We'd booked into Orleans Bay Caravan Park at Duke of Orleans Bay for tomorrow but thought we’d take a chance and see if we could get in today. Our peace and quiet had been shattered at Lucky Bay and the realisation set in that it was always going to be tricky during school holidays in such a popular area such as this. We’d always tried to holiday outside of school holidays for this very reason but we’d just have to suck it up as we are now on holidays for many months.

We had to go almost all the way back to Esperance before we picked up Fisheries Road and headed east again. We only had to travel about 115km but as it was mainly dirt it took us longer than we expected. We were lucky to get in and once again there were plenty of happy campers about.

After a quick clean up inside the bus and another load of washing we went exploring. We found the stunning Wharton beach and spent quite a bit of time there. Just one of many spectacular beaches. Given most of them can only be accessed by 4WD tracks makes them more exciting.

I was encouraged to do some of the driving down the 4WD tracks that were everywhere and eventually got the hang of things.

The weather constantly changed so there weren’t always days to sit down the beach so we took the opportunity to drive out to Cape Arid National Park which is as far east as you can go by 4WD. The beaches are pristine and not many people about apart from the ubiquitous fishermen. I drove onto the beach at Thomas River and we walked down to Dolphin Cove but there were no dolphins there. We could see smoke further off to the east and we were told that they were indeed fires that had been started by lightning. Not surprising the fires would burn out of control given the dryness of the coastal heathlands that abound here and the remoteness.

We watched an amazing storm blow in and marvelled at how quickly the weather changed. It felt like the conditions changed in 5 minutes from hot and still to a howling cold wind that blew everything away in its path including beach umbrellas, tents and anything not nailed down and we got sand blasted. It cooled everything down but there was no rain. Next day the sun shone and as if nothing had happened the day before.