Latest News

146 km straight ahead vs. 170 km 4WD

By: Silvilli

That was a very different experience to yesterday. We started today with 146.6 km on a straight road, the longest one in Australia. And directly after that we left the Eyre Highway to do a detour to Israelite Bay, a very remote camping area in Cape Arid National Park.

We did expect that the road will be rough, and therefore we asked at the petrol station if they think that one can do it with a Subaru, as our car doesn't have as much clearance as the "real" 4WD's. The shop lady said, that if we want to do the detour to save time to get to Esperance, we should avoid it. But she doesn't really know how the condition is.

As we had the idea in our mind already for a long time, we decided to do it, otherwise we would never see Israelite Bay, which is so far from the rest of everything else. And really it took as about two hours time for the first hundret k's, but that was not the average - unfortunately. After a last intersection where we chose the left street in direction to Isralite Bay our average speed slowed down to 10 - 15 k's as the road condition was not exactely suitable for our Forester - to little clearance, we had to be very careful. After another more than 3 hours for this section we were quite happy to reach our goal for the day!

The beach was very wide with rough but beautiful blue water, as it was already evening and quite windy we decided to go for a swim in the morning. We erected our tent on a nice, open spot and went for a walk. There were about 5 more campers, all with "real" 4WD cars and lots of fishing gear. Must be a good spot for catching some fish, and there we go at the beach we met two fishermen trying their luck. They told at that we just missed the show, because one of them catched a sting ray - after that story Silvi was not as sure anymore if she really wants to go in the water at Israelite Bay, or better enjoy the stunning views from the outside.

The night was very windy, we had to get up two times to adjust the leashes on our tent. Finally we had some rest after midnight, but the wind didn't really calm down until the early morning.

When we woke up the other day, the weathe was quite chilly and the sky was overcast with heavy clouds. Rain would be the last thing we need, as we had to go back on an at least 80 k's unsealed route again. We quickly packed all our stuff together and left Israelite Bay to get back to the zivilisation soon.

The way back was again very hard. This time it was nearly all the time very sandy or a rocky dirt road with huge wholes filled with water from the last rain. But there was nearly always a detour, so that we could pass. With an average speed of at least 30 km/h we were quite satisfied and also proud of our car. Nevertheless we might not do that again, as this great adventure was not really worth the "pain" it could have caused us with less luck than we had. 

---