With 9 nights at our leisure at Cape Le Grand, we decided to spend a day driving to Cape Arid National park, which is 120km east of Esperance. It is quite large national park, covering an area of nearly 3000 square kilometres. While it is accessible by road, most of the park itself is 4WD only.
Cape Arid is a very pristine, hardly touched and spoilt by humans’ place. It is also beautiful with clear blue waters, white sandy beaches, rocky headlands and diverse vegetation. Being quite such a remote and large area, we only managed to see a small part of it. Having paid our entry fees to the national park, we drove to Dolphin Cove along Thomas River Road where we checked the campsites. There are 2 shire campsites, close to each other, with between 14 to 20 camping spots in each, sheltered bbq and picnic areas, as well as toilets (according the brochures there is no water at the park). It is on first come, first serve basis and camping fees apply. Both areas were full (around Christmas time) when we drove by. Quite nice camping places but perhaps not quite for us, as we would probably miss on the spot, should we decide to come to camp there.
Dolphin Cove beach being just around the corner we decided to drive there. Two roads were leading there – Tagon Beach 4WD track and an unsealed 2WD path. We thought having a 4WD was enough to undertake the first track. However, we underestimated our experience. We obviously still had a lot to learn and this was our great learning experience.
The track was quite firm and slightly gravelled at the beginning. As it continued, it started to get softer. Four 4X4 utes driven by young, seemingly carefree but experienced drivers passed by. We let them go forward and thought of following them, however, they were quickly out of sight.
About 100 meters or so away from the beach, it happened. We got bogged! The sand was too soft and imprudently we did not reduce the tyre pressure. ☹. Mistake number one. (Lesson learnt: reduce tyre pressure before driving on soft sand and engage proper 4WD gear for soft sand driving.)
We were prepared to such surprises to some extent. First, we reduced the tyres down to 15psi, then dug some sand from underneath the car and placed the recovery boards.
Brian started the engine and pressed on accelerator. Trying to push the car from behind I watched the wheels spinning. This went for a short while. The car moved forward a little and encouraged I asked the kids to help push the car again. More wheel spinning. The car stopped moving. When Brian came out, he asked me where the recovery boards were. Naively, I thought they were just invisible but still underneath the car. We tried to look for them but it was impossible to find anything. Our Pajero was sitting with its bottom on the sand and nearly half of the wheels were buried into sand. There was no sign of our recovery boards. Mistake number two. ☹ (Lesson learnt: Tie the ropes to recovery boards to prevent losing them.)
We tried the same a couple of times more. More pressing on accelerator and more wheel spinning. No sign of recovery boards. Mistake number three. ☹ (Lesson learnt: When you persevere in your attempts to move forward on the sand and the wheels are not engaged, the vehicle gets buried into the sand even more.)
Nearly 2 hours have passed. With no progress in sight and no more vehicles passing by, Brian went to the beach to ask for help. We were lucky that was a group of people in two 4WD on the beach (but no sign of the previous 4 utes) whom Brian approached. ”Luck” as he is known and his friend was indeed our luck! Eventually, we did get out after a few forwards and backwards to compact the sand, and following Luck’s advice to reduce the tyre pressure further down to 10psi. Brian was so horrified by the whole experience that he refused to drive to the beach alone and only wanted to go back to Cape Le Grand. So I have no picture of the beach to place here. ☹.
The trip back to our campground was uneventful and rather long. Back at the campground while looking through the photos I found a picture of the roads conditions sign I took at the park. If only I actually checked this properly! Mistake number four ☹. (Lesson learnt: do your research before going to unknown places.)
To comfort ourselves we had sausages for dinner once we got back 😊.
