Friday 29 July Karratha to Karijini, About 550km
We got away at about 7:30, this seems to our travel day start time. After a quick stop at the “Dump Point” (Oh, what an exhilarating
way to start the day) we were on the road again. It looked like we had just missed peak hour in Karratha, and we were soon on the highway north. It was a fairly routine travel day without too many surprises. On the way up, we passed the old historic town of Whim Creek. All that is left there now is the old pub, all the other historic buildings have been blow away in one cyclone or another. Funny how it always seems to be the pub that survives the longest in these small towns.
After we turned inland onto the Great Northern Highway it was a bit over 200km before the next services at Auski Roadhouse on the fringe of Karijini. The landscape changes dramatically in a very short distance up here. We went from the fry red Spinifex encrusted iron stone country around Karratha to vast almost treeless flood plains, then onto what I can only describe as a
landscape more suitable to an alien planet, with mounds of huge red boulders, clusters of flat topped mesas reminiscent of 1960’s Martian film landscapes, to big wide dry rivers, cool shaded river beds and expansive fields seemingly painted with purples, yellows, whites and reds of wild flowers. I think we got the time of year just right, this country is really showing us its best.
We eventually got to Auski RH, filled the car and drove the last 60 km into the National Park. We called into the Visitors Centre, got a
few maps and suggestions on things to do and then went on to the Dales Camping Ground. Once we were all settled in again, we donned our boots and went for a walk around the rim of the Dales Gorge. It was great to get out and stretch our legs, and the late afternoon sun was the perfect light for looking down into and along the gorges. The richness of the colours is still so amazing. The very
deep reds of the rock, the green vegetation and bright blue skies, light up in the late afternoons.
In the evening we planned our day ahead, we decided to do the walk down into the gorge to see the Fern Pond, Fortescue waterfalls and the Circular Pond. After tea, we sat outside in the darkness with all our lights off and watched the skies, looking for falling stars and satellites. Deb saw a couple of falling stars, but we are yet to see a satellite (Deb thinks there is nothing up here for a satellite to do!) The night skies are amazing, we got my phone out, I have an App that shows you what you are looking at in the night skies, it names the stars, constellations, and planets for you as you point it at them. We love finding out what it is we are looking at and its fun trying to
work out how the ancients could ever get the shapes of constellations like “Scorpio” out of the stars they could see, it makes me wonder what they were on!!!
Saturday 30 July Karijini to De Gray River free camp 400km
We packed up this morning and moved the car and van to Fortsecue Falls carpark, and set off into the gorge for a mornings bush walking.
We descended down into the gorge via a set of fairly rustic stairs cut into the rock in the side of the gorge. When we got to the bottom of the stairs we came into an area where there was a largish polished rock platform over which a stream descended in to a crystal clear pool, this was Fortescue Falls. Some of the rocks on the platform had been worn away such that you could see the strata that formed them, rich hues of red bands that had been folded and buckled over time, beautiful. The creek feeding the falls came from
an idyllic forest pond that was reflecting everything around it. The creek then cascaded down over the rocks and into the pool, the sound of the water was very calming.
We then walked upstream to Fern Pond, on the way we passed a
number of large of strangler fig trees, with their roots fanning out trying to get a hold onto anything they could to keep the tree in place. Who needs to go to Siem Reap? (I guess you do if you want to see them strangling ancient Ankor buildings). At the end of the trail was a large pond with a triple waterfall at the end of it. There were fish in the pond and again it reflected everything around it. As we sat and just took it all in a small flock of white Cockatoos flew in and landed in a tree before they flew over to the top of the falls for
a drink. It was great just sitting there watching all this go on.
From their we set out on the 2km walk through the gorge to
Circular Pond. We passed a series of pools and ponds on the way, each with its own special beauty. The rock formations along the way were amazing and while the same they were very different!
We eventually got to the Circular Pond and found a family with 3 young kids swimming in it. It was freezing, to quote the mum. J We sat and took it all in for a while. A couple came along and the guy immediately walked off around under the far side of the cliffs above the pool, it seems they were up the top on a ledge in the
dry creek bed over hanging the pond ( a pretty scary place to be for my liking) and dropped their video camera. They said all they could see was bits of it falling down as it smashed into the gorge wall on the way down and they didn’t see any splashes to indicate it went into the pool. They didn’t find it!!
We then headed back to the car, but instead of retracing our path, we took an alternative route, pretty well straight up the gorge wall. We followed a path to a fairly steep set of stairs to a small ladder and then more steep stairs to the top. We were surprised at how quickly we got to the top, (Deb here – 10 mins, straight up, hey dad, all I could think was dad would be impressed, I stopped often but no whinging!!) I guess we saved an hour. It was a short walk to the car and we were under way by about 11am for Port Hedland and somewhere north for the night.
Another uneventful drive, sharing the road with 4 trailer road trains and cars towing caravans. We stopped at 1pm to make lunch and ate it as we drove. It is so good to be able to have good food as we travel and we can always have something fresh.
We got to Port Hedland around 3:45pm had a drive through
town to see what sights there might be. It is a town perennially covered in red dust, all generated by the huge BHP iron ore crusher that dominates the town, and that is the lifeblood of the town. We drove out near the port, but there wasn’t much to see, even the train that was in town was small for here, the trains here can get up to 3km long, hauling iron ore from the Newman mines. We filled with fuel, did a little shopping and were on the road again by 4:30.
Around 5:30 we got to our stopover for the night, the De Gray River free camp. It is nestled on the northern bank of the De Gray River.
As we came across the bridge we could see quite a number of vans were already set up, but little did we know the truth of it. As we turned off the highway we saw wall to wall vans and campers. We eventually drove about 500m off the road and found a spot to set up in a short walk from the river. We guess there must be over 50 vans here. Some it seems, after talking to our “neighbours” set up
here and stay for weeks at a time. Lucky for us no-one around us has a generator!!!! The mob down by the river seem to be in generator alley. We had a nice night again, out watching the night skies. It seems that the lights in our van attract insects very well, we are in the middle of what is essentially a cow paddock, this is Brahma cattle country, and them combined with the river makes for good insect country too. We sprayed inside the van as we went out to look at the night sky and when we got back inside, and shut all the windows and door before turning the lights back on, there were dead bugs everywhere. A quick clean up and then we had a look at all our photos for the last couple of days. It is fun reliving the past days through our photos, it is good to see how we are both seeing our days through the camera lens.
80 Mile beach tomorrow. 🙂
Sunday 31 July 2011 De Grey free camp to 80 Mile Beach 160km
We got away from the “Grey Nomad” retirement village called De Grey free camp at a bit past 7:30. As we left there were about 4 vans in front of us pulling out for a days travel, all of them headed south. We are one of a very small few who seem to be travelling clockwise.
Apparently anticlockwise is the way to go if you plan on crossing the Nullarbor as you have the winds at your back as you cross rather than driving into them. We were lucky on the trip over and had a very calm Nullarbor crossing. We took it easy on the road to the 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park, only sharing it with 1 or 2 trucks (both heading south) and about 10 vans also heading south. As we
got to the 80 Mile Beach turn off we saw a van pulling out onto the road and clouds of red dust coming our way. We turned left and started the 6km of “good” dirt road down to the coast and the caravan park. I guess we passed about 5 vans going out and caught up with one other coming in.
The caravan park looks like an oasis at the end of a dusty red earth road. To our joy they had powered sites available and we were told
that the taps at the sites had fresh water, not bore water. We got a site that had a good covering of grass (good for up here and the traffic the sites get at this time of year).
It took a little longer than usual to set up today. Up until now we had muddled our way through the use of our on-board water tanks, and today I wanted to work them out. So I spent a bit of time under the van getting familiar with the tank water plumbing design. I finally worked it out and how to switch from one tank to the other so we can maximise our tank water use and keep the van balanced. It was also good to see how the water isolation system worked so we could plug into bore water if we had to, without contaminating our fresh tank water. And that was enough work for one week. 🙂
High tide was at 11:30am, and best fishing is 2 hours up to the high and one hour after. So I headed down to the beach to get in a little
fishing before lunch. It seemed a few others must have had the same idea and there were people fishing at about 25m intervals as far up and down the beach as you could see. I got a spot just down from the walkway and baited up and cast out. In the hour I was there I got about 5 good bites without catching anything. No one else around me got anything either, but we did hear that there
was at least one very good fish caught. In the hour I was there the tide went out about 30m. It will be interesting to see how far out low tide is!!
We have settled in here very comfortably and are all ready talking of extending our stay here.
Later in the day I had a walk around the camp ground and took a few photos. It was about half way between tides, on the way out and the edge of the water was now about 300 or 400m from where I was fishing a few hours before. I walked up to the entrance of the park to get a shot of the signs. There were Brahma cattle feeding in the paddock next to the entrance. When I walked over to the fence to take a photo of them they looked at me and took off, mini stampede style!! 🙂
Looks like I have upset the locals again, lol.
Around 5:00pm we took a walk up to the public phone, no mobile reception out here, and called Carly to see how Ethan was. It was funny, well I guess that is what you call it, we couldn’t workout how to use the public phone. First we couldn’t see how to get coins into the thing, so we went and bought a phone card. This meant we lost
our place in the queue. The people in front of us, on the phone, were using coins!! Once we got to the phone it took us ages to get it working. First thing I noticed was that the coin slot opened up when you picked up the handset. Then our problem getting it to dial out was all down to us not waiting to get a dial tone! I suppose we have just moved on from all this low tech gadgetry. On the way to the phones we saw a goanna sitting on one over several old burnt out generators next to the road. It was over 2′ (60cm) long and looked really good.
(Hi Deb here, it was quite stressful for me not being home
for Ethan’s op, I think made all the more stressful by being out of phone range. You can imagine my relief when we pulled up here and there were 3 pay phones, I felt the stress lift!!)
Later in the day I had a walk around the camp ground and took a few photos. It was about half way between tides, on the way out and the edge of the water was now about 200 or 300m from where I was fishing a few hours before. I walked up to the entrance of the park to get a shot of the signs. There were Brahma cattle feeding in the paddock next to the entrance. When I walked over to the fence to take a photo of them they looked at me and took off, mini stampede style!! 🙂
Looks like I have upset the locals again, lol.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around reading and relaxing.
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