Mid-West (Quobba, Gnarloo, Francois Peron & Kalbarri)

The Bluff and Gnarloo- After the Exmouth area we travelled south to The Bluff Australia’s most iconic Lefthander on Quobba Station. Arriving was a little surreal I have been wanting to come here since I was 15. The headland was much bigger than I expected and the whole place is an amphitheatre aimed at the point. The first day turned out to be 6ft + (double overhead + for the non-surfers)! A warmup day or 2 would have been nice to get the feel for the place, but not to be.

Excuses started running through my head about not being in the water much for the 3 last months, you’re a bit rusty, shoulder is a bit sore, maybe wait a day for it to ease off, the jump rocks a bit tricky, gee it looks fast, not many crew are making it, was that set closer to 8ft?!. But… they’re all pulling in and there’s only 7 or 8 out. Harden up- you’ve been wanting to come here since you were 15, you’re finally here and it’s pumping! Actually, once you’re of the jump rock you can paddle wide and it should be pretty easy to get out. Hmm… maybe I just sit wide and shoulder hop onto a couple, at the very least it will be a good watch the crew from the channel. After 15mins of this back and forth in my head I had to get out there. The old saying “You regret the things you didn’t do, not the things you did” won me over.

After negotiating the tricky jump rock safely, the paddle out turned out even easier than expected. I sat quite wide to watch the action and get a feel for it. It was brilliant to watch everyone from the shoulder. Classic photos I had seen in surfing magazines as a teenager of big bright blue barrels with the iconic desert headland in the background were unfolding right there before me (see Scott Bauer’s iconic shot of the Bluff from the water). Eventually it was my turn to swing on a wide one, I safely negotiated the steep take off and exited on the nice soft shoulder. I (not so courageously) was sitting wide of the freight train like barrel section for the length of the session and picked a few more like this before quitting while I was ahead. After safely negotiating the sketchy keyhole to get back in I breathed a little sigh of relief -Phewww… a solid intro to the bluff but what a place! We stayed for the next 11 days at the Bluff but it never got as big again, probably only around the 3 foot range (head high). Still a super fun wave I even snuck in a little deeper to the actual take-off on subsequent sessions.

In the afternoons when the wind got up and smaller days we went exploring further north up to Gnarloo Station where we snorkelled and got some smaller waves for Kez. It’s a beautiful coastline which in some places reminds me of the cliffs around Port Campbell but with tropic reef under the water. It gets super windy in the afternoons in this part of the world, so we got to witness some great windsurfing and kite surfing up at Gnarloo out at Tombstones.

After leaving the Bluff we had a pit stop in Carnavon to restock before heading down to Francois Peron National Park Shark Bay. A beautiful national park and marine park somewhat like Moreton Bay near Brisbane minus any major development, only the small town of Denham and the Monkey Mia resort/caravan park.

Kalbarri- 40km from Kalbarri you enter the Kalbarri National Park which has the most magnificent wildflowers. The national park surrounds the town in all directions, so the stunning display continues until you come over the hill into town. There is a beautiful estuary in town, some more good waves and coastal scenery. There’s a great little brewery in town which, as we found out, can lead to a bigger than expected evening. I could have sworn the bike path on the way there was straight but it certainly wasn’t on the ride home!