John Collins takes us to Gladstone Port on the North West Coastal Hwy

WA's Best Shower with a View

BY DR JOHN H COLLINS

My nomination for the shower with the best view in Western Australia is located at the Gladstone Port.

Adjacent to the North West Coastal Highway, 149km south of Carnarvon or 341km north of Geraldton, the turn-off to the Gladstone Bay Campground is well sign-posted and opposite Yaringa Station homestead. The 6km access thoroughfare is a graded dirt road and the campground can usually be easily accessed by two-wheel drive vehicles. Like all secondary roads in the north-west, road conditions are dependent on current climatic conditions and the interval between maintenance.

Popular during winter, the campground reserve at Gladstone Port jetty and beach area typically attracts numerous campers with caravans dotting the back of the beach and dunes. The reserve is vested to the Shire of Carnarvon and the campground is managed by the Yaringa Station owners Fran and Richard. Gladstone Bay is in the Shark Bay World Heritage Area and the Gladstone Special Protection Zone restrictions help conserve the local population of dugongs which visit the area to breed during summer. Waters south of the Gladstone boat ramp are annually closed to boating from 1st September to 15th January with the waters north of the ramp being closed between 1st December and 31st March. While the Wooramel Special Purpose Zone recognises the significance of the Wooramel seagrass bank in the Shark Bay ecosystem, there is a channel that facilitates boat access from the beach to areas beyond the restricted zone at all times of the year.

The campground facilities include flushing toilets, an artesian (hot water) camp shower, a caravan dump point and access to non-potable water. There is a communal picnic area that comprises a wood fired pizza oven, a BBQ, a communal fire pit and a shaded gazebo with plenty of seating. You must supply your own firewood. Prior to COVID-19, a camp host was on site and was able to provide gas bottle refills, drinking water, firewood, and some basic supplies which were available for purchase. Unfortunately, this service is currently unavailable because of difficulties securing a camp host. Hopefully somebody will take on the camp host role in 2023.

The beach commences at the jetty and trends to the north for 2.2km until it meets with the shallow tidal flats of the Wooramel River delta. It is backed by an irregular 50-200m wide beach-foredune ridge plain. The beach is low, narrow (2-5m) and composed of sandy-shelly beach with stunted vegetation growing almost to the shore, and intertidal vegetation on the tidal flats off the beach. The most obvious structure is the causeway and jetty, the remains of what was the most substantial wool-lightering structure on the Western Australian coast. The 287-metre stone causeway lead from a wool-store shed to a 77-metre timber jetty. The footings of the wool-store can still be seen today, and the site has several helpful interpretive signs for visitors. Originally Bibra’s Landing, named after Frank von Bibra and sons Francis, Ernest, and Leopold, the family became Western Australia’s major sandalwood suppliers in conjunction with their pastoral pursuits. In the early 1830s the Bibra family arrived in the Swan River Colony from Tasmania and over the years this pioneering family moved north. Bibra Lake in Perth is a relic of the family's influence on the Swan River Colony. In 1872, Frank von Bibra took a mob of sheep, 800 cattle and his pregnant (second) wife by bullock wagon from Perth to Shark Bay to take up the pastoral lease on Dirk Hartog Island. Brother Charles and son Louis applied for a large pastoral lease between the Wooramel and Gascoyne Rivers as the family pioneered its way north to Carnarvon. On 17th March 1891, a town of 5,500 acres was gazetted at Bibra’s Landing. The townsite was called Gladstone, and it had thirty-eight lots laid out that at auction had the upset price of twenty pounds each. Gladstone was an important port for many years when boats freighted wool and sandalwood to ports further south. You can see relics of the port facility constructed in 1910. Lighters used the port to collect wool and sandalwood brought by teams of camels from stations throughout the Murchison district. In the year ended August 1909, 342 bales of wool and eighteen tons of sandalwood were exported from the port. As the result of community lobbying

an artesian bore was developed at Gladstone in 1909 and by 1910 a woolshed and the jetty were built. Pastoralists were also assisted with the construction of the stone causeway from the wool shed, and the jetty could, depending on tide, handle the largest lighters using a tramway to get the bales of wool to the end of the jetty. The 774-foot-long stone causeway comprised an initial 370-foot conglomerate filling and another 404 feet of stone filling. This was attached to 85 feet of timber piling and planks that were eight and a half feet wide connecting the wool shed. The jetty’s end was 45 feet long by 20 feet wide and at low tide was in six feet of water. This infrastructure facilitated the largest lighters at Shark Bay. A lighter is a type of flatbottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships. Lighters were traditionally unpowered and were moved and steered using long oars called "sweeps" and the motive power of water currents. The name itself is of uncertain origin but is believed to possibly derive from an old Dutch or German word, lichten (to lighten or unload). In Dutch, the word lichter is still used for smaller ships that take over goods from larger ships.

The town of Gladstone was never really settled, and although remnants of the causeway and jetty remain, the woolshed was destroyed by a fire reportedly lit by careless campers in the 1980s. Today, campfires are permitted subject to seasonal fire bans, and you must supply your own firewood. Please check the fire rating and adhere to any restrictions in place. My nomination for The Best Open-Air Shower with a View in Western Australia is based upon the history of Gladstone Port, the World Heritage Area significance of the surrounding area, the exquisite sunset ocean views, the open night sky views together with the associated brightness of stars overhead and a seemingly neverending supply of hot artesian water that possibly has therapeutic properties! Where else in Australia can a camper ablute in a rustic shower stall that can compete with these attributes?

INFORMATION BAY

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

Contact Fran or Richard Phone: 08 9942 5952 Email: yaringa@westnet.com.au Website: gladstonebaywa.com