaret River it was down at Albany, in Albany it was over in Esperance…and Esperance was our next destination and the last port of call in WA!

For some unknown reason I’d always wanted to visit Esperance and in some ways it didn’t disappoint, the stunningly beautiful beaches, the extraordinary coast line with granite headlands and islands of all shapes and sizes, but there is a menace about the place, unseen and lurking, which tends to take the edge off, or more accurately put the edge on, any time spent surfing or swimming. It’s a bit like a beautiful woman with a neon “danger” sign flashing above her head! A true contradiction, perfect deserted beaches but you enter the water at your own risk, H had a quick surf while I stood watch on the headland, and I have to admit I was very glad when he decided to come in. We hunkered down for the night in a clearing high above the beach with a view to what seemed like the edge of the World.

Having done all there was to do Esperance, which wasn’t much, we decided to head north and visit Kalgoorlie, not many lighthouses or much surf there but just as I had a thing about Esperance Hewie had always had a fascination with Kalgoorlie and it’s gold!

After 400 kms of hard driving we arrived and the first thing we saw was “the super pit” – a giant hole that is part of the “Golden Mile” which has yielded more than 60m ozs (worth ~ $ 360b) of gold since mining started here in 1893, and still produces ~ 700,000 ozs/year (~ $ 4.2b p.a.). Strangely for a place that produces so much wealth it’s very down at heel and seems like it’s best days are a distant memory, at the end of the day, when the gold runs out the whole place should be bulldozed into the super pit, buried and forgotten. While we’d originally planned to stay overnight, but with the lack of accomodation and exorbitant prices of the meager offerings that were available we decided to beat it, head back to Norseman and start our traverse of the Nullabor not sure where we’d end up.

It was around 1.00pm by the time we left the “golden mile” and 200km back to Norseman where we refueled and headed off into the unknown. The thing you quickly learn about the Nullabor is that while the distances are vast the driving is easy and the distance seems to compress. Surprisingly we travelled over 1,000 kms in the day and made it all the way to a place I’d never heard of called Cocklebiddy which is no more than a Roadhouse arriving at 8.00pm just as they were shutting up for the night. Fortunately we were able to fill Max up, use the truckers bathrooms, cook dinner under the neon glow of the BP sign and sleep the night in a layover lulled to sleep (not) by the roar and blinding lights of passing roadtrains.

There’s something iconically Australian about crossing the Nullarbor, it’s almost a right of passage and it has a certain mystique. Again, like other parts of the outback it’s the expanse and emptiness but there’s another layer to it too, as the long straight stretches of road and relentless white lines combine to hypnotise you only to be snapped back to reality by the loud thud of the pressure wave created by passing roadtrans and mandatory friendly two fingered “G’day” offered to and from every passing fellow traveller, who number surprisingly few. Call it white line fever or the rhythm of the road, whatever it is it’s quite seductive and the kilometres seem to roll by surprisingly quickly and what seemed like a daunting challenge at the beginning is over almost too quickly.

Even though Ceduna is regarded as the eastern end of the Nullabor in fact the first town of any consequence you hit after leaving Norseman 1,132 kms ago is a quaint little place called Penong which not only happens to be home to a wild assortment of windmills (in as it’s billed the “World Famous Windmill Museum”) but it also happens to be where the turnoff is to go to the legendary Cactus surf break and campsite.

This 25km dirt road takes you through a bizarre landscape that includes an array of opposing sand dunes, a causeway across a lake that is pink on one side and blue of the other and salt flats that glisten and sparkle in the sunlight. The campsite itself is very cool, totally off-grid and surprisingly busy given it’s remoteness and reputation as one of the sharkiest surf breaks in the World, a fact you are reminded of by the plaque on the seat at the lookout in memory of Cameron Bayes who was killed there while visiting on his honeymoon, one of two fatal attacks within 36 hours in the same area albeit 20 years ago, but the place definitely has a menacing feel about it.

The waves were pretty good but it was approaching dusk and I was uneasy about Hewie going out so late in the day and gald when he decided to let discretion take the better part of valour and wait until the next morning. Around the campfire that night we got chatting to a number of other surfers, a number of whom came from Port Lincoln (a.k.a. the white pointer capital of the World) and who tried to settle our (my) nerves by telling us Cactus wasn’t as bad as Streaky Bay or Elliston further down the Eyre Peninsula where there had already been three fatal attacks on surfers this year! The collective philosophy seemed to be that there are sharks everywhere and you’re more likely to get killed driving to Cactus than surfing there! Cold comfort indeed!

Thankfully Hewie survived his surf the next morning, had some pretty nice waves and was reluctant to leave but the last few lighthouses were calling. After returning to Penong and travelling the last 70 km to Ceduna we turned right to head down the Eyre Peninsula to Port Lincoln via the aforementioned Streaky Bay (who’s main claim to fame seems to be a life size fibreglass model of a 5m great white), Elliston and the ominously named Coffin Bay!

Port Lincoln was much larger than expected and in addition to it’s notoriety as the shark capital of Australia it’s also famous for its blue fin tuna and it’s most revered tuna fisherman Dean Lukin, winner of Australia’s first (and only) Olympic Gold Medal in the men’s super heavyweight weightlifting at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. We didn’t manage find Dean, I think he’d gone fishin’, but we did have one of the best seared tuna steaks ever at the local pub.

Apart from this our quest in Port Lincoln was to visit the lighthouse at Cape Donington and get as close as possible to the remote and inaccessible South Neptune Island lighthouse which lies 70 km due south of Port Lincoln. Interestingly the names Lincoln and Donington seem to adorn all manner of things in these parts is evidently due to Matthew Flinders predilection for naming things after his old home town and county back in England.

When we woke on the morning of our departure we were surprised to see the glamorous Silver Seas cruise ship Silver Nova had docked in Port Lincoln, we’d last seen the same ship arriving in Esperance four days ago, so like us, it must have traversed the Great Australian Bight.

I had mixed feeling as we headed north to Whyalla at the top of Spencer Gulf to visit the Point Lowly lighthouse, the last lighthouse on my itinerary. On one hand it felt good to be finishing what I’d set out to do but I also felt a bit melancholy that this great adventure was coming to an end.

Whyalla like it’s sister cities Port Pirie and Port Augusta is a particularly unattractive industrial, almost post industrial, city dominated by the old BHP steel works which is now on life support after being sold to a conman named Gupta who seems to have a habit of not delivering on his promises. As a result the steel works are now in voluntary administration with an uncertain future facing them and half the city’s population who work there. The other two sisters aren’t faring much better with Port Pirie recently being voted, and I quote “the areshole of Australia” and not surprisingly the judges who bestowed this dubious honor on the city have been warned if the venture back to town they will be smelted!

Against this bleak background Point Lowly lighthouse stands as a solitary light, although it’s been decommissioned by AMSA and is now owned and operated by the Whyalla council. Like most of it’s peers it has an interesting history and unique distinction of presiding over the congregation and conjugation of millions of giant cuttlefish who migrate to the waters around Point Lowly every May through August – except this year when their annual migration was annuled by a toxic algal bloom. Surely these cephalopods are the most alien of all animals on earth with their ability to instantly change colour like a disco ball and shape shift, however I can only assume they aren’t that smart or they would find a more attractive place to have their orgy.

And so it was that Point Lowly lighthouse may not have been a highlight but it was the last light. After a brief inspection we headed toward Port Wakefield thus completing my infinity loop (∞) around our astonishing country and what better way to celebrate than with a beer at the famous Rising Sun Hotel!

Cheers.