3 Jun 10 – Francois Peron National Park

By Craig: Our travels found us at Denham WA, yet another seaside town giving us an opportunity to stock up with supplies, fuel and of course grog. Fully stocked we headed off for Francois Peron National Park and hopefully a campsite at Big Lagoon. ‘It’s a long road in Lou’ and ‘It’s starting to get dark’ ‘Not again’
We arrived at the Big Lagoon camp ground just as the last rays of light disappeared,
‘Bugger’! Not much in the way of a camp site. A quick scout around for the owner of a single vehicle parked in a camp site and thankfully their good will allowed us a better position.
As we started to back in, the Cruiser wheels began to spin in the very soft sand, so down to 12psi, we had already reduced tyre pressure to 20psi. Good enough we were in and time to set up!
We woke to a view of the lake and although the weather was not at its best there were moments where the beauty of the area shone through.

I had realised the night before that the journey in through some reasonably rough territory had caused one of my new crab pots to come loose and was most likely back on the track.
An early morning 2 or so kilometre walk failed to find the missing pot so I returned to camp for a coffee. To my delight the attending ranger who was conducting his daily road maintenance by dragging some very large tractor tyres behind his 4wd, had found my crab pot. I think he was a little disappointed that he found the owner but with an offer of a coffee he stopped for a chat. The ranger was a young aboriginal chap very knowledgeable in the history of the region and entertained us with a quip or 2 before heading off to finish grading the track.
Bad weather looming and poor fishing gave reason to leave but only after we had a chance to explore the local sheep station at Peron Homestead.


By Lou: We scored a lovely campspot right on the shores of Big Lagoon in Francois Peron National Park but the weather was wet and cold and dreary. We took the trouble of taking the tinny off the roof before setting up but in the 3 days we were there we didn’t bother putting it on the water. Our neighbours were a couple who were one week into their 12 month odyssey so were happy to chill and wind down from the stresses of preparing. They weren’t so depressed by the rain and I waved my finger at them and predicted “wait till you’ve had rain follow you for 4 months and then see how chirpy you are!” Even the Ranger wasn’t sure where this patch of rain came from. It’s us. We are cursed.

We also enjoyed the company of a family living in Perth for a year, who hail from Galapagos Islands. Nine year old Claudio only learnt to speak English 6 months ago and is now fluent. He and Sam spent hours playing in or near the water in the cold, playing armies and singing songs, happy as Larry.