Author: Anna Lakshmi

Boat Harbour beach

Boat Harbour in Wellstead (between Albany and Bremer Bay) is a place with a unique flavour and a paradise for 4WD lovers. It has long beaches with white soft sand to drive on, some slopes to go up and down and rocky hills to master and refine your 4WD skills. The views of the ocean are stunning. Crystal clear waters are ideal for swimming. Sand dunes are fun for the kids to play. There are rocky outcrops for explorations. In short, there is a lot of space and variety. 

Trevor’s camp at Boat Harbour

There is a free camp, looked after by Trevor Smith, a “take carer” (as he calls himself), who has been living there in his own caravan for the last 14 years. Trevor looks after people who come to camp, helping them to find spots and park. He also cleans up after people leave the place (please do the right thing to preserve the environment). After learning what Trevor does and seeing him around all day long, always engaged and busy, it makes me appreciate even more his efforts and what he does, keeping the campground clean and tidy and people safe. Maybe that’s why, he prefers to call himself a “take carer”. This place wouldn’t be the same without Trevor Smith.

The camp has 2 areas – “the million-dollar view” ocean camp ground up the hill with spaces enough to park not more than 6-7 vehicles, which we tried initially but couldn’t get into, and a lower lying campground behind the dunes and near the inlet (actually, according to the sign, it is Naundyup Lake – a fresh water lake). Both campgrounds have undercover picnic area, non-drinking water and composting toilets.

This place turned out to be very popular, with both campgrounds being full almost all the time and lots of campers parking further away in a wide and more exposed passage leading straight to the beach. And this is considering that the road to get to the campground is corrugated, with the last section classified as a 4WD track.

Getting bogged in the sand

One of the wishes of our kids was to get bogged in the sand! That was their idea of an adventure and entertainment. “What’s the use of carrying maxtrax if we are not using them?” – was their reasoning. It turned out that the kids got their wish when we decided to try out how the vehicle will perform with 29psi on quite soft sand. Not so good, as it turned out. So, we got “intentionally” bogged and the kids had the pleasure they asked for – reducing tyre pressure to 15psi and digging out sand from the wheels.

Getting bogged in the sand is an adventure in itself and a good entertainment for the onlookers. Driving on soft sand on the beach was easy, but going uphill on very soft sand was a bit of a challenge. 😊

Early morning on the beach

The sun rises early in December, and so do we. Capturing the sun rays playing with the ocean waves is an adventure by itself. There are also some interesting tracks and foot prints to observe and identify. At 6am nature and people at Boat Harbour are fully awake and engaged in walking their dogs, driving on the beach or marvelling at the beauty of nature around, like myself.

Everyone loves to walk (and drive) on the beach – dogs, birds, cars, buggies, people, lizards (?)…

The beach at Boat Harbour offers a variety of features – inlet, rocky side, sandy side, 4WD tracks. This is the rocky side of Boat Harbour which we explored on the last day of our stay. It turned out to be a very picturesque place with some rocks, big and small, rock pools and rather large wave splashes.

Kids’ entertainments

Playing with sand is the main entertainment for our kids when we camp on the beach – whether it is building sand castles, digging sand, running down the slopes, throwing the sand up in the air or climbing up the sand dunes.  They can’t get enough of all the numerous sand games they engage and are always inventing something new!

And when you can’t wait to go to the beach to play with the sand, the dirt will do too! 😊

Hiking up the hill

On the last day of the last year the weather was overcast and cooling. It was a perfect time to go hiking. Dressed and equipped with drinks and cameras off we went. Initially the sun was shining but it quickly gave way to drizzle coming from the ocean. It was time to put on jackets and rain coats… and continue the journey. With only a drizzle (although there were huge dark clouds over the ocean) we managed to continue our hike up the hill along the Boat Harbour beach. Beautiful vistas opened up from the hill.

Closer in front of us we noticed some interesting things – wildflowers and their leaves being were eaten by ants and large families of caterpillars, sticking together or sometimes pilling one on top of the other, all chewing the same leave enthusiastically (Gross!!!)

Huntsman spider

We have heard about huntsman spiders (so common in Australia), but it was a first time we had the pleasure of such a close encounter with one. They are sometimes called giant crab spiders because of their size and appearance. They are huge. Really huge. The one that we saw was about 15cm including their leg span but they can even be larger than that. They are different from normal spiders, first because their legs are splayed out to the sides, similar to those of crabs. Secondly, unlike most crabs, huntsman spiders do not build webs to catch their prey, instead they hunt for their prey. Luckily, these spiders, although they can bite), are not deadly to humans.

The beach offers such an opportunity to watch sun rising and setting. While we missed the sunrise (the sun rises too early in summer! :), we watched the sunset. The colours of the sky were magnificent!

We ended up staying 5 nights at this place, deciding not to risk our chance of finding a camp spot as good as this one somewhere else during the New Year holidays, and we were not disappointed. In fact, we were leaving the place with sadness, as we grew so used to the constant roaring sound of the ocean nearby, the sound of vehicles passing by and seeing Trevor, the larrikin, with his beer every day coming over to check on people and the place. This is one place we will always remember and will definitely come back.