Candy's Trip with Red Earth Safaris

​I have always had a hankering to visit Western Australia and, as I have a friend who lives in Albany, a very good excuse to do just that. Now we are two ladies of a certain age who never experienced a gap year or had an opportunity to go backpacking like the youngun’s do nowadays. So with this in mind and a desire to experience all the WA had to offer, my friend Jill started the search to find a company that could take us to all the best places at a reasonable cost and she found Red Earth Safaris which seemed to be everything we needed. There was a question we had to ask just to make sure this tour would be suitable for us and that was – is there an upper age limit? And guess what, there wasn’t!

I know that others have written here (and most interesting they have been too) but I thought the best way to blog about our trip would be to pick out two major highlights. Yes, we visited Monkey Mia and wildlife parks and Kalbarri national park – all of which have been described at length by others – and we met all sorts of wonderful wildlife – but I would like to talk about the outback station and The Drift and along with way tell you all about our wonderful guide, Jarred.

We were a small group of 6 ‘guests’ –  Anna from Portugal, a dolphin trainer and two lovely students from Germany, Theresa and Emilia who are 19, and the only guy, Nalli from Sweden and bringing up the rear, myself and my friend Jill.

We had driven for ages along this bit of red dust road and arrived at the cattle station at Warroora which Jared described as basic - he was not wrong. However, he failed to mention what an awesome place this was. We were deep in the bush but a short Ute ride from the beach where we watched the sun go down. Before we did this, we dragged our beds outside ready for later then, having made sure the hot tub was at the right temperature, headed down to the beach. Jared stayed behind to prepare the BBQ.

The station is run by two guys - Rick and Marty (all I could think of was Rick and Morty!) - who allow the team at Red Earth to have the run of the place. Then after dinner it was time for the hot tub. I probably spent the best part of an hour and a half in the warm water, drinking a beer and enjoying the peace and utter quiet. We were joined by a number of grey Kangaroos (not in the water obviously) but fortunately no nasty bugs or beasties. Then it was time for bed, lying in a cocoon of bedding looking up at the stars. Once the moon set, they got even brighter and quite magnificent. I felt so small but also so blessed to be able to experience this wonder. We all woke at sunrise where for a bit of light relief we sang the sunrise song from the Lion King.

After a breakfast of pancakes no less, Jared drove us to what I can only describe as the most wonderful beach in the world. Turquoise Bay is world renowned for a number of remarkable features. Firstly, it's possible to walk out to hard corals just 50m or so off the shore, in crystal clear waters (the colour is in the title). Secondly, there is a rip from left to right that passes directly over these corals so it's possible to swim out and let the drift take you over these with minimal if any effort. As it happened the morning we were there was almost low tide meaning that the larger waves were spent on the outer reef and the bay where we were swimming was almost totally flat calm. ​

Turquoise Bay Drift Snorkel is considered to be one of the best snorkel sites in the world – it was just like swimming in an aquarium and it was just a shame we didn’t bring the GoPro. We would have quite happily spent all day here, as it was we did the drift three times, each better than the last. At one point the coral was so close to the surface I felt I had to breathe in to avoid touching it. The only very small caution was that you have to be quite a good swimmer to kick back to the shore to avoid being taken out to sea!
So if you are considering a trip to WA and the north (and why wouldn’t you) you could do no better than booking with Red Earth Safaris and if you’re lucky, have Jarred as your guide to this most magnificent of places.

[If after reading this you are keen to read the rest of my blog, head over to Candy's Blog]

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