HEADING SOUTH TO COOLER WEATHER

We enjoyed our 4 days in Exmouth and had our first meal of prawns while we were staying there. Considering we have had the sea all around us since we arrived at Broome, we have had very little seafood. Like New Zealand, fish is very expensive in Australia. We had planned to stay at Coral Bay but with all the “grey nomads” on the move, we couldn’t get into a van park there. We decided to stay at a working cattle and sheep station instead. The station is called Bullara Station and is just off the highway between Exmouth & Coral Bay. There was cabin and van accommodation available and we got used to having sheep, goats, cows and horses wander by at any time of the day or night. The sheep and goats were quite tame but a couple had a very strong tendency to give you a good butt if they felt so inclined. Not a very good feeling when you were walking back to the van after drinking around the campfire in the dark! There was no power available but there were showers, well sort of. Outdoor showers with no roof, surrounded by thick brush, and the water was heated by a “donkey”. The things you learn in bush camping! A donkey is a water tank heated by a wood fire, and after you had your shower, you were expected to add more wood to the fire for the next person. It was a lot of fun and we met some great people there, including people from Palmerston North. Joy made some great lemonade scones for us all around the camp fire one night which were greatly appreciated. We find that people are much friendlier in bush camps and it’s amazing the stories that are told around campfires.
We decided to drive to Coral Bay for a day, as we couldn’t stay there, so as usual we had to be up at the crack of dawn and on the road early. We were following 2 vans when a car coming over the brow of a hill toward us flashed his lights, obviously warning us of something. We slowed down and saw all this debris on the road and the two vans in front pulled off the road. We both thought that one of the vans had rolled over but luckily he managed to control it and bring it off the road. The van had either lost its step and this hit the tyre causing it to blow out or it just had a blow out causing the step to fall off. Whatever caused it, the result was the explosion from the tyre had blown a hole in the floor of the van and all the debris on the road was contents being sucked out through the hole in the floor. There was clothing, drapes off the windows, electrical wiring, parts of the step, all over the road. The water tank had gone completely. There was this huge hole in the middle of the floor and inside the van it looked as if a cyclone had been through it. It was amazing. The van was an English van and we have been looking at them in NZ, but there’s no way I would buy one now.
Coral Bay is on the Ningaloo Reef and consists of 2 van parks, supermarket, bakery and gift shops and not much else except for the most beautiful beach I have even seen. I thought Mission Beach in Queensland would take a lot of beating but Coral Bay is equal to it. The water is crystal clear and calm with lots of fish to be seen when snorkelling. We set up the deck chairs about 9.30 in the morning and stayed there till 3.30 in the afternoon. We had about 3 swims as it was so hot but we didn’t get burnt as the ozone layer doesn’t seem to be so bad over here. It was a lovely day and one we’ll remember for a long time.
Carnarvon was our next stop on our trip south. Carnarvon is known as the “fruit bowl of North Western Australia” and boy does it live up to its name. The town is situated on the Gasgoyne River, which supplies all the water for the horticulture in the area. There is a difference between this river and others we have seen though, all the water is stored under about 3 metres of red sand. When you look at the river all you see is a dry water bed but this river manages to support a huge acreage of mangoes, bananas, grapes, citrus and vegetables. I have put a photo of it on my blog. Carnarvon has quite a few winds so all the properties have huge netting around and over all the plantations to protect them. We bought the most juicy mandarins we have ever tasted in Carnarvon (sorry Wendy and John). They were easy peel but much bigger than the ones we normally see and so juicy. It was in Carnarvon that we saw the second Bledisloe Cup game. We went to a local pub and most of the attendees were Kiwis so it was a good atmosphere. Except for one woman ( a Kiwi) who was three sheets to the wind before the game even started. She shouted at the players, referee etc. and as the game progressed and her alcoholic intake increased, her voice and language got worse. I know I scream at rugby games but she left me for dead. We thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle though. About 70kms. north of Carnarvon are blowholes. These are quite amazing and make Punakaiki look really tame. The roar of the water forcing itself up through these tiny holes sounded like an earthquake approaching. It was awesome.
Our next stop was Denham where we had the most awful gale force winds we have experienced in the van. My thoughts were of how cyclone prone this whole coast is, so there was not much sleep that night. According to the tourist brochures, Denham had been a derelict town in its earlier years, well, I’m sorry to say we didn’t see much difference to that description today. None of the houses have lawns as we know them, but instead everything is covered in crushed white shells. The glare from the sun shining on these shells is almost blinding. Our caravan park was covered in these shells and it was worse than the sand or red dust. It stuck to shoes, mats etc. so there was always a gritty feeling about the floor. Monkey Mia is only 26 kms. from Denham and as that was our main reason for going into Denham, on the first fine day we set off at the crack of dawn for Monkey Mia. Now we had heard differing stories about Monkey Mia; some said it was very controlled; some said it was a waste of time and others said it was over-rated, so it was with a feeling of trepidation we headed off to see the dolphins. We loved it! The dolphins come in to Monkey Mia every day about 8am, and the females, who have had calves, are fed about 5 or 6 fish by members of the public who are picked out by volunteers. There are 3 feedings a day, usually between 8am and noon. Until about 1998 feeding was open slather and all dolphins were fed, but it was found that the dolphins, which are still wild, were losing the will to fish and suffering and dying from over feeding. The Dept. of Environment and Conservation have now taken over the project and they are doing a great job. The males aren’t hand fed because they are too aggressive and the calves are fed by the mother for about 2 years so they don’t need hand feeding. The dolphins can’t be touched but they are very friendly and come right up to the water’s edge. In the afternoons they are left to their own devices and most days they can be seen in the bay catching their own fish in the sea grass. We were lucky enough to be there on a lovely sunny day and all afternoon the dolphins were darting in and out among the swimmers and boats and just having a great time. It was a lovely way to spend a day, just sitting on the beach and watching these graceful creatures splashing and diving among us.
On the road out from Denham we stopped at Hamelin Pool where there is an old telegraph station, a quarry where they used to make blocks from cockle stones, and stromatolites. These are living fossils that build in the highly saline waters of Hamelin Pool and are similar to the earliest forms of life dating back 3000 million years. A viewing walkway allowed us to walk above these ancient forms of life. It was so interesting.
The West Australian wild flowers are now starting to bloom and we have seen lots of them growing alongside the roadside. They grow in places where you wouldn’t expect anything to flourish, like gravel, red dust and sand. We even saw a tiny little pink flower growing in the rocky sand by the blowholes. Jim spent ages getting the right settings for the camera to try and catch a good photo. I have put it on my blog for you to see. He was so proud of himself when he finally got it right and then proceeded to stomp over the top of it, unknowingly of course. I couldn’t believe it!
We are staying in a free bush camp at the moment and tomorrow we move onto Kalbarri where we will have 4 nights and hope to do some walking in the Murchison River Gorge. We were greeted on our arrival by about 25 policemen, all armed and wearing bullet proof vests etc. I thought this was a bit of an overkill for testing for drugs or alcohol. They never took any notice of us at all. It turns out that a really nasty bikie gang from Perth was on a tour up the West Coast and on the way decided to rough up a few pubs and their patrons; run a road train off the road; and visit a few off road caravan parks to frighten the locals!! Really nice types! Their breakdown wagon had broken down just a few kilometres from us so they had parked up in the bush till it was repaired. The police were just keeping an eye on them and us, I hope. They had made a couple of arrests but they all left with a lot of noise in the morning. The bikies I mean. The police just kept to themselves most of the time but it must have been really boring for them. Two of the vans had electronic organs with them so the owners kept everyone amused with music all day, mostly tunes from the 40s and 50s. I don’t imagine the police would have recognised many of the tunes, judging from the age of them.
We will be in Perth on 28th August so my next blog will come from there.