Fitzgerald River National Park is a nature photographer’s delight…. Unique and rare species of flora and fauna are found here….
Fitzgerald River National Park is one of the largest and most botanically significant national parks in Australia. It contains nearly 20% of Western Australia plant species, 62 of which are found nowhere else. The coastal side of the park has beautiful white sandy beaches and inlets. On the inland part of the park you can find rugged mountain ranges, enriching the landscape. We visited the western side of the park in December 2020.
Quaalup Homestead Wilderness Retreat
Our reason for choosing this place was based on the desire to camp somewhere in the secluded area in a beautiful surrounding. Quaalup Homestead is in the western part of the beautiful and bio-diverse Fitzgerald River National Park, close to Bremer Bay. It is run by lovely and friendly migrants from Germany, Karin and Carsten, who are very knowledgeable about their beautiful area. They love to help and share that information and provide directions and maps.
The camp area is set in a natural bush environment on 40 acres of land, with about 7 of those for guests and the owners, and the rest is designated for bush walks.
There are 8 sites, suitable for caravans and tents, some are big enough to fit a big group of people. We had a medium sized block with a lot of privacy. The amenities were clean and quite good except that the bathrooms were too small (especially the sinks for washing face and hands).
Following recommendation of the owners’ we did a Nature Walk around their property. Supposedly 40 minutes return trip took us nearly two hours because there were a lot of wild flowers photography opportunities which I did not hesitate to use.
We also visited the Homestead built in 1858, which serves as a museum now. It provides guests with impressions of the early settlement days of that area.
Gordon Inlet in Fitzgerald River National Park
After our afternoon tea we set off to Gordon Inlet. We drove 12 km on a corrugated road (it took us more than half hour to get there) and were not disappointed. The inlet is quite shallow and a fair part of it is dry so we drove on the hard part of the inlet almost to the Trigelow beach, having stopped to take some dramatic pictures.
Sand blizzard was getting stronger the closer we walked towards the beach.
March flies
March flies are active not only in March. They are also known as green heads and you can see from this picture why . March flies are ferocious biters. The place where they bite can itch and be inflamed for days after their attack. We saw and were bitten by quite a number of them in Esperance and Fitzgerald River National Park.
Apparently, only females bite and only males have those huge green eyes .
Point Ann
For the last day of our stay at Quaalup Homestead Retreat we planned a trip to Point Ann (again, upon recommendation by lovely Karin). While preparing our car and deflating the tyres to drive on yet another corrugated road there, our little mechanic in training noticed a nail in the tyre. This incident delayed our trip while Brian had to put a new tyre and find a way to repair the old one.
Eventually we set off. Point Ann is well known as one of the best places to watch whales, particularly southern right whales, migrating from Antarctica. This happens between June and October. Whilst visiting this place in December (not during the whale watching season), we found that it was still very popular despite the fact that the access to the place is not particularly easy. It took us 1.5 hours to drive 33km from Quaalup Homestead where we were camping, on quite a badly corrugated road. However, the views of the ocean and some of the unique things we saw in the park, were awesome!
Ariel was lucky to find a real shark’s egg on the beach there.
There are also fantastic picnic facilities there.
Other attractions in Fitzgerald River National Park
There are still many more wonderful places in Fitzgerald River National Park we did not visit. There is Mt Barren which you can climb (Apparently, there is Mt Barren each on either side – west and east. We were on the west side of the park). There are also many more nice beaches along the coast. Fitzgerald River National Park is huge and we only explored a small part of it during our 4 day trip in 2020, so the following year, in December 2021 we visited the eastern side of the park (click on the link).
Part II (Eastern side of Fitzgerald River National Park)
