Postcards from Western Australia: The North West Cape

Moving to Pittsburgh has presented a challenge for me when it comes to writing. I'm not entirely sure why I have found it so difficult, but each day I put off writing a post until about a week goes by, and then I force myself to bang something out on my keyboard. Hopefully that will change once we settle into more of a routine. We have certainly made some progress toward that end. R has begun a new job (in Pittsburgh!), the kids have been enrolled in school, and currently three of them are away at a two-week summer camp.

While I wait for the inspiration I need to write, or until I become self-disciplined enough to sit down and write without it, I have been going through my photo library. Today I am sharing with you some of my favorite shots from our two week trip to Western Australia. Most of them were taken on the North West Cape, near the town of Exmouth. We found Western Australia to be a place like no other. Wide skies, red earth, little wildlife, even less human life, and far, far away from almost everywhere.

It is also a place of extremes. The rugged and arid conditions of Cape Range National Park contrast with the abundant marine life in the vibrant fringing reef along the coast. Very dry throughout most of the year, the North West Cape can at times experience huge amounts of rain, as we discovered on our last night in Exmouth. Earlier in the week we had inquired about the possibility of rain. We were worried that it might interfere with our plan to swim with the whale sharks. The locals laughed at me when I asked them about it. "Rain? It never rains in April," they said. The rain that never happens began on Friday afternoon, the 25th of April, and increased throughout the night. About 5:30am R heard several caravans pull out of the park where we were staying.

"I bet they are worried about getting out of here before the roads are closed," he thought. He woke all of us, and we packed up as quickly as possible. Just hours after we pulled out of Exmouth, the main road did in fact close. Parts of Cape Range National Park remain closed today due to the terrible flooding that occurred on the 26th.

Most of these photos were taken before the rain began. I hope you enjoy the images as much as I did while I collected them for this post.