uncomplicated & unrefined: Jurien Bay

Tomorrow we celebrate the Queen’s birthday. It isn’t actually the Queen’s birthday. Her birthday is April 21st. And in fact, the rest of Australia celebrates her birthday in June. There are some things I don’t question, particularly if it means I get a day off work.

We decided to take advantage of the extra day and go camping for a night. No fishing boat or serious camping gear – just a tent, dog, bathers, books and a bottle of wine. Jurien Bay was our destination - 2.5 hours north of Perth on what they call the turquoise coast. The town itself is nothing more than the basics – groceries, liquor, hardware, fuel, and about half a dozen places to eat. I didn’t notice any hotels but there are a handful of chalets, condos, and homes to rent and of course camping. Thanks to a scattering of islands, this area is a popular spot to fish and shelter yourself from what can be a windy west coast.

It was lunch by the time we rolled into town yesterday. After pitching our tent we went for a drive just south of town and found a two kilometer off-road track leading to the beach. Here we parked our car on the beach, set-up our chairs, listened to the AFL Grand Final, and read. For three hours our only beach mates included a group of boys tearing down the beach on motorbikes and a seagull that tormented Bronson, providing us some entertainment. In the end the seagull won because Bronson ate something (a dead fish most likely) that made him violently ill for the next three hours. I’m glad no one else was around to witness his suffering.

This morning we packed up early and headed twenty minutes up the road to Lesueur National Park. Lesueur contains 900 different species of Flora, 10% of what is found in WA. Remember that WA is a very big place so some people may find this to be a very big deal. We drove the 18km track through the park and watched kangaroos jump through the bush land. Before our slow and scenic drive back down to Perth we stopped off at Grigson lookout for a final view of the vast bush land, shallow salt lakes, white sand dunes, turquoise ocean and the islands that lay on the horizon.

As we drove we passed a vast field of lavender flowers and hundreds of balga trees jutting out of the shallow grasslands. Balga is the Aboriginal word for black boy so these trees are also sometimes called black boys. Its long narrow body and bushy head remind me of another tree that lives in another arid land thousands of miles away – the Joshua tree in America’s southwest.

One of my favorite things about this region are the white sand dunes – sometimes grouped together in rolling hills like a scene out of a star wars movie and at other times sitting in solitude – rising out of the stubby green bush like clean white bed linens hanging in the sun amongst a backdrop of crisp green grass. It was a particularly windy today as we drove down the two-lane highway back to Perth. You could see the white sands swiftly blowing from the peaks out into the bright blue sky. At a glance, I could have been in Colorado, watching the wind whip the snow off the mountain peaks, on one of those days where a clear blue sky follows a day of heavy snow and everything is white and new. And just like Colorado, two hours later I was miles away from the peaceful peaks and back in the city.