Red Dirt Roaming: Fitzgerald River National Park - St Mary's & 4 Mile Beach campgrounds

It was back down to the coast again to finish off our stay on the south coast before leaving WA. We did the Esperance stretch including Cape Le Grand, Cape Arid & Stokes Inlet when we first came into WA off the Nullabour so the Fitzgerald NP finished that stretch off for us. We started on the western side of the park & made our way towards St Marys Inlet camp. As soon as we entered the park it reminded us a lot of the country in Cape Arid, low scrubby bush & huge mountains. The main road in was good gravel & we soon could see the ocean & as we came over the dune were rewarded with another magical coastline. We found the campground deserted & got the pick of the spots. We chose site 13 as it was large & tucked into the bush to protect from the wind. What a great spot.

Beach at St Marys above & below

The next day we headed into Bremer Bay for a look. Not much here just a sleepy little town on an inlet. We explored some of the beaches & found a lovely little one called Boat Harbour.

Boat harbour at Bremer Bay

We decided to take the short cut home & found some of the worst roads we have come across. Huge potholes & corrugations & they had some rain recently & there were lots of bog holes. In the end we had to let down our tyres the corrugations were so bad. We finally got back to camp & we're glad to get out of the car.

Our next few days were great. We did get a bit of rain & wind but most days it cleared by mid morning for lovely days. We visited Point Ann right near camp & climbed to the lookouts for some lovely views. We had long walks on the beach, read, relaxed & fished. Mat caught some very tasty flathead & skippy trevally. In the end we stayed for 5 nights at a cost of $7.50 per person per night. There are pit toilets & gas BBQs. There is no water available. At night we had a Roo & her joey visit each night. The first night we were sitting in the dark & they came in within a meter of us. The next night they were more bold & the joey had its head in the rubbish bag pulling out sweet potato scraps, cheeky buggers. St Marys was a great camp & one of our favourites.

Views from Pt Ann above & below

We then packed up camp & headed further east in the park. Firstly we looked at the newly developed Hammersley Inlet campground. They have spent a fortune but it's pretty terrible. Long horizontal sites all close together. We weren't impressed so headed further into the 4 Mile Beach camp. Again brand new & pretty average. All the sites were filled with blue metal & badly set out. We managed to find one that was amongst the trees & gave us some protection from the wind which was howling.

4 Mile camp

We went into Hopetoun that afternoon for a look. Another small town. We had some lunch & then headed back to camp to hide out of the wind & by this time rain. It was a miserable night with the wind flapping the canvas all night.

More drizzle the next morning & we headed into town to get fuel, some groceries, water & wash Ruby. We had decided to leave the south coast & to finish in WA. That afternoon the sun came out for a bit so we tried to get a few photos for you.

View down to 4 Mile

Ruby nice & clean

We then packed up camp as much as we could ready for a quick getaway on the morning. The cost of camping at Hammersley was $10 per site & at 4 Mile was $10 per person. They had pit toilets & BBQs. In our opinion the St Marys end was much nicer.