Week 15

We left late from Monkey Mia and travelled back past Shark Bay and visited Shell beach and Hamelin Pool on the way through,

  

Bush Bay – free camp 7th – 8th April

We didn’t want to stay in Carnarvon  so we stayed at a free camp location overnight called Bush Bay. The camps Australia wide book mentioned to watch the tide times… we didn’t take much notice of the warning as other people were already there setup. But there was evidence of dry seaweed further inland and crab holes all around the camp site. I kept the car hooked up and everything inside… just in case…I was confident the Prado would pull the van out if we woke up surrounded a foot deep in sea water… If I had to…

 

We spent a few hours in Carnarvon re-supplying food and fuel. Apart from the banana plantations there wasn’t much else to see. Whilst in town I replaced the Prado’s battery. Earlier at a roadhouse I had to jump start the car. After a few tests it looked like it was on its way out.

Coral Bay 8th – 9h April

After another long and somewhat hot and boring drive, we made it to Coral Bay. (insert of Curtis joining in on who can stretch their snake lolly the longest.)

 

We knew there was a resort there but surprised to see two caravan parks too. We enjoyed a swim and snorkel in the beautiful bay. The water was around 28 degrees so just perfect. Fish swam around us. It was a great way to spend an afternoon. Later we played in the pool and watched the sunset.

The next morning we went for another swim, it was already 30+ degrees at 8am and no wind at all.

 

Trying to stick to a tight budget we only stayed for the one night… we should have stayed for a few more, but  we left and headed north for another hot and long drive.

 

Exmouth / Cape Range National Park  9th – 11th April

We didn’t think too much of Exmouth, interesting town but nothing making us wanting to stay.

 

We continued on around the cape and setup camp at the Messa camp ground. With no power it was very uncomfortable for all, dealing with the 37 degree heat. It was nasty, we sweated all night. There was no relief. I wanted to go the next morning but Rach convinced me to give it another night… I’m glad she did, it got better. It was still hot but the wind calmed down and we spent most the day at the beach keeping cool.

 

 We explored the coastline and even gave snorkelling the Ningaloo reef again but after a minute Rach felt nervous staying in the water. Funny enough as I was standing a foot of water on the shore, a shovel nose shark came up to my feet and gave us a fright! “I told you something didn’t feel right!” said Rach shaking her finger at me. I could help but giggle, but agreed to cancel any further snorkelling. We were visited in the evenings whilst watching a movie by crabs scurrying past our feet and wallabies looking for water.

We packed up and left, but we had one more thing to do… A glass bottom boat tour over the Ningaloo reef. It was fantastic and our local guide made the experience fun.

 

We heard on the radio a Cyclone had developed about 1000km north west from where we were and was slowly heading our way.  The beauro didn’t expect it to get close to land. It wasn’t something we expected so late in the season but made me nervous anyhow. Do we stay, do we keep going or head inland? We decided to keep going.

 

Karratha 11th – 13th April

We hit the road again around 10:30 and drove 540k’s to arrive in Karratha at sunset. The scenery changed from boring to intriguing. First it was seeing trees again…then the darker red landscape to mountain ranges and then the iron ore mines. You really get a feel to just how big mining is to the area. It was like a hive of activity. Road trains, hundreds of mining vehicles with their distinctive white paint, black bull bar, high vis stickers and topped off with roof bar lights and flag pole.

 

The Big4 caravan park had a large sign “cyclone watch – all clear” Good enough for me. I stopped worrying.

Karratha itself was not what I expected. I could only describe it by comparing it to the gold rush days in  Victoria. A lot of money has gone into the town and still a lot of construction occurring.

Dampier

We just had to go and see  red dog. Jake was sad because red dog died.

 

Port Headland. 13th – 14th April

     Off again…  stayed overnight.... We were asked by a local in Karratha why we wanted to go to Port Headland. He said there was nothing much there. He was right. Nothing than a mining town. We stayed the night at the Big4 park and moved on the next morning to Eighty Mile beach, 250km up the road.. 

 

Eighty Mile Beach 14th - 16th April

 

Awesome fishing! But Zach and I didn't catch anything... 3 metre sharks swam by so no one was standing in the water. It was hot, too hot for the kids. lucky the air con was working well. One of the grey nomads fishing must have felt sorry for us. Once back at camp, he came over with two bags of fish! we were very grateful and they tasted just great in a red curry the following nights.