Stokes National Park - Stokes Inlet

We decided to chance our luck & move from Cape Arid on the Wednesday before Easter to another camp spot. We knew there was a risk we would have trouble finding anything during school holidays. We went back to Esperance to resupply & of course pick up some hot cross buns for Easter. It was chaos in town, so we got what we needed & headed out to the west of Esperance. There were about 6-7 marked campsites along a 100km stretch to the west of Esperance so we hoped we would find something. Our first spot to try was Quagi beach. It was packed there was one site left as we drove in but we were behind a campervan & they quickly pulled into it, giving us a "sucks to be you" grin as we drove past, making Mat really happy..... It was a nice spot, but it wasn't to be. The next easy to get to site along the road was at Stokes National Park on the inlet. It was only a few kms off the highway so we decided to have a look. There were 3 sites left. One of them was pretty good, nice & big & overlooking the water, & a fair distance between each site. We decided to take it & not chance our luck again as it was after lunch by this time. We set up & had a bit of a look around. The campground had 2 sets of toilets, 2 camp kitchens & 15 campsites with 3 or 4 of those group sites. It was $10 per adult per night, so the same as Cape Le Grande without all the facilities.... We set up our shower tent for the first time, with not even an argument, as we were staying 5 nights we needed it.  

Stokes Inlet near the day use area

Stokes inlet

The next day was a very lazy day, not sure why but we were both buggered, so it was a day of not much, which was nice. The next day was Good Friday & we decided to go for a drive up the coast a bit towards Munglinup, there was also a campsite there that we wanted to check out as it was one of our options if we didn't get in at Stokes. Again it was packed, with lots of families, relatively small sites & not that many of them. We wandered down to the beach & it was high tide. Wow there were some of the biggest waves we had ever seen, it was pretty awe inspiring & we just stood & watched for ages. We thought this isn't a very kid friendly beach, but the campers told us it wasn't normally like this, but the full moon & big swell were making it so rough. Normally the reef that was making the big waves actually protects the beach. 

Munglinup beach

We were going to have a fish but it was just too rough, so we checked out the HEMA & there was a small side track in towards the Munglinup inlet itself. So we decide to have a look.

Munglinup inlet & beach

Waves coming into the inlet from the ocean

 The track soon turned into soft sand, so in went the hubs & we managed to get through. We could see we were close to the end so thought we shouldn't need to take air out of the tyres. BIG mistake. Around the next corner we found a car park area & a sandy hill. Of course we tried the sandy hill & were soon bogged. Again we thought no we don't need any air out we will just use the Maxx trax. They worked & we backed back down the hill, but then got stuck again in the soft sand at the bottom. The Maxx trax wouldn't pull us free so we let our tyres down. We dug some sand out, put the Maxx trax under again, but we were pretty badly stuck on the back wheel drivers side. Luckily there were trees near by so just as Mat grabbed out the winch controller, some other people came around the corner in a chopped 100 series Toyota. He kindly offered to snatch us out. While he took air out of his tyres & we got the snatch strap ready his 3 young boys were very enthusiastic to understand why Mat got bogged & wanted to know who was driving..... All while showing Mat their soft toys including a toy wombat with band aids on his feet. Mat was very diplomatic in the tense situation, I could barely hold back laughter, it was hilarious!!

Well & truly bogged

We got pulled out & had a lovely chat with our saviours, they had spent 5 years travelling around Australia. Once we were out we just parked in the car park and walked the short distance into the inlet. It was lovely, it was cut off from the ocean by a sandbar, but the waves were so big that day, some water was coming over & getting into the inlet. It was pretty spectacular. We stayed for a while to explore & then headed back to camp for a very late lunch, a shower & then cooked up fish & chips for dinner. 

Getting snatched out. 

The following day we decided to go for a fish at the inlet at Stokes & drove down to the day use area where you can then drive along the edge of the inlet. We didn't go too far along as you then had to drive through plenty of saltwater, but it didn't seem to deter some others. We found what looked like a good fishing spot, rigged up, chucked the lines in & had a bite in the first minute. What followed was a great few hours of fishing for Black Bream with lots of bites & we were catching lots of little ones. The minimum size is 25cm & by the end had 4 keepers in the bucket. Of course we then went back the next day & walked a little further up the inlet & ended up with another 7 keepers, one a 36cm beauty. 

Mat & his 36cm Black Bream

Day two's fish 

It was then back to camp to fillet 10 of the fish, we kept the big one whole for dinner that night, and to start packing up camp as we were leaving the next day. In the end Stokes turned into a good campsite to avoid the Easter long weekend. The camping was ok as we were a fair way from our neighbours & the fishing turned out to be awesome. Next it was off to Kalgoorlie to get the car serviced & resupply before heading north. So it was goodbye to the coast for a while & we are very excited to see what we find up through the middle of WA.