Sounds so inviting doesn’t it “Twilight Cove”… I mean before the teen vampires highjacked the word?

If you look at the map of southern West Australia you can depart the Eyre Hwy at Cocklebiddy Roadhouse, head south to the coast and basically drive through Nature Reserves to arrive at several Coastal National Parks and then Esperance – sounds better than a few hundred more kilometres of very straight road right?

Cocklebiddy is top right. Head South to Twilight Cove then amble peacefully around the coast…

Checked maps, checked trip notes, asked the guy in the roadhouse (who didn’t know much about much ’round these parts), rang tourist Esperance (“What track?”), finally someone at Parks WA said “Oh we don’t check those tracks but I’ll email you some trip notes now”. She was a helpful girl and the trip notes were great except there wasn’t one for this particular track we were considering. Oh well, we are well prepared – let’s just give it a go!

What’s worse than discovering the track your on isn’t the one you should have taken? Acceptable answers include the following in our case:

1. After you have spent an hour bouncing through the bush and are tantalising close to a destination you will never reach.
2. After the nice firm track turns to very soft deep rutted sand (you remember how much I am carrying/towing right?)
3. After the track narrows so that there is now nowhere to to turn around
4. After getting bogged in the soft sand and letting down the tyres as far as you dare
5. After discovering that one of the rear tyres has actually gone flat (it’s damn hard to tell when driving in soft sand)
6. When it is nice and late in the day and you are ready to make camp and sip a Gin & Tonic rather than dig your truck out

The track to Twilight Cove starts to get sandy – looks lovely doesn’t it?

It’s a special kind of fun that only those who have tried will understand, when your tyre is flat, when it’s well buried in soft sand, when the car is in a deep rut, when you are juggling three different jacks (hydraulic bottle, tall screw jack & air bag) trying to get a 3 tonne truck high enough to safely put one of your spares on.

Excavation works with they aid of the ingenious exhaust-air jack.

I can’t say enough good things about these inflatable jacks. I got given this one years ago and it has saved my bacon a few times. Just put the hose on your exhaust pipe and up she goes (will lift 3 ton). Add this to your gear list as they are also light and fold away to not much.

The only inflatable accessory you will need while camping – except for my boat! No I am not wearing black gloves, I have been playing with the diesel exhaust. Hope it washes off eventually?

Oh did I mention that the spare I wrestled off the roof of the truck turned out to have a slow leak and was also pretty much flat… hilarious!

All fixed… except this one was flat too! Glad I have a decent air pump. It is now staying inflated 🙂

Anyway,  an hour or two later with the help of Ginnie (scurrying and fetching and soothing and taking photos) we managed to extract our selves and retreat having never seen Twilight Cove. Shame, but the Gin and Tonics were particularly appreciated as we witnessed yet another stunning outback sunset and the amazing silence of the desert.