WE’RE
HEADING SOUTH ON THE LONG TRIP BACK TO PERTH
WEDNESDAY 16TH OCTOBER -
We left Broome and started the long
trip south to Perth. It was about 42
degrees when we left and stinking hot.
Our destination was Barnhill Station 120
kilometres south of Broome. We were
hoping for slightly cooler weather, or at least a sea breeze as it was right by
the ocean. It took us over an hour to
get there. We’d had several
recommendations to stay there so we thought we'd try it out for ourselves. There was a long dirt road (about 15 minutes
from the main road), through several cattle gates before we reached a fork at the end of the
road, one road for the station and the other road leading into the caravan
park. It was a large area and not too
busy when we arrived. We found the
caretaker and he showed us where to park.
It was $22 per night without power and $35 with water and power. It was so hot, we decided to treat ourselves
and have the air conditioner going. They
had a big generator on site for power, but the powered sites were restricted to
10. It wasn’t very crowded as the main
season was over. From May to July it is
impossible to get a site and they’re already fully booked for next year. In the winter season they have gatherings by
a big pit fire and the local aborigine dance troops visit the station. There were lots of cattle freely roaming
around the caravan area and lots of butterflies grouped together in the trees
and flying about. The station had a nice
feel to it and the sites were quite spacious.
It was a short walk down the steps in the rocks to a beautiful long,
wide beach with startling coloured rocks everywhere. It was very pretty. We spent 2 lovely nights there and really
enjoyed the place. We met Denise and Ben
heading home to Seabird near Perth and had drinks with them both nights. It was moderately cooler there and we had
some shady trees on our spot.
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| THE STAIRWAY UP TO BARNHILL STATION |
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| SOME OF THE UNUSUAL ROCK FORMATIONS |
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| A ROCK FORMATION WE THINK LOOKS LIKE THE RAINBOW SERPENT HEAD |
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| THE ''PINNACLES'' OF BARNHILL STATION BEACH |
FRIDAY 18TH OCTOBER -
We left Barnhill Station for our
next destination DeGrey River 450
kilometres south. Denise and Ben were
meeting us there later in the day. We
got to DeGrey about 2pm and it was really hot.
We set up by the river in the shadiest spot we could find. There was one other caravan near us right on
the river bank, which turned out to be a couple we’d seen at Barnhill whilst we
were there and a few other campers further along. There were big groups of cattle everywhere and
they weren’t too keen to budge so that we could get past them to our spot. With the high temperatures we’d been having,
the fridge and air conditioner were struggling to work efficiently. We went for a walk along the river later that
night and unfortunately Sally got attacked by a dog. Sally was on her lead, the dog that attacked
her wasn’t, and came running out from a caravan at the end of the river
seemingly friendly at first until it got stuck into her neck and wouldn’t let
go. I was in a right state as I thought
Sally was a gonner. The dog’s owners
(ferals who were standing behind us) did nothing to get their dog off Sally and
only abused us for having a go at their dog.
The whole attack lasted about 5-6 minutes. Richard got bitten on his thigh and hand
trying to separate the dogs. Eventually
I managed to yank Sally up in my arms almost choking her and away to safety. Richard wanted to kill the dog and the owners
so I had to get him away before he did something he’d regret. It was a terrifying experience and we were
both badly shaken up from it. Sally had
a puncture wound on her neck that was bleeding but I knew she was going to be
ok . We put some antiseptic powder on it
and hoped for the best until we could get to a vet in Port Headland (over an
hour away) the next morning.
SATURDAY 19TH OCTOBER -
We left DeGrey River as soon as
we could get up and ready and went straight to a vet in Port
Headland. They were really
nice there and very sympathetic to Sally.
They had to shave around the wound to see how deep it was – fortunately
not deep enough to have a drainage tube put in.
Sally had an anti-inflammatory injection, antibiotic injection and
antibiotic tablets. An hour later and
$180 poorer, we walked out of the vet to a temperature of 49 degrees in the
car. It was so damned hot and
uncomfortable we decided to head to The Cove Caravan
Park at Point Samson 300
kilometres south to have the luxury of the air conditioner going as long as we
wanted. Point Samson is a small coastal town
in the Pilbara Region and 1,579 kilometres from Perth. The parking spots were concrete both for the
caravan and awning. It was a big open
park with very little shade. We had a
small bush behind us. It was a 4 star
park, but had no swimming pool and was very expensive at $49 per night for a
powered site. The facilities blocks were
very clean. There was a good view of the
ocean all around the park with a walk/cycle path going up to Honeymoon Bay
which was a small beach, dogs prohibited.
We did find a beach about 5 minutes drive from the park where Sally
could run around. We stayed there for 3
nights. We had driven around here before
when we stayed at Cleaverville Beach on our way up to Broome
TUESDAY 22ND OCTOBER -
We left Point Samson at 9am and
had a couple of free overnight stops in mind before arriving in Carnarvon.
It was another sweltering hot day with temperatures well over 40
degrees. Every time we stopped, we
decided to press on in air-conditioned comfort, in the hope it might have cooled
down as we travelled along (some hope). At 6.30, after a very long and tiring day and
685 kilometres later, we arrived at The Top Tourist
Caravan Park in Carnarvon. We had stayed here on our way up north. The first thing we noticed was the drop in
temperature – it was at least 10 degrees cooler than further up north. It was a beautiful fresh, chilly evening and
we had to put on sweat tops (OMG for the first time in months) to set up!! We had a great sleep that night with a fresh
breeze wafting over us all night – heaven. As we’re Top Tourist members we got a 10%
discount and it was $33 per night, with the 7th night free if you
stay for a week. As it was the off
season, half of the park and facilities was shut off. We were surprised how empty it was in
comparison to when we stayed here 3 months ago, when it was choc-a-bloc with
caravans and people everywhere. The
fruit and vegetable season was over for the year unfortunately and most of the
plantation shops are shut until next April.
THURSDAY 24TH OCTOBER -
The car was booked in for a 100,000 kilometre service. We had intended to go back to Quobba Blowholes
for a few weeks to wait for Richard’s
Brother Bob to come up to Kalbarri for
the crayfishing season in mid-November.
He discovered the season had started a month early and decided not to
come up. That changed our plans slightly
and we decided to head back to Perth to see Daniel and his new house and go
further south to do the areas we didn’t see as it was too cold on the way up,
rather than hang around for 6-7 weeks up this way before heading back to Perth
for Christmas.
Whilst we were stocking up on shopping in town, Richard went
into BWS for a carton of beer. He was
met by a lady at the front of the shop informing us of restrictions placed on
buying alcohol that day. We thought it
was pretty odd. She told us there were
two big aboriginal funerals taking place the next day and the police were
trying to cut down on drink related violence by limiting the amount and the
strength of beer you could purchase.
SUNDAY 27TH OCTOBER -
We left Carnarvon at 10am for our next destination Gladstone
Beach, 160 kilometres south from Carnarvon. We’d completely forgotten about the funerals
until we tried to drive out of town. We
got stuck in a very long procession of cars going very slowly towards the
cemetery half an hour out of town.
There were cars and buses parked everywhere outside the cemetery, so it
must have been important elders being buried.
Once we got past the funeral traffic it was a smooth run to
Gladstone. We’d stayed here before and
were really looking forward to visiting the place again. The spot we’d stayed in before was free, so
we drove straight into it and set up, had some lunch and went for a walk. It wasn’t very crowded, about 6 vans in
total. It was $11 per night ($5.50 per
person). It was a very pretty spot, with
calm shallow water and we saw beautiful sunsets and had 2 lovely relaxing days
here.
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| RELAXING AT GLADSTONE BEACH |
SUNDAY 27TH OCTOBER -
We left Gladstone for our next
destination Coronation Beach in Geraldton.
It was 300 kilometres from Gladstone and half way down we could see a
vast change in the landscape – there were interesting undulating hills and
valleys of greens and browns – a vast
change from the scenery of very flat land and low scrub further north. It was pleasant to see a changing landscape
once again. We arrived at the camp
grounds at Coronation Beach and at first thought it was full up. We were really disappointed, but I said to
Richard to at least drive around to see if there was a spare spot. Luckily we did, as right at the end of where
you can camp, was the spot we’d stayed in before. It felt like we were coming home to a
familiar place that we loved. It really
was beautiful there and we could see the ocean through the bushes from our van,
with a 2 minute walk right onto the beach itself. Weekends were always busy there with surfers
and wind surfers and locals coming to camp for the weekend. The Ranger told Richard that Coronation Beach
is one of the top 5 wind surfing beaches in the World, which would be why it
was starting to get so busy and particularly at weekends. We spent 8 beautiful nights there and met
some lovely neighbours to have drinks on the beach whilst watching the sunset
each night. It would have to be one of
our favourite places in Western Australia that we’ve seen so far.
Our friends Ben and Denise arrived at lunch time and we caught
up with each other’s news. We had drinks
with them that night and arranged to meet up with them later in the week.
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| AN UNUSUAL TREE WE SAW AND LATER DISCOVERED IT'S A W.A. CHRISTMAS BUSH |
NEXT WEEK:
We’re going to Dongara,
a lovely coastal town we drove through on the way up and earmarked for a better
look on the way down. We’ll also revisit
Sandy Cape and then get to Perth by next Friday to catch up with
Daniel and Min and see their house which we’re dying to see and also catch up
with Bob and Shelley and AJ.
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