Thursday 5/11/09 to Friday 13/11/09
The highway south out of Perth is all freeway leading down to Mandurah. Mandurah is a sprawled out place and a city in its own right. It is growing fast, most likely due to the opening of the new freeway from Perth. There are some multi-million dollar homes on the canals. All of the caravan parks are on the stretch into town and none looked too appealing. It started to rain as we arrived so we parked near the information centre and had lunch at the bakery and seafood outlet on the water. How does a prawn pie sound? Not too good, but with the creamy mornay sauce, it actually worked quite well – Jane’s choice not mine.
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Sunday 1/11/09 to Wednesday 4/11/09
The road along the Great Northern Highway towards Perth took us through the Swan Valley. This area has plenty of wineries and accommodation, not too different to the Hunter Valley in NSW.
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Friday 30/10/09 & Saturday 31/10/09
Friday, we moved on to Jurien Bay which is a bigger town than the other villages. There are some new housing estates with nice homes going up in this area. South of Jurien Bay is a tiny village called Cervantes which looks like a top fishing spot with an island just offshore. Had the weather been better and we had more time, we would have stopped here a while. There’s not much here except a caravan park and one shop and a garage.
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Tuesday 27/10/09 to Thursday 29/10/09
Tuesday we left The Chapman Valley Fishing Park after saying our goodbyes to Nicki and the girls.
Dropping in at the Greenough Pioneer Museum (pronounced Gren ‘uff) on the way out of town for an interesting self guided tour, we were provided with water to fill the tanks and some hints on where to go on out travels. Two places worthy of mention were Hamlet Township ruins which were just down the road and New Norcia (which we had never heard of – but more on that in a later post). The Greenough Museum has some very well maintained collections of the past in pristine condition including a twin toilet – imagine sitting their sharing that space with someone else!
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Thursday 22/10/09 to Monday 26/10/09
Thursday morning we left Murchison House Station for Geraldton visiting the Pink Lake, Port Gregory, the Lynton Convict Depot ruins, Horrocks and Northampton along the way.
Lyton Convict Depot was built in 1853 but was only used for 3 years after completion due to hardship of the area. Some of the buildings have been restored while others remain in ruins. The depot contains a complete village – police station, goal, stores and housing. Just around the corner, the home of the original settler responsible for the depot has been restored.
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Monday 19/10/09 to Wednesday 21/10/09
Leaving Denham on Monday morning, first stop was Eagle Bluff which has a fantastic boardwalk lookout area which looks over Shark Bay to the west.
Next stop was Hamelin Pool to look at the stromatolites. Hamelin Pool was originally a telegraph station and tours are available but not on the day we were there 
. There is evidence of shell mining with a quarry left in the area.
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Saturday 17/10/09 & Sunday 18/10/09
We left Carnarvon planning on an overnight stop at Gladstone Scenic Lookout (CAW5 W462) but we arrived by lunchtime so decided to have lunch and move on to Denham. Approaching the lookout (which looked like a mound of mine tailings), it was easy to see Brian’s bus at the top and he just as easily spotted us coming up the road as he called us on the radio. From the lookout, you could see all the way to Shark Bay. There is a camp at Gladstine that only charges one or two dollars per night but we decided to move on.
First stop before reaching Denham was Shell Beach to look at the magnificent and well publicised beach full of shells – this turned out to be small bleached shells that had no colour or character – very disappointing and by the graffiti on the interpretive signs it was obvious others were similarly unimpressed. Nevertheless, it was covered in shells but the interesting thing was the sign that banned the removal of shells even though they were mining them at the southern end of the beach – go figure!
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Monday 12/10/09 to Friday 16/10/09
Monday morning, we were pleased to get out of 14 mile as we had had enough of the wind. Beautiful place – but not while it’s windy! We drove into Carnarvon, visited the Information Centre to find out the best campsites and decided on Quobba Point. Before leaving, we had a feed of undisputedly the best fish & chips of our trip at the F&C shop next to the pizza shop in town (it was so good we went back another 2 ties before leaving Carnarvon).
The road to Point Quobba is all bitumen, so is an easy 50 km drive.
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Monday 5/10/09 to Sunday 11/10/09
We left Exmouth on Monday morning for the 80km drive to 14 mile camp on Warroora Station, stopping in at Kallis prawn processing factory on the way out for a final supply of prawns. 14 mile camp privately owned and located on Ningaloo Reef. For the princely sum of $5pp/pn or $25pp/pw, you can camp right on the white sandy beach, behind the dunes, or on the ridge overlooking the water if you do not have 4WD. There are no facilities except a rubbish tip and dump point and limited water in a black tank at the back of the campground, but this is not promoted as being available for us by campers. A sign clearly states all campers must have a cassette toilet before entry is allowed, so no dumping in the dunes! From the turn off on the highway, 15kms south of Coral Bay, there is about 12kms of dirt to deal with, the first 6kms being the roughest but nothing that concerned us.
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Friday 2/10/09 to Sunday 4/10/09
The 434km drive from Old Onslow to Exmouth was a big drive for us today. We didn’t get away from Onslow until well after 11am after catching up on a few last minute things and attempting (without success) to correct an issue with the tail lights that were not working on the van or car. After checking the fuses, I decided to leave it to Toyota to sort out when we found a town that had a service centre. Talking to a couple who were staying at the caravan park, we found there was a fresh seafood outlet in Onslow and headed around there for some prawns for lunch – it’s owned by an old couple who (they tell us) were trying to retire and weren’t interested in too much passing trade so they have no sign on the main road but nevertheless they were happy to serve us – the prawns were good quality and reasonably priced, so it’s worth dropping in if you’re that way inclined.
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Wednesday 30/9/09 & Thursday 1/10/09
The drive from 40 mile camp to Onslow took us through an area where a lot of mining work was starting. The drive took us through Fortescue River, Robe River and Cane River and onto Onslow. The trip seemed much longer than 180kms as there were a lot of straight sections and not much in between. A strong head wind also saw the fuel consumption rise.
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Monday 28/9/09 & Tuesday 29/9/09
Leaving Balla Balla Inlet, we headed south to Roebourne. Roeborne Visitor Information Centre is located in the old gaol and it is well presented with a lot of history, some machinery and old photos. It gave us abit of insight into what Balla Balla Inlet was like in the early days. Roebourne seemed to have too many social services buildings for such a small town, but evidence of squatting by the natives was obvious during a drive of the back streets. One abandoned building was full of indigenous – right across the road from the courthouse…
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Wednesday 23/9/09 to Sunday 27/9/09
After a week away from the coast, we were keen to get back to the coast to catch a few fish so next stop planned was Balla Balla Inlet south of Port Hedland, where Pete & Mary Anne and Brian & Denise were already waiting and reported they were catching some fish. The pantry was still stocked from Port Hedland, so no need for any shopping.
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Monday 21/9/09 & Tuesday 22/9/09
Heading out of Newman towards Karijini National Park we stopped in at one of the camp areas on the maps given to us by the Newman IS. Wunna Munna (S 23 6.5755’ E 119 7.7350’) has a permanent water hole but being late in the dry season the water was pretty stagnate – it’d be a good spot earlier in the dry. We stopped for lunch before heading on to Karijini NP.
The road towards Karijini NP is good bitumen with a backdrop of hilly scenery closer to Karijini NP.
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Sunday 20/9/09
The road between Nullagine and Newman was mostly corrugated dirt and with a few sections of bitumen closer to the Newman end. Mining road trains frequented this road and on one occasion we were completely blacked out from the dust kicked up from a road train heading in the opposite direction – it was like driving with your eyes closed. We didn’t manage to capture the worst blackout on camera but managed another later on in the photos.
As we approached Newman, we spotted an ore train getting loaded and measured around 3kms of length.
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Saturday 19/9/09
Today we headed off about 8am toward Nullagine. We had decided to try the loop road and cut down on the miles rather than double all the way back to Marble Bar. Tyre pressures were reduced in preparation for the long stretch of dirt road ahead – from Carawine Gorge to Newman is approximately 370km of dirt road – more than half the length of the Gibb River Road that we had traversed earlier.
The last few kms to Woodie Woodie Mining Centre is all bitumen with a few windy bits over creek crossings until the turn off to Nullagine is reached on the right via Skull Springs Road.
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Thursday 17/9/09 & Friday 18/9/09
It is about 200kms to Marble Bar and further 180kms to Carawine Gorge on the Ripon Hills Road. We were up early to get out of Port Hedland but didn’t get out until about 9am. We doubled back about 50kms to the Marble Bar turn off. Between the turn off and Marble Bar we only saw one car and about six road trains from the mines, so it was a pretty quiet drive. Not many tourists in this area at all.
The road is all good wide bitumen except for a section near the end where it winds through some hills and slows to 40kph but it was still easy going. There was a strong headwind, however, that blew the consumption over the top to 30L/100kms doing 95kph – not real good at all when we are use to 20-22 while towing!
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Wednesday 16/9/09
This morning we were up early to leave for Port Hedland. One of our neighbours had decided our spot was better than his, so he had his gear all packed up before 6am and relocated outside our awning before we were even up! What is wrong with some people?? We decided to take our time and had a chat and goodbyes to our other neighbours before heading off. 
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Thursday 10/9/09 to Wednesday 16/9/09
The drive to Cape Keraudren was easy – 9kms of dirt out of Eighty Mile Beach, 94km of good bitumen on the highyway, then 12kms of good dirt into the Cape Keraudren Reserve.
The Pardoo Roadhouse is near the turn off to Cape Keraudren and allows people to fill their water tanks for a donation to the RFDS. We didn’t need water but we stopped in for one of their tasty homemade sausage rolls – even better than Barn Hill!
Cape Keraudren Reserve is a shire run camping area and it’s very popular during peak season – we were told 80 caravans at one stage this year…
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Monday 7/9/09 to Thursday 10/9/09
The drive from Barn Hill Station is 10km of dirt out of Barn Hill back to the highway, then 220km of good bitumen before the turn off to Eighty Mile Caravan Park where a final 9km gets you to the park. The dirt into Eighty Mile Caravan Park was well graded and there was no need to adjust tyre pressures.
Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park is within a section of Wallal Downs Station. There is 24 hour power that is run from the local diesel generators that can be heard all night but, depending on where you camp, the noise is not too disruptive. It does have a caravan park feel and there are a lot of people that stay for a few months at a time – not our style. You are not allowed to venture outside the caravan park onto the station but you are allowed to drive on the beach.
The first day we took a walk down to the beach which is just over the sand dune to sus out the fishing – an easy walk. We had heard lots out big King Salmon (called Whities) that are caught off the beach, so we were keen to try our luck.
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travel
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bakery, caravan park, jetty, rain, Thrombolites, vineyard, wine