6/5/19 Mason's Bay to Deralinya Homestead

409 km travelled today

We headed out from Masons Bay on the dirt road towards Esperance.

Stopped in and checked out Starvation Bay campground and decided we were very happy with our choice last night.  Starvation Bay is much more hard and clinical.  No tree cover for the sites – just hard packed earth with a few bushes between and close to the road travelling through the campsite.  Maybe not too bad for a caravan, but for swags like ours , not conducive to a pleasant experience.

Esperance was a stop for fuel and showers at the seafront caravan park, and then on our way again.  We all decided that we really didn’t need to stop and shop.

We drove on to Cape Le Grand NP and Lucky Bay and admired the Frenchmans cap as we passed him again.  One day maybe we will do that walk ??? Lucky Bay was as beautiful as we remembered it – with bright aqua water and amazingly white sand.  We parked on the beach and ate our lunch in the car (it was very windy). 

upgraded campsite - this is now the campground map!!!

kangaroos on the beach

lost baby looking for mum- makes a strange growling sound. 

The campsite has been extended and ”improved” from the one we remembered from a few years ago.  Sites are very open and hard packed earth .  A number of clean ablutions blocks, a terrific camp kitchen and 56 campsites (you need to register to book by internet prior to arriving-the ranger station provides an internet hotspot for those who have not done so beforehand. We were sad to see that you no longer have the option of nestling in the bushes to camp – and felt sorry for the lone tenter who had set up on an exposed hillside on flat packed earth.

We headed on towards Balladonia on the Palmango Road. This entailed a lot of driving on a hard rocky surface with various washouts. I had forgotten the long boring stretch along the bottom part which leads into stations – km and km of the same .

Then the road turns, and we had remembered that it then became a narrow track and quite good driving, but not anymore.. There had been a huge fire through here, and there had been a huge band of bush bulldozed (3 chain width at least) but also the same hard rocky surface with corrugations and the odd bulldust holes.  It didn’t make for fun driving. 

As we made for our intended camp for the night (the old Derilinya Homestead that we had visited once before) we were a bit worried that it might no longer be there – as the fire remained evident and it had been large and hot!

the homestead

the dunny (and shower) 

inside one of the rooms of the homestead.

the old kitchen- with working wood stove.

shower

beautiful in the sunset

This place has been lovingly restored.  You can even stay inside if you want (there are beds) .  There is a long drop dunny and also a shower – a can which you can hoist up to run warmed water out of a rose at the bottom.  There is a dam nearby, where Ross also identified a hoary headed grebe which should not be in this area – which will give some interest to reporting all his birding.

the visitors book- explaining how the place comes to be here how it is. 

Now that we have come this far it really feels like we are on the way home.  Now just to figure out how to measure out the kms over the remaining three and a half days that we have at our disposal and maybe stop to see some special people…. ..