Spending a month in Red Bluff was like spending a month in the 1950's, except with better swimwear. There was no internet, phone reception or FM radio and the only method of communication was via the post box. There was a Telstra phone box, but it only took phone cards which were not sold at the Bluff and were also wierdly unobtainable in town, so really it might as well not have existed. Carnarvon could be the only place in Australia where phone cards sell out. Once the panic of being so disconnected from the real world had subsided, we drifted into a gentle sort of natural rhythm. Day's were spent wandering along deserted, untouched shorelines, searching for the perfect shell, or sitting, watching the coliseum that the point becomes as a big swell rolls in, offering the bravest surfers the barrel of a lifetime. We spotted vast arrays of impressively large crabs, each vying to outdo the other in the scary large pincer waving department. Around every rock shelf, life scuttled, teemed and jumped.

One day, we took an even bumpier track across the stony land, scattering the flocks of goats that lurked behind dunes like Afghan tribesmen on an ambush mission, until the land fell away in a steep decline to the ocean, 100ft below. The view was awe inspiring, but we hadn't come for just that, we had come here to search out The Caves. The Caves was a fishing spot- but these fishermen are an intrepid lot. To get to the spot, you had to climb down the shaley, slippery hill- (we followed the trail of old and rusting beer cans), walk around the base of the sandstone cliff and then edge around a ledge with the sea churning and frothing beneath you. Finally tiptoe across a narrow rock bridge, climb down and around the greenest, glassiest, deepest rock pool, thread under the bridge again and around the corner sits a natural sea cave, almost at sea level. Below you, it drops straight down into 40 ft of water. It's not a place to come when the swells more than a couple of foot, but as far as fishing goes, it's like being a couple of miles offshore. Unfortunaely,not knowing exactly how far we would have to walk, we had left our gear behind. Exploring the rock pools in the cave however, we found a harlequin shrimp, so named for his crazy, stripey colouring, not to mention oodles of fish and little jewel coloured crabs. Oscar squeezed his way through a couple of natural rock tunnels and Ned spotted a turtle. A couple of humpbacks cruised past almost within spitting distance and not a sound could be heard apart from the beat of the sea. We were superfluous to requirements and I had a sudden vision of how life on Earth would be, if humans didn't exist. I think that perhaps, it would look a lot like this.