Exmouth (2 nights)

From Karajini we made an overnight stop on-route to Exmouth at a rest area that allows 24 hour stops and provides compost toilets.  A great for chance for a campfire as they were not permitted in the Karajini.  Then onward to Exmouth where I am writing this after a big feed of fish and chips.  We have been stocking up on supplies for our Cape Range stay (7 nights, no showers, no power, no internet, no mobile coverage and no drinking water sources).  We have also all now got wetsuits and coral shoes ready for big days of snorkelling.  Spot you back here in eight days!

Karajini National Park (3 nights)

After the mine tour we headed for the Dales Gorge camping area in the Karajini National Park, a park we had visited all those years ago and we are pretty sure we were some of the few campers in the park (the same time of year as this).  Boy have things changed, there are 144 camp sites and a team of volunteer camp hosts run the place.  It was full up by the end of each day we were there with people lining up in the morning to get in!  We ended up being allocated the site next to a couple we have been bumping into since the Bungle Bungles, both retired school teachers (maths and science) and camping it not caravan-ing it.  Good to hear where they have been and it turns out they will be at the same camp site in Cape Range National Park when we are there, John reckons we should send the boys over for some lessons – cheeky!.  We also ran into the bus people we met at Cape Keraudren, another excellent couple to know!

The Karajini is all about stunning gorges and falls.  Unlike so many of the gorges we have seen so far, you descend into the gorges, you wouldn’t know they were there just driving through the place.  There are pools in the gorges you can swim in but they are mighty chilly, Circular Pool took my breath away but Fern Pool was ok as it was in the sun, good to have a dip when no showers where going down. The temperature during the day was great, say 23-26 degrees, good for walking.  But as night it is freezing, literally! There was ice on the tent and vehicle in the morning.  I slept the first night ok but the next two were a no show, too cold!.  We didn’t get to all the gorges, you really need a week to see it all and we needed to move on given our Cape Range booking (if you don’t book you miss out) and we didn’t really fancy more of the freezing cold nights!  Leon and Enzo were sworn in as Junior Park Rangers and received great badges-see the school buddies chat page for more details!

The crew with Dales Gorge in the background

Tom Price via Millstream National Park (1 night)

Heading south but inland from Point Samson we stopped off at several Millstream National Park features.  Firstly Python Pool (hoping for a dip but it was full of algae), and then Deep Reach pool where only one member (female) of the party was brave enough to swim.  To then reach Tom Price we travelled via the Rio Tinto rail road, an unsealed private road alongside the rail line that transports iron ore from Tom Price Mine to Dampier for export.  You have to get a permit to use the road, this involves watching a 15 minute DVD and then signing a disclaimer, we did this while in Karratha.  The footage on the DVD makes you aware of potential hazards on the road such as road trains, fresh windrows, work sites, level crossings and ‘retirees with caravans’ (their words!) etc.  It was all very dramaticserious and talked about previous fatalities, the kids were watching and Enzo said at the end, “and we’re going on this road!”.  Anyway the road was fine and in better condition than most public unsealed roads.  We got to see some trains close up, one driver gave us a toot.  We did see some retirees with caravans so we stayed well clear!

The boys at Python Pool, Millstream National Park

Rio Tinto Iron Ore Train

We stayed in Tom Price overnight and it blew like anything! The next morning we went on the Tom Price Mine tour in a big coach bus.  Big dump trucks, excavators and crushers, loading areas etc, etc, but we didn’t get to see any explosions, much the pity!  I did a 2 week contract in Tom Price 15 years ago preparing their cycle network plan so it was bizarre being back and looking out for cycle paths (imagine the rolling eyes of my family).

On the mine tour

Point Samson (near Karratha) (2 nights)

We arrived at Point Samson to get the last camping spot at the Samson Beach Caravan Park, which is better than last time were there 15 years ago when it was full and we ended up parking up our van in the adjacent pub car park and sleeping there.  We explored the beach, great rocky shoreline and watched boats coming and going.  Leon and John went fishing (no luck!) while Enzo and I checked out the pub to see if there were any changes since my last visit, nothing to report.  We also made a day trip into Karratha and Dampier to check out the area and also visited the North West Shelf Gas Project visitor centre (very interesting!).  The lady at the visitor centre gave us tip off about a humpback whale being spotted in the bay nearby so we headed down there.  We saw a pair of whales in the bay, but only just, they weren’t leaping about and spouting as one would hope, they then went out with the tide and we saw one of them do a leap/dive once they got out to the open sea.  Once we got back to the camp site it poured down and we experienced some drainage issues in the tent due to some terrain aspects and human error (the door wasn’t zipped up!).

Having a Bundi at the Point Samson Tavern, just one this time!

Leon whale watching with North West Shelf Gas plant in the background

Port Hedland (3 nights)

Port Hedland gets on average 13 days of rain a year, we were honoured to be here for one of those days.  It started at 11pm on our first night with a hiss and a roar (high winds) and lasted the rest of the night; the tent did really well! The next day was drizzly and still a bit cold so we stayed another night and today is glorious sun again.  The big natural disaster risk up here is cyclones, there are signs all over the place with the CYCLONE STATUS, and they currently say “ALL CLEAR”.  There are also cyclone welfare centres and muster points dotted around the place.  Houses have either window grills or shutters or big wide eaves.  There is no guttering given the lack of rain and they would just blow off in a cyclone.  The external walls of the modern houses are clad with corrugated iron.

Yesterday we went on the historic town tour and learnt all about the establishment of the town, the exports from the port (mainly salt and iron ore), and various landmarks and historic buildings. The guide has lived here for 50 years.  The iron ore is transported in from the mines within the Pilbara area by road train (a truck with 4 trailers) and train (120 wagons!) and then loaded onto massive ships that take it to Singapore and China.  You can see about 20-25 ships waiting out at sea for their turn to be guided very slowly (by a series of tugs/pilot boats) into the port for loading.  It takes about 30 hours for each ship to come in, get loaded and go back out again, with what looks like 4-5 ships being loaded at a time.  This is going on 24-7 so not the best place for a light sleeper!

Ship being piloted back out to sea, spot the waiting ships in the background

"Like palms, we will bend but we won't break" Cyclone George 2007

If you just drive in and out of this town and didn’t stay you could be left with a negative impression (red dust and rust) but if you look around you will find heaps of art installations (murals and sculptures galore), great parks/reserves and informative plaques around the town. The wee museum in the old Dalgety building is quite interesting and has an exhibition about the SS Koombana, a passenger ship that went missing between here and Broome in 1912, the wreckage has never been found.

The news of MH17 is shocking, there were 28 Australians on-board so the impact here is massive and the news coverage of the personal stories is so sad.  Other news here is the removal of the carbon tax and potential now for removal of the mining tax, attempts to get the economy moving again.  ‘Wicked’ hire vehicles are currently, and justifiably under fire with their outrageous slogans painted on the side of the vehicles.  They made a slogan targeting one vocal opponent and sent it down to where she lives, one of her friends spotted it, shocking behaviour.

Progress Report
We are nearly half way in terms of time and just over half way in terms of distance.  I have posted some info on the place we are currently and another about life on the road which may be of interest. We head to Port Hedland today (1.5 hour drive) for a few nights to stock up, it is forecast to rain today so we are busy packing up now at 7am and hoping to get set up in Port Hedland before it turns too bad.  When it rains the temperature drops alot so we have all the jackets etc ready to go!

Cape Keraudren (3 nights)

Another fantastic spot, we are about 20m from the sea at high tide, which makes it interesting for light sleepers like me when the tide is high at about midnight! There are several camping areas in the nature reserve managed by the local council (called a SHIRE, very middle earth).  Campfires are permitted so we have been using the camp oven again.  My olive damper bread was a hit with the neighbours each side of us last night, one had helped Leon get his rod set up for the whiting fish and the other had helped Enzo spot the big shells in the rocks at low tide.  

Leon getting the campfire set up

Leon has a new rod so I get his old one and tried my luck off the beach but it was Leon who caught his first fish today enough for his lunch. He was very happy!  Meanwhile John and Enzo went swimming in the mangroves looking for turtles, no luck today.

There is a hardcase golf course here on the dry mudflats, you use plastic bottle tops as a tee and the holes are about 100mm diameter!  You just borrow one of the clubs and a ball and go for it.  Spotted some flocks of brolgas (a stately long-legged crane with a scarlet on rear of head), they are lovely creatures.

Leons first catch!

A couple of Brolgas

Golf on the dry mud flats!

Life on the road

I am sitting in the tent hiding for the wind at Cape Keraudren nature reserve, it is an awesome spot but windy at the tide changes.  There is no water or power, no showers, long drop toilets but there is free wifi hotspot for some strange reason! Anyway making the most of it to post this blog about life on the road as I am sure some of you will be interested in more detail about this trip than just where we have been. 

Survival essentials

Travelling like this without going bonkers essentially comes down to being organised, hunger management (avoid meltdowns) and getting sleep (avoid more meltdowns – mainly by me)  The latter is the trickiest, in the towns and cities you are often next to busy roads and in the bush there is the wildlife and other campers! but we get enough to survive.  Being organised comes down to having a place for everything and making sure things are accessible when you need them! The first few weeks were spent asking “where’s the such and such?’ with answers like “no idea” or “what am I, your mother?”. Hunger management comes down ensuring there is always crackers and peanut butter on hand.

Day to day stuff

Along with all the exploring, swimming etc. there always seems to be something that needs doing on the days when we aren’t travelling, whether its domestic chores like cooking, dishes (the boys miss the dish washer), washing clothes (some camping grounds have coin operated machines), grocery shopping, collecting firewood or teaching the kids.  Any time left over is for writing in my journal or the blog, reading books and now fishing! Cooking without an oven (except for the camp oven) is a bit limiting and we generally eat meals like risotto, meatballs and spag, nachos, pasta and something, curries, sometimes pancakes and pikelets if we have fresh milk on us.  We have small 30L fridge that runs off the battery/solar when we don’t have power, it works really well.  Generally we can get about a week’s worth of meals between towns with the fridge and storage space.  I have my yoghurt maker with us which is great always having yoghurt on-hand!
In the evenings we sometimes play cards (last card is getting a bit dull) or watch a movie on the laptop, or hang out with others around campfires.  Generally we hit the hay early, say 8.30 or 9pm but we adults get up early to watch sunrises or I go for a walk.

Teaching the kids

On the long haul drives Leon discovered reading books is actually fun! So that is bonus for starters.  The basis for the teaching is their log books where they record the location, weather, observations and then some activities about that place, for example a poem, description writing, a process diagram (opal mining), a life cycle. It was easy to find activities in the National Parks due to the new wildlife and geology we were experiencing at each one.  Now we have hit the coast it we have to think harder, John is currently doing a longitude and latitude activity and will do tides soon.  We have also taken advantage of any park ranger talks or activities in the towns we come across.  The heat up the top end was a challenge to both us and the kids in terms of sitting down and doing the school work, we tried to make the most of the cool mornings but that was also the best time to go walking.

People you meet

They say there are 350,000 people travelling in Australia at this time of year, with at least 80,000 moving site on any given day.  We have meet people on their big trip, short trippers (e.g. they fly to Darwin get a rental and drive around for 3 weeks), sun seekers just camped in one spot for the winter and school holiday trippers.  All ages are represented but I would say retired folks dominate the statistics (the infamous grey nomads).  There are people in swags, tents, camper trailers, campervans, caravans, the massive fifth wheelers and some house buses.  There are some overseas tourists but mainly Australians, haven’t meet many kiwis.  As I have mentioned before we do meet other families along the way and some we bump into again.  When we meet people we often don’t find out their names so they get christened a name for later reference, such as mince-lady, shell-lady, cactus-man, Horsham-man, “excuse I want take a photo of that”-man, you get the picture.  Generally everyone is really friendly and helpful and you pick up tips about good places to visit, for example it was swag-man in Alice Springs told us about this place.  

Eighty Mile Beach (2 nights)

The day we left Barn Hill it poured down, it was unseasonal event and turned campers into a spin.  Luckily we were driving for 3 hours of it and when we arrived at Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park there was enough of a lull to get set up, then it poured again! The ‘unsealed’ roads in the caravan park turned to mud baths so it was fun getting to and from the toilet block.  The next day dawned fine and we got dried out and some laundry done (the laundry room is the best place to hear gossip!).  We had a great spot in the row closet to the sand dunes.

So this is a very long beach, as you tell from the name.  At high tide the fisherman (mainly men) all line up and try their luck, some are on quad bikes so they can get further down the beach, or you can drive your 4WD down the beach.  Leon joined the throngs (we will probably spend a fortune on bait – hope he catches something!).  Shell collectors (mainly woman) hit the beach at low tide scouring for that extra special one!  People display their finds on their tables and others walking past stop to admire and compare notes. 

The line up of fisherman on Eighty Mile Beach

Selfie on the beach

Barn Hill Outstation (2 nights)

About 150km south of Broome is Thangoo cattle station (4000 head of cattle) and on their property they run the Barn Hill camping ground.  Barn Hill is a wee bump of the landscape where explorer Fredrick someone or other placed a cairn.  The camping ground is near full at this time of year mainly occupied by the sun seeking grey nomads who stay for the 2-4 months.  It seems a better option than Broome, less noise (no airport, speedway and people heading off to work at the crack of dawn) and cheaper camp fees.  Plus they have a lawn bowls green (where a tournament was underway the day we arrived), bingo night, bbq night, Sunday roast and everyday people line up for the freshly made (world famous apparently) lamingtons and vanilla slice.  The kids joined the queue and acquired the coveted vanilla slice (basically custard square with pink icing), the verdict - it was OK (Enzo) and very good (Leon). I liked the no-roof toilets and showers, at night there was a full moon so quite that was cool to gaze at whilst showering!

The start of the lamington/vanilla slice crowd at Barn Hill

Enzo ready for a beach footy game at Barn Hill

The beaches at Barn Hill are fabulous, crazy rock formations and rock pools on the point between the two beaches, the northern most beach was great for shell collecting, swimming, playing soccer and more crazy rock formations.  Leon once again took to fishing, he finds that he becomes instant friends with all the other more senior fisher-people.  Enzo was in shell collecting heaven, he started this hobby at Middle Lagoon and also finds he has instant friends, mainly with older woman!

Broome (2 nights)

Back in Broome! More food required and finally I got a haircut! Two months without one is a hardship for me but luckily I found hairdresser Wolfgang in the camping ground.  He is a German chap with 50 years as a hairdresser, he did a very precise job and told me “that is short enough now”.  We have been back at the same caravan park as a week ago, it is laid out like a little village with everyone all tidily tucked into their spots.  There are narrow little shared lanes and a tree between each spot for shade.  Some of the grey nomads stay here for the winter and appear to spend their time sweeping up leaves and drinking with their neighbours.  There are some sites which look pretty ensconced, check out the one below with pot plants, a drinking area and even a “No Parking, Except Tiger Fans” sign outside (don’t get me started on AFL).

Off down south now, first stop will probably be Barn Hill Station.

Cape Leveque (2 nights)

At the top of the Dampier Peninsula is Cape Leveque.  The resort there with the best beaches for swimming and snorkelling is Kooljman.  We had found out it was fully booked whilst we were in Broome so had found out about another less ‘resorty’ place (AKA very basic and laid back) called Gambanana.  So we headed here and set up a great campsite overlooking the sea, east facing this time.  We then went back to Kooljman for lunch at their café and hung out on the beaches swimming, snorkelling and fishing.  No luck with the fishing but later that night a young guy called Dave, camping near us, gave us some mackerel he had caught that day-score!  We had a relaxing day at the camp site, exploring the rocky shore line, fishing (still nothing) and eating the yummy mackerel. 

The sunrises were stunning, I got up at 5.30am each morning (we go to bed early) to watch it and on the last morning was lucky enough to spot turtles swimming and fishing in the calm sea at high tide, awesome!!!!!

Leon the fisherman

Chilled out campers

Sunset at Gambanana

Middle Lagoon (3 nights)

Heading north from Broome to the Dampier Peninsula involves a driving on an unsealed road for the first 90km or so.  When I say ‘unsealed’, it is not what we know as ‘unsealed’ in NZ, it is actually just sand on top of compacted soil, corrugated, rutted and dusty as.  In some parts it looked like a dry drainage channel and when another vehicle approaches you both have to deal with some challenging super-elevation.  This was the most demanding road we had encountered so far and we headed north with trepidation as we watched other travellers changing tyres and one chap waiting with his boat trailer that appeared to have broken in two.  The road was littered with shreds of tyre rubber, hub caps, engine hoses, plastic mouldings, tie downs, water containers and the occasional deserted vehicle.  We felt relieved we had purchased another spare tyre in Broome and checked the Patrol over including an oil change.  Anyway we made it to where the seal started and then not far up the road we turned into the Middle Lagoon access road and faced another 30km of similar ‘unsealed’ road.  But it was truly worth the effort!

John on the 'unsealed' road

The Middle Lagoon camping ground was a bit hard case but there was a cute little beach about 100m from our camp site and truly beautiful.  We faced west so had a stunning sunset every night.  The sea water was much warmer than at Broome and luckily we had got that snorkel gear as there were some nice spots to see some colourful fish, John and Leon saw a massive string ray!  Leon tried out his fishing rod for the first time, no beginners luck. 

It was good to be able to have campfires again (more stew!) and we had one night around our fire with Troy and Jacky, a young couple from Melbourne who entertained the boys and vice versa.  In a neighbouring bay there was a café called Whalesong, someone had told us about earlier on the trip so we checked it out to find some of the best smoothies we have ever had. 

Exploring the beaches at Middle Lagoon

The Middle Lagoon swimming beach at low tide

View from the Whalesong Cafe

Broome (5 nights)
Today we head north to Middle Lagoon on the Dampier Peninsula for 3 nights then we might free camp at some beaches on the way back down.  We have been busy here in Broome visiting places and stocking up on things including snorkelling gear for Ningaloo Reef later this later.  We checked out the dinosaur footprints at low tide (6.30am!), we visited the 12 Mile Bird Park with their great range of feathered beauties, went to the movies at the historic Sun Picture move theatre which is half covered have open air and you sit on beach deck chairs pretty much under the flight path of the airport (we saw TRACKS, great movie, second time for me).

Spent a few afternoons at Cable Beach (in the non-nude area!), on the Monday a saltwater croc (the ones that eat people) swam onto the beach and the beach had to be closed, made going back in the next day was a bit scary!   The outdoor aquatic centre was very quiet, I think it is too cold for the locals.  The boys visited the local museum to learn about the pearling history and war time events whilst I had some retail therapy.  Last night me and the boys went down to the beach for the sunset, it was beautiful.

View of The Sun Pictures movie theatre during the day

Sunset at Cable Beach (thought of you Ann-Marie, great for paddle boarding here!)

Sunset at Cable Beach