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Perth to Coral Bay

Saturday 23^rd May 0 Km

It was a cold night and we woke late and had a cup of tea in bed and then had breakfast and actually spent the rest of this day there at Quinns with our new found friends, Jenny and Rob. We were going to a market in the morning with Ina who we met yesterday. Just before that some other friends Dennis and Ann, who also had a beautifully done up coaster, arrived. So we talked to them and we looked at each others vans. We also looked at Rob and Jenny’s, who were just starting to do up the inside.
Adrian, me, Ina and Jenny then set off for Wanneroo market. We had a great time looking around the market and had tea and coffee afterwards and then went back via Joondalup where we went into a large shopping centre and did some more shopping. We had another cup of tea, met other friends of Jenny's and it was late when we arrived back and got a roll for lunch, which we sat in the garden and ate.

During the afternoon, Adrian managed to mend the bits of our lift up roof which had broken. I did one or two cleaning things and time seemed to go. We did have a cup of tea with Ann and Dennis who'd arrived again.
Jenny had arranged that we went out this evening with them to a little get together, so we had showers and got ready to go there. We had a really pleasant evening, there were about 20 people there in total, who we had a good evening chatting too. There was a meal, with the people, who brought something to add to it [pot luck] and drink. We chatted to a couple called George and Margaret who are the ones who are our sort of age and had a three year old son - she had a baby at 50. There were several other people who added to our stories and of where to go and they were all tickled pink about the story of 'what state was your lettuce in'.

Over the gate - Adrian, Rob and Jimmy at Quinns Rocks

We came back to the van sometime after midnight.

At the party at Quinns Rocks

Sunday 24^th May. 44 km

I didn't have a very good night and woke up not feeling very good but it was a sunny day and quite warm. We got up late listening to interesting programmes on the radio about Ireland which had a vote yesterday, about the church and also about Aborigines in the remote areas of Australia. The day seemed to sort of pass very quickly.
We walked down to the beautiful beach and sat there for a while and when we came back Jenny and Rob's, their son Luke and his future wife, Nicky were there. Nicky was a very warm, sort of person and we had a cup of tea with them and chatted.

We had intended leaving at that point, but by the time we finished chatting and talking about places we could go to further in the north, Jenny had then arrived back and it was past lunchtime. So she and I got some sandwiches ready for everybody, we chatted some more and by the time we eventually left it was four o'clock.
We headed off north and stopped at Yanchep National Park where we saw lots of koalas, this was a sort of koala reserve and in lovely warm sunshine and by a lake, so a very pleasant setting.

Adrian, Jenny, Luke, Rosie and Rob

Adrian, Jenny, Luke, Nicky and Rob

We saw a kangaroo beside the road and soon after we pulled into a parking area at about 5 o’clock, at Wilbinga Grove. There were a young couple here, cycling and camping and were by the wreck of a car. We parked up on the other side to where they were. Later I looked at one or two of the pile of magazines which Rob had given us, which we can browse through at our leisure. We made some notes on all the various people that we'd met in the past couple of days.
[In retrospect was it just chance that for the only time in Australia that we were 'moved on' and then to meet a couple from Reading, or was it fate?]

Koala at Yanchep NP

Monday 25^th May 141 km

A greyish morning with rain promised later, but it was quite warm and we left at 9.15. We investigated an unpleasant smell and found out that it was a cauliflower which was going a bit grotty. We set off through a low line of banksias on either side and we soon passed the cyclists who had been camping by us.
We turned off to Guilderton and we soon came across an area of sand looking much like the Pinnacles with great things sticking out of it

. We stopped at Guilderton above the estuary of the Moore River and this came out to the sea with just scrub vegetation and a splendid sand bar There was a delightful campsite there, the nicest we'd seen, completely touring, with green grass and trees and with just two or three caravans on it and right on the edge of the river just before it reached the sea. We walked down to the sea and the big waves were sometimes swishing over the sandbar into the river. The water of the river was much colder than the water of the sea which felt warm as we paddled along and it swished up and we spent a long time enjoying the waves coming at us from different directions and walking on the sandbar enjoying the bird life of which there was much.

Pinnacle lookalikes near Guilderton

There were some Caspian terns with bright red beaks and some others with the yellow beaks which we didn't know what they were. There were pelicans, a couple of cormorants, seagulls and lots and lots of swallows and I spent ages with binoculars trying to sort them out. I think there were Pacific swallows and probably the welcome swallow but the Pacific swallows are very similar, and some seemed to be different and I thought they might have been Martins, but they didn't stay still long enough. Also a willy wagtail and a honey eater, quite a paradise for bird watching there. We returned to the van and had our coffee and the last of the sugar puff crispy cake that I'd made. The sky was grey but it was quite warm.
We returned to the main road for a few miles and then turned off to the place with interesting name of Seabird by the sea. We found a place to empty the loo there and the sea was actually rather full of seaweed. We parked above the sea and here we had our lunch. Our next turn off was to Ledge Point where we walked on the beach. It was very windy but very warm. We went along to another town by the sea called Lancelin, but again there was a lot of seaweed in the sea. it was still warm and windy. What I had noticed there was lots of spreads of yellow gazania type flowers, almost like a wildflower meadow and we tried to think of it as just like having a field of dandelions.
We now took the road inland towards the Brand Highway. There should have been a place that we could have stopped at on the way, by the Moore River, but they'd nicely put up a 'no camping sign'. So we continued to Regan's Ford just after we reached the Brand highway. Again there was a no camping sign but we chose to ignore that and placed ourselves down by the river. Not much wildlife, just a couple of ducks, it was very warm still, though cloudy. A woman had come and spoken to us, she was travelling in a little combi van on her own and she parked herself on the other side of the river.
We sat outside for a while until we got bitten by some mossies and moved in quickly although Adrian did cook the steak outside. It was very very warm inside the van, we put the roof up but when we went to bed it was still very warm. Adrian tried to put in a bit of netting and opening one of the windows, but this still allowed a large number of little flidges and tiny moths inside the van, which drove us insane.

Rosie om the beach at Guilderton, where the river meets the sea

Tuesday 26^th May 191 km

We actually had a very disturbed night. We thought the problem would be the nearby road and the traffic from the road trains that went along this main road, but the real problem was that it came on to rain in the night and the wind blew and as there were lots of trees around, it all made it not very easy to sleep. We were very late getting going therefore, it seemed very English and we looked out to very heavy rain and everywhere very wet, but not at all cold.
So we just enjoyed lying in bed in the rain, and got going quite slowly, listening to the radio which was a phone in programme about National Sorry Day in Australia, which it is today, being sorry for the Aboriginal children who were taken from their homes in the past. The travelling lady had already left by the time we surfaced around eight o'clock. We'd been amused at Adrian's reading of the cereal packet, which were called Wheaties and he read it quite understandably as Wheatles. It was gone 10.00 when we left, still raining hard and the people in tents were still packing up looking very wet.
We continued up the road and stopped for coffee in an uninspiring lay by in the rain beside the road and we were looking through the pamphlets, advertising tours in this area. We have been amused greatly by the incorrect spelling on signs and in books in lots of Australian things and in the one I was reading it was the emus and kangaroos both with apostrophe S. What would Hil say? We stopped at the Drummond just briefly, which was a picnic area where there were little groups of tiny pink flowers and also some sort of yellow cotton grassy stuff amongst all the vegetation, which went on for a long distance.
The weather continued in varying amounts of rain towards the coast and at one point we saw three emus beside the road and one or two wildflowers and things. We stopped off for lunch in what was called the Banksia Park. There were lots of banksias around but there had been in this area anyway and looking very attractive. It actually stopped raining while we were there. I cooked vegetable soup which was very good and I also washed my hair I think I hadn't mentioned that last night, we were down to one bowl today because Adrian sat on one of the little ‘two for $3 bowls’ and broke it.
We drove on down into Cervantes and Adrian tried, and had been trying for some time, to locate two people who'd written an article in the Morris magazine and often travelled around in a Morris eight, but we were out of luck with that. We finally got to the house being unable to phone them, and it was only an occasional house and they were obviously not there much of the time and nobody was about. We did a quick look round at Cervantes and went down to Thirsty Point lookout and had a look at the coast. There wasn't a great deal to see, it's very small town. We inquired at the shell petrol station, which was the place which was supposed to be the tourist information and did tours, and she said there would be no problem with us driving into the Pinnacles today with the coaster bus. We thought after the rain it might have been soft going, so we set off for the Pinnacles just before 3 o'clock.
We drove into Nambung National Park and headed for the Pinnacles for which we needed a pass, our pass a monthly one, had just run out and we tried to pretend that we thought it hadn't but the lady knew it had – she still let us in. We drove around a loop through these pinnacles and unlike Wave Rock, this was a very pleasant surprise. The Pinnacle's, 1000's and 1000's of limestone pillars were jutting out of brilliant orange sand, and against the deep grey sky and green of foliage it was very dramatic. We stopped many times and took various types of photographs there.

We then headed on to Hangover Bay, a good name for a place and we saw two kangaroos leaping through the undergrowth on the way and on the return we saw two emus beside the road. We didn't stop long at Hangover Bay, the sun was just coming through by then and by now it stopped raining for most of the afternoon, but it actually felt quite a chilly wind, unlike yesterday's wind which was so warm There was an enormous amount of seaweed washed up onto the beach. Perhaps I should mention a creek which ends on the edge of its national park called Frederick Smith Creek [Rosie’s grandfather was called Frederick Smith].
We drove down a bumpy track to Lake Thetis and this was the site of stromatolites and these are the earliest form of life on earth and to my mind they form rather like coral in a circular formation on the edge of the water and had we not known, you'd just think rock formations around the edge of this little lake. But apparently they are evidence of the earliest life on earth and the agent in forming these is the blue-green algae which I thought was a very interesting piece of information.

The Pinnacles

We stopped to photograph both the red sweet pea type plant [Cockies tongue] and a yellow witchhazel type plant there.

Stromatolites

'Cockies ' tongue and an unidentified shrub

We returned to the road at Cervantes and took the road north and stopped beside the Hill River. We had a short walk out to the river, it had rained fairly recently here. We heard lots of moaning frogs and different birds. There was a beautiful sky when I returned to the van.

Beautiful sunset by the Hill River

Wednesday 27^th May 116 km

A mixed sort of morning cloud and blue sky and we lay in bed and watched one or two birds in the bush outside, particularly a variegated fairy wren. We left at 9.20 and drove down to Jurien and went first to the Lions Lookout which gave us a view over a whole lot of bush in many directions and down to the sea.
We reached Jurien and went into Foodland and got quite a bit of shopping and went to a bakers and got cakes and then got some diesel and went down to the front. It was pleasantly warm, so we stopped and had our coffee and the cakes we'd bought sitting on the beach there by a wooden jetty and I was tempted in to have a swim. There was a lot of weed in the water apparently from the storm and rain, but it was beautifully warm and warm to come out afterwards. We met a couple who were walking on the beach from the Perth Hills and had quite a long chat to them. It was lovely to be in a place where the sea was warm again.

They had told us where we could buy some crayfish so we located this place, we would never have found it otherwise, and we bought two cooked but frozen crayfish, she said they freeze them as soon as they come in and the men didn't go out yesterday, obviously because of the rough weather. We then returned to the beach, but by now it didn't seem as warm as it had previously, and so we waited for the sun to come out again and then sat on the beach and ate our rolls On returning to the van there was a large skink, stumpy tail lizard.

Rosie at Jurien after her swim

We went on down to the Boat Harbour briefly, on the way past Bower Street. We then took the road northwards and stopped as Adrian was getting dozy, to drive up to the Grigsons Lookout and from here we had 365 degrees of just bush, looking down to the sea, on one side and lots of sand dunes covered in vegetation mostly and salt lakes.
We continued to Green Head where we stopped by Dynamite Bay, an almost circular bay, and did a little walk around there. Then we continued to Billy Goat Bay and like so many of the beaches here, it was absolutely thick with reddish seaweed, the stuff that dries out to look papery and it stinks. At Green Head we'd seen another skink, stumpy tailed lizard. At Leeman we stopped by the beach momentarily and we saw again largish holes, a couple of inches in diameter, where crabs, must live, but also some funny green stuff which we can only call sea cabbage till we find out what it is.
We continued north past Coolimba, we were going to turn off to that, but it was a sand road, and we went for a short distance but it was all rutted, so didn't go any further. We continued north until we'd came to a couple of spots marked in our camping book and chose one which was just a flat area with a track leading down past, fisherman's huts near Knobby Head. We had a little walk out here and on the return passed the two people from Andover, who were at Canebrake Pool. Adrian had spoken to them, not me which is why I didn't recognise them - but he had trouble recognising them also. [they were on bikes with a hike tent]

Stumpy tailed lizard

Thursday 28^th May 117 km

We awoke up to some sunshine but also cloudy and windy, it had been very windy and wet in other parts of the state. We left at 09.40 and headed for Denison - Dongara and found there was a new bit of road going there. We came first to Port Dennison and went to a lookout first, it was very windy, but not cold. We then headed down into the small township and went to a baker's and we got some cakes and some rolls. Adrian then managed to empty the loo and later filled the van with water. We had our coffee overlooking the harbour which was calm.
We continued across the River Irwin to Dongara where the river reaches the sea here and was a very rich muddy brown. In Dongara, we viewed the old flour mill of 1874 which was taken over by the National Trust and was in need of a lot of renovating. [Strangely the National Trust did restore it and then sold it in 2007]

We continued towards Greenough, passing at one point lots of yellow daisy like flowers or heleniums beside the road. We stopped at the Tourist Information where we emerged about three quarters of an hour later, Adrian having had a long chat to a chap in there who seemed to be a South African or his wife was. We also chatted to the young girl who ran the Tourist Information who gave us lots and lots of leaflets and lots of places to visit. We went a short distance further north and stopped beside some trees which leaned right over against the wind, which is what this area is renowned for, and had our lunch.

Donagara Flour Mill (Spiritland.net)

We stopped at the Historic Hamlet of Greenough which is owned by the National Trust and we enjoyed looking around quite a few buildings in what looked like a little English Hamlet really, a school and several other buildings.

A 'leaning' tree near Greenough (TripAdvisor)

We chatted quite a bit to a lady from Pemberton at the end, who was in the building where we started off and I bought a ring made of iron ore (Haematite). It transpired reading some of the stuff in the first building, that one of the first pioneers in this area was a man by the name of Thomas Clinch who I believe was born in Wallingford, so it made it rather personal for us.
We headed a few miles inland to a site in our little book at Ellendale Pool on the Grenough River, the last few miles being on an unsurfaced road. By the time we reached Ellendale Pool there was a clear blue sky, and the first people we met were Charlie and his wife Una from Canebrake Pool, a few weeks back.

The church at Greenough (National Trust)

We chatted a bit with them. There were two other couples there and after a bit we talked for a long time to one of them, David and Charmaine, she was Australian and he was Welsh originally and he came out as a young man and had gone via Canada and other places. A very interesting couple and we talked to them until it got almost dark This place had a lovely pool at the foot of a large sandy coloured cliff and on the skyline, we saw some kangaroos leaping across just as it got dark, which was rather nice. We could hear different frogs and mothers but that that was it. We got cards and presents ready to send to John and Ed and a card to Paul and Nicky.

Adrian at Ellendale Pool

Friday 29^th May 91 km

A grey morning, but we'd woken up with birdsong. The big rock behind us was just lit up by the sun, but we didn't see the sun apart from that, it was just a magical moment, which was rather like an Ayers Rock. We'd gone to bed hearing the frogs and woke up to them as well and together with the birdsong, it was very lovely and we resisted putting the radio on for a long time to listen to these sounds. When we did, we heard about Pakistan having done nuclear tests, as India had.
After breakfast we returned to the Brand highway and drove back to Greenough and going up the main road, passed again the bent tree this area is famous for and a field of sheep with tiny newborn lambs. We drove down to the mouth of the Greenough River. and first walked out to the ocean. This river ended with a sandbar across like so many others. By now, it was a cold wind, but sun was warm. We moved down to the river a little and stopped there to have our coffee, and then went for a walk for a little distance along the river and then back up a bit higher, so had some nice views. The path down by the river was pretty non existent. The path at the top was a superbly made path past a group of schoolchildren who were out picking up litter [ Rosie doesn't mention it here, which is strange, as it became one of our 'popular' sayings . One of the girls found something interesting in the sand near us, and her friend said "don't tell Sir, he'll make us write about it!"].

We drove on into Geraldton and drove along the front and located a place where we could park and went across to the post office and with great dismay to both of us, our post wasn't there, we'd asked for it on Monday, and this was Friday, so were both felt extremely despondent about this. I searched the window myself, we couldn't think what to do next. We walked on into the town a bit, went to Medicare and Adrian got back some of the money he'd paid out for seeing the doctor about the sore which hadn't been healing but subsequently healed very well. I found somewhere on the third attempt that did my photos, matt and in fact were very pleased with them. We came back in the meantime, to the van feeling rather hungry and had lunch in the car park and phoned Simon before seven in the morning for him - a bit of a shock for him. Couldn't get hold of Emma again. We went to see the Church - St Francis Xavier built by the priest Monsignor John Hawes .

Rosie at the Greenough River Mouth

Quite an unusual building for Australia and then we shopped in Woolworths. All this took time and we stopped on the way out for Adrian to refill the gas bottle which didn't fill up properly again so we realised there is a problem with that.
We then drove north about 40 km and turned off 8 km down a very very bumpy track to Coronation Beach, which everybody had told us about and said how lovely it was and certainly it was a very pleasant free camping area which we will settle ourselves in for all this weekend, which is a long weekend, and was why the post not arriving today was even more annoying to us, so it is Tuesday before we can collect it. The sun was warm and for the first time we put out the awning out from the van. In fact, in the night, the wind blew rather a lot and at 4.30 am Adrian got up and put it back in again. We found Margot was here. There was a beautiful sunset.

Adrian by the church of St Francis Zavier

Sunset at Coronation Beach

Saturday, 30^th May 0 km

A dull sort of day. We got up late having had a disturbed night with the wind. We had a lazy morning, we listened to the radio, which was about monuments and found out about the little crosses beside the road, they were usually somewhere someone had been killed and there was some talk about war memorials as well.
We spent the morning reorganising the storage areas in the van, cupboards etc., so the morning went very quickly. We had elevenses sitting outside and then also lunch. Later we went for a long walk along the beach to the left of us, The water shelved steeply but didn’t entice me for a swim today, it was rougher and there were lots of bits in it. We returned walking along a track and arrived back about 3.15.
Adrian put the awning out again and we sat out and read the weekly Telegraph newspaper. Later we had showers in the van, so it had been a nice leisurely day. We had crayfish for supper, and during the evening we had to be sparing with the lights as the battery was failing and was low on volts. There was a lovely sky at sunset and we had a walk to the beach at bedtime. Coronation Beach

Sunday, 31^st May 0 miles

We got up late again to a clear blue sky and had another lazy day. Adrian cooked bacon and egg outside for breakfast and then we both went in for a swim in the rough waves. We had elevenses and then walked along way along the beach to the right and on the way back we stopped and had a cup of tea and biscuit with Margot.

Monday, 1^st June 47 km

Today was foundation day, a bank holiday in Western Australia. It turned a hot sunny day and we got ourselves organised to leave and then went and talked to Margot.

We left Her at 2 o’clock and came back for a late lunch, it had clouded over a bit by now.
Margot had lent us some ‘Wanderer’ magazines [The magazine of the motorhome club we belonged to while in Australia] and we spent the rest of the afternoon looking at them. There was another nice sunset. We had chicken for supper which Adrian cooked on the stove outside, which was a struggle for the cooking both inside and out with the lighting, as the battery volts are still low having not moved the van today. Afterwards we listened to tape number 7, (the last tape, Fitzgerald N.P. to Willow Springs), for the rest of the evening. Coronation Beach

1998-05-30 Coronation Beach (streetview 2019)

By now it was 11 o’clock so we had “elevenses” and left at 11.45 and drove back into Geraldton [about 35kms ]
We stopped to look at a campsite on the way and then we went into the Tourist Information.
By then it was lunchtime so we went down to the Marina which only had two little boats and sat on the edge there, eating our rolls watching one or two fish in the sea and pleasantly warm, very clear water. We then went into the town itself and located the museum which was in two sections, we first looked in the Maritime Museum. There was information on the Batavia and other Dutch shipwrecks and we found in there a book on the South Seas with reference to Thomas Lawson. We bought that, very inexpensive, and we then went on to the other bit of the museum that had some animals, flora and fauna and stuff.
We then drove to another lookout over the town and then located the Hermitage, a building that the architect of the cathedral had lived in, while he was building the cathedral - we couldn't actually get into the Hermitage as it was only open on Sunday afternoons.

Adrian chatting to Margot with 'Benny' in the shade

We then located the Separation Point Caravan Site. This wasn't madly exciting, but it sufficed, as we needed electric and we put the washing on, it was a clear blue sky, but by the time we came to sit outside, the sun had just about gone from where we were. We sat looking at the postcards we'd got and one or two leaflets we'd picked up, and the book on the South Seas mentioning Thomas Lawson, or at least Lawson and we had a quick walk down to the beach. There was an interesting sky, quite dramatic as we often seemed to have there. We were bothered by mosquitoes, so we didn't sit out although it was quite warm. We had a message on the phone from Paul about our Hermitage neighbours.

The Hermitage Geraldton

Tuesday 2^nd June 54 km

We sat in bed with our cup of tea thinking through all the different night stops we'd had so far and deciding on our favourites and those we didn't like. The favourite seemed to be Stokes Inlet and other nice ones were Millers Point, Chapman's Pool, Canebrake Pool, Honeymoon Pool, Ellendale Pool and Coronation Beach and Carrow Wells came as the one we like best of just an ordinary stop, the others being some sort of campsite, often a free one. Caravan sites came lowest on the list.
A beautiful hot day as we surfaced, not that early, we had showers and we sat outside for breakfast which was actually hot, but was partly cloudy and while the sun was out it was actually too hot to sit in. We emptied the loo and it was after 10 o'clock by the time we left and headed into Geraldton and went first to collect the post. While we were parked in the car park opposite a chap came up and said he'd got a coaster and also got a boat and would show us over it. We were going to take up that offer but it didn't seem to work out. We had trouble collecting the post as I couldn't see a big yellow envelope, but yes, there must have been a note to say that was underneath because in it were two lots of contact lenses, so that's six months worth of lenses, so that was good. There was also very welcome letters from Emma and Paul and a long one from Val. A card from Tom and a rubbish mail one, they'd got my name from a voucher that I'd sent for. And the report on George Lawson which unfortunately wasn't our George Lawson, but made interesting reading as it was about a prospector who'd come out to Ballarat in Australia.
We had a quick read of these and we then had several things to sort out : - some diesel to put in a can and the gas bottle to have a new valve on as it had a problem with it. We spent some time chasing around different places looking for different things and different prices. We went down late morning and had coffee at the far end Geraldton past the big tower things, the industrial bit, but in fact a nice bit of beach there and Adrian had to let out the last of the gas from the bottle so the valve could be changed. It was very hot and humid today. Having had coffee, we came back to sort the gas bottle out and now it was 12.45. We called in at a camping shop and I bought a mini rucksack and we then made up rolls and went and sat by the sea and had them. We then went to shop at Coles and did quite a big shop and came out and tried phoning Paul and Nicky and got the answer phone and Emma and got the answer phone as well, but a bit later Emma phoned back and we had a chat to her. We got the gas bottle filled and we also bought some Beatamin tablets which I found to be the only ones which are supposed to stop mossie bites hurting.
So having done all these odd things it was now 3.30. We stopped once more to get diesel and to fill a can with some spare diesel and then headed off out of Geraldton, taking a slightly different inland route, up the Chapman Valley, rather than repeating the route up to Coronation Beach. This was quite nice, behind the flat top hills. We turned off to what was marked as a picnic site on the map a kilometre or two along a sandy road down by the River Chapman, but it was very very wet, it had obviously rained heavily here and there was nowhere safe to stop for the night. A bit further along the main road we're travelling on, near Nanson, we found a little pull off where they stored some spare sand and gravel, not very exciting, but now being about 4.30, we thought this was a good idea to stop. The was a mimosa tree here which I picked a bit of. Later we set about translating the letter from George Lawson which had nothing to do with our George Lawson, but was very interesting reading.

Wednesday 3^rd June. 164 km

A rather disturbed night with road trains going through occasionally and being very noisy. We left just before 9 o'clock. We drove on to Northampton, a so called historic town and drove up and down the high street and stopped to look into the St. Mary’s Catholic Church which was rather sweet and built again by Monsignor John Hawes.

We then drove on through the village and passed some so called early miners cottages and the old cemetery and we posted a postcard to Tom. We stopped soon afterwards for coffee and a bit of the nice iced bun - icing with spicy fruit bits on top, in a large but uninspiring lay by and spoilt completely by the amount of flies. We drove 100 km through Kalbarri National Park to Kalbarri which was reminiscent of driving to Rainbow Beach when we came to Australia last time, just miles and miles of nothing. Just before Kalbarri we drove up to Meanarra Hill, this was a mile or two up a sandy track and we did certainly have a very impressive view looking down to the Murchison River coming out at Kalbarri and just wilderness all around, but the fly and the ant population made it not so pleasurable and it was very hot. We drove down into Kalbarri itself, surely one of the most beautiful places on earth, as the Murchison River went out to the sea with a sand spit across and the blue sky, green vegetation and white beach. We looked in at a campsite by the end of the river, which we thought looked nice and then went down to near the sand spit and had lunch. We then went down the coast a bit stopping to view back to this estuary and drove to what was called Mushroom Rock, and there was supposedly a two hour walk , but we took a one hour on a trail down to the Mushroom Rock which itself was nothing very special, just a rock balanced on a cliff edge, but on the way we saw spectacular rock formations and coloured rocks.

St Marys Church, Northampton (gordon@mingor.net)

The next bit was Rainbow Rocks, all different colours and there were some bits of rock which were like cylindrical tubes which were the burrows of worms 300 million years ago. The walk wasn't well waymarked, and was a leisurely walk but was quite steep and difficult in places, I would have said, but very enjoyable and very hot.

Rosie on the walk and Adrian by Mushroom rock, Kalbarri

We returned to the van about 3.30 and then made our way back through Kalbarri to Anchorage Caravan Site where we positioned ourselves for $12 a night. We both had showers, we had been rather warm after the exerting walk. Adrian's was wonderful, mine was a bit spoilt by mosquitoes and various other things. We had a pleasant sit in the sun, looking out onto this river estuary and the sun going down. We walked down to the river as the sun was setting. We cooked a meal, Adrian cooking some steak outside and we actually ate outside using our new lamp, which was great. We had been plagued a bit by mossies and I had already been bitten rather nastily, but after a bit of an antihistamine all was well. So we covered ourselves up with trousers on against the mosquitoes and we sat outside enjoying a lovely atmosphere, a little greener I suppose you'd say and looking across to a few boats with lights on, quite different when we were usually tucked away in the darkness. We just sat with a bottle of Italian wine which was pleasant, enjoying this warm situation in a town.

Adrian between Mushroom Rock & Rainbow Valley and Rainbow Valley Rocks

We also enjoyed walking into the town in the evening in the dark, there was enough light for us to see where we were going and it was near enough to walk. We heard a noise and briefly saw a frog in a little pond just along from where we were and we walked down to another bit of beach opposite another caravan site, but we weren't actually aware of that and sat on a seat there and just watched the very very calm water. Fish were jumping - we could hear them a lot and we did manage to see them with the aid of our dim torch. This place was interesting like a lot of places with having the river and the ocean and although the bit of beach where we were sitting, was basically still river, the ocean waves were crashing behind us at the end of the estuary at the magnificent outlet.

Sunset at Anchorage Village Caravan Site

Thursday, 4th June 38 km

We were late getting up to a morning which was partly sunny, but also windy and there had been a few drops of rain in the night. We had heard of a very bad train crash in Germany. We had been woken early, about 6.15, by fishermen or boats going off, but it was in fact gone 10 o'clock by the time we left and we drove further south to the furthest of the gorges on the coast. We had wanted to do the walk up the coast, which was something like 8 km. The weather looked rather showery at this time but it fact turned very hot, 25°C. We decided just do a little circle at the very bottom bit of this walk - we'd had an intermediate idea as well but then realised that we were going to walk a long way back along the road. We weren't that stunned by the coastal scenery, it was no different really from what we'd seen on yesterday's walk. There was an archway and there was a little stack at the side and the same rock in layers like that we'd seen yesterday, but there were quite a few people came to view them. The bad thing was the lack of footpath and we did have to fight our way through the scrub on the return from the first cove called Castle Cove. The footpath wasn't shown at all and there was just the odd marker and as it was above these very high and steep and dangerous cliffs it was not my idea of fun. In fact we were rather disillusioned by the Australian way of showing footpaths, but we had a very pleasant coffee stop here. There was a picnic table just where we'd parked the van, overlooking the green scrub and then the sea and by now the mostly blue sky, very warm and we had the pleasant iced bun with the fruity bits on top and didn't leave there until midday. We continued up this coast turning off to see a Natural Bridge, Island Rock, a bit called Shell House.

This I think rather lacking in barriers to stop you falling into the sea, and then onto a bit called Eagle Gorge. This was not really what we would call a gorge, and we walked down to a sandy beach with interesting rocks and bits of quartz and big waves coming in. We climbed back up again, a very warm 25°C plus. We went on to Pot Alley and sat there to have our lunch above the cliffs, it was rather windy. We then went on to Red Bluff and had a walk along to the end of this outcrop, where we could look along the coast and then drove down to Red Bluff Beach, a fairly coarse ‘sand’ beach made of shell.

Rosie along the coast from Kilbarri

Island Rock

We then looked at Wittecarra Creek, where the two Dutch mutineers of the Batavia were supposedly put ashore in 1629.

Adrian at Red Bluff

We then drove back into Kalbarri itself and to the Murchison Caravan Site. We positioned ourselves here right on the front and had a cup of tea and then set off on foot and walked back and stopped first at the post office and posted a card to Jane. We found that this was also a bank so Adrian got some money out and then on to a chemist and got some more sting relief stuff. We walked on to and along the lovely little beach there, so interesting at this river mouth and in a calm bit we had a very refreshing swim avoiding people fishing and also rocks of which there were many underwater. We then walked around the point called Chinaman's Rock and sat and looked back to the vista of the river mouth and sandspit and this totally unspoilt coast. Just as we returned to the van at 5.15, there was a sudden squall of rain - we had seen an interesting bit of rainbow in the sky too.
We had found that there was a little fish restaurant next door, bring your own [alcohol], and we thought we might have a meal in there tonight, not having had a meal out for a very long time, probably since my birthday. So later in the evening, we made our way across there - 40 metres perhaps and were greeted by a young woman who was very busy serving a table of 10. The place didn't look too posh, there was just one chef, a rather large chap called Adam with long hair and this woman who was the waitress. We thought we'd sit in a sort of separate bit a couple of steps up, and outside where there were a group of people sitting. We located ourselves there but it actually came on to rain again and came through the netting stuff at the top which wasn't a proper roof and so we were forced to move in after a bit. In fact this wasn't at all unpleasant, but the rain did come rushing down and leaked in through the windows as well. The lady was rushing around putting towels in the doors where it was all flooding in, they were supposed to be getting more guttering tomorrow! but it was still very pleasant. Adrian had prawns as a starter which we shared, which came with a nice garnish. We both had grilled snapper, which came with chips and was nicely decorated and salad and bread went with that as well, all for the price of $12.50. We'd taken a bottle of Queen Adelaide Rhine Riesling, which actually was excellent, not sweet at all. We enjoyed having a meal for no particular reason other than there was a place next door. We returned before 8.30 to the van and more squalls of rain came as we went to bed at 10 o'clock’ish. The wind was getting up and the rain too - the lady in the restaurant said that it only rained at night in Kalbarri.

Adrian at Wittecarra Creek

Friday 5^th June 148 km

After a good night, we awoke to hear noisy galahs and someone leaving early and found the lady's statement about the rain not to be totally true. The morning had a mixed looking sky and we saw a rainbow. We were almost directly opposite the place where pelicans were fed at 8.45 and I had intended to watch this. But before then the sky became really black and it rained rather heavily, so we watched through binoculars, I was sitting still in my jarmies - we'd had breakfast, 8.45 passed, and people were out there waiting and by about nine o'clock it had just about stopped raining so we quickly donned some clothes and walked across the road, just in time to see the pelicans being fed. This was very enjoyable and there was a nice woman feeding them fish and explaining lots of facts about them and that was really quite fun. She said it never stays raining for long in Kalbarri! She did say that the river gorges we were hoping to go to that day might be closed if the weather was bad as it was a 22 kilometre plus on sand road to get there.

We went back to the Tourist Information to find that as far as she knew the roads were open. So we then started getting ourselves organised to leave about 10 o'clock. We stopped off at the baker's and bought some rolls and yummy cakes and went into a little supermarket and bought some milk and butter, but didn't find the bottle shop open. We then set off out of Kalbarri along the main road for about 35 km, and turned of on a track of 22 km before we took another track, stopping first at a lookout to the gorges and then continuing to Nature's Window carpark where we had our yummy cake and coffee before walking the half a kilometre to Nature's Window which is a bit of rock stuck out in a rather precarious position, viewing this very red gorge and layered sandstone. The colours just being the red of the rock and the green of the vegetation and unfortunately the grey of the sky. The sun did come out a bit, but we were absolutely plagued by millions of flies, and very off put by the lack of any directions. There was little sign saying 'Nature's Window' when you got near there, but not really in the right place and going to it was ‘at your own responsibility’, a very hairy situation I would have said.

Pelicans at Kalbarri

We returned to the van and left at 12.30. We drove back along this unmade up road to a place called the 'Z bend' some 12 kilometres south on a bumpy road, not too bad on the second section in fact, and there we went on a so called one kilometre return walk to the gorge. It was very impressive when we got there, steep sided, again nothing to stop you falling off, and nowhere to tell you where you ought to be walking and plagued by flies again. So hence we had our lunch on our return sitting inside the van, Adrian fixing the netting into the windows to make a through draught. We had seen a lot of this chain of yellow creeper which is growing through many of the plants, a bit like a little yellow lily of the valley flower, very pretty and also lots of banksias here which I of course always liked to see.
We returned to the main road and went on 25 km and then turned off to a thing called the Hawks Head, where again we walked a few 100 metres to a precipice, nothing to stop you, and again lots of flies. We looked down and saw several kangaroos in the gorge below. We returned a few kilometres and then on a bit further to Ross Graham Lookout, and here the valley was much less steep. They did say you could walk down to the river but it was just down a sort of little riverbed very, very uneven underfoot, and it seemed to me you could rick your ankle very easily on it, so we didn't do that, we just looked out over the gorge. We now drove out of Kalbarri National Park and back to the main road north.
We stopped on this road after 14.5 kilometres at Galena Bridge Rest Area. There were two places here one side was free camping and the other was a minimal fee site. We went to the free camping site, which was a large area near the Murchison River with lots of other people camping there, but we found a spot at the far end, had a short walk around and then spoke to a couple from Melbourne, Marge and Dez . I made a soup using the vast amount of vegetables which we had and adding bacon and a bit of the veal that we had bought.

This is where another walk started along the gorge which we would have liked to have done but one was advised to do it with a minimum of 5 in a party and there was no sign posting on the walk at all! It was along the last big meander almost a complete loop in the River Murchison.

Adrian at 'Nature's Window' and looking through it.

Adrian above the Murchison Gorge and a nearby wattle

Saturday 6^th June 260 km

It had been a very cold night but we awoke to clear blue sky and a day which rapidly became warm. We had a minor disaster in finding a drip of water under the sink and when Adrian went to mend it, it turned into a flood, as he said, and he got a bit wet, so we had to sort the sink problem out.
We found a little pathway behind us and thought we'd walk along it, but although it went for quite a distance, perhaps half a mile, it just ended at a derelict house, again the flies were an absolute nuisance. We returned to the van. There were three lots of wild flowers where we were, one a solanum type flower on a grey, fleshy leafed looking bush, one with tiny thin leaves and daisy type flowers and one a mauve fleshier, Adrian said orchid, but I don't think that because it was a flat petalled mauvy colour and they were there to add enjoyment and to makeup and in part for the flies.
We left just after 10 o'clock and went to view the supposed minimal fee, campsite the other side of the river and found a vast area, nobody there at all, and the loo block mentioned in our book was flattened, well there was nothing there, so we presume that was the case. We then started heading north but the going was rather the same-ish all the way, not much at all on this long stretch, except a couple of homesteads and a couple of road houses, further along.
We stopped some time after 11.00 at a large parking area where we had the last iced bun and saw the couple we met at Coronation Beach and last night. We continued on this uneventful road and at one point an emu ran across the road ahead of us. We stopped at the Overlander Roadhouse to get diesel, even more expensive. This and the Billabong Roadhouse were the only things we passed that morning. We turned off on the Shark Bay Road and then turned off to Hamelin Pool, the first bit of this road being surfaced, but then suddenly it deteriorated and went to unsurfaced and was very bad for a short distance. When we arrived at Hamelin Pool, we wondered what on earth we'd come to and what we were supposed to do. We were ready for lunch, so we had this sitting at some tables there and there was actually a breeze just where we were sitting. We then tried to find out about the place, there were stromatolites there like we'd seen at Lake Thetis, but this was in the sea or a long inlet of water. It turned out that there was a little museum bit telling us about the stromatolites and the Old Telegraph Station, which was there. We went into what was the Old Telegraph Station and were given a little talk on both things, a bit of video, and lots of things to look at on both accounts, very interesting. We then walked out across the beach and saw Shell Beach, the beach here is made of tiny shells and at one time these were quarried and used as building blocks.

And then we walked out onto a boardwalk to see the stromatolites which were mostly underwater and we really would only have thought of them as rocks in the sea. But they are the oldest living form of life on earth and are still living and for that fascinating

Adrian by the shell quarry, Hamelin Pool

. It was very hot, there had been a clear blue sky all day and we went back to museum and had a cup of tea, which was included in the price of $5 each to see the little museum bit, so we felt it was well worth the visit.
Now nearing four o'clock we returned to the road and carried on in the direction northwards towards Denham. We stopped off at Shell Beach, which is made up completely of shells and we walked across this rather wide beach to the sea. There wasn't actually anything here saying you couldn't camp but as it was in the Conservation Area we thought perhaps we wouldn't stay there.
We went a few miles up the road where we turned off to a place at Goulet Bluff, down a track and stopped in an idyllic situation looking out to the sea and a bit more of a peninsula. In the distance we could see a bit of what might be Dirk Hartog Island or anyway what we think is most westerly part of Australia. We watched the sun go down and we climbed to the top of the bluff so we could have a view of land and sea, in all directions and just greenery, the only thing altering this was our white van. We sat in the van watching the light fading over the sea and the greenery, listening to one of our earlier tapes on the Eyre Peninsula and going across the Nullabor.
After that I prepared a stir fry supper with vegetables and veal and rice and later on, we walked down to the beach, a quite large moon was shining in a clear sky with lots of stars. As we walked on to the beach, I thought it was strange that we could see what looked like waves not moving but as we got nearer we realised it was just the beach. This being a long inlet, there were no big waves coming in and as we walked out across the beach, we found that this too was made up of myriads of shells. We walked across this covered in layers of seaweed, and we suddenly found we were in the water. It was very, very peaceful and the only sound was of one or two crickets. There were a couple of lights in the distance and absolutely nothing else at all, quite a magical moment. We walked back up to the van, and then sat beside it for some time, and then as Adrian was getting in, I saw a shooting star above which was just an amazing sight to see.

Centuries old track marks and Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool

Stromatolites in Hamelin Pool

Sunset at Goulet Bluff

Sunday 7^th June, 95 km

Adrian woke as the sun was just rising and cleaned the windows so we could sit in bed with a cup of tea and look out to a clear blue sky but quite a breeze. We had breakfast inside and left about 9 o'clock. We looked in at the three supposedly authorised free camping sites in our book at Whalebone Bay, Fowlers Camp and Eagle Bluff, but all were now accompanied by no camping signs. Eagle Bluff seemed the nicest, although they were all nice places, and we went actually to the bluff, we drove to the far end which ended in sheer cliffs down to the sea. Absolutely clear water and we could see through to what appeared to be sand and then some dark substance which we assumed to be the seagrass which grows in this marine park and not many other places, and on which the strange animal called the dugong feeds.
We went down to another so called lookout but it was just a track down to the beach and it was very windy although it was quite warm. We had a little walk on the beach and there were some spirally shells here and then we had our coffee sitting on the one seat that was there. There had been another couple who'd left at this point and so we had the whole place to ourselves and all we could see north and south was just the low cliffs covered in vegetation, reddy coloured soil for the most part and a white beach and and the clear blue sea and the blue sky - a few little white fluffy clouds.

We drove on to Denham the most westerly town in Australia and named not after the place in England, but after a man. It was really a very beautiful place with wonderful turquoise seas and blue sky and white sandy beaches, but unfortunately while we were there it was all dug up, all the roads being done, so we didn't see it at its best.

Remote Eagle Bluff

We went in the Tourist Information and the lady gave us some leaflets and we couldn't really find much to see in the town - a couple of buildings made out of the blocks of shells. We were amused at the tiny little church and beside the door a notice said "Just like God, this place is never closed and is always open, turn the handle". We turned the handle and it was locked - it didn't look terribly attractive anyway, it looked like breeze blocks but when you look closely the blocks were made of the tiny shells. We drove up and down a bit and went into a shop with a petrol station and bought a small loaf of bread and spare mantle for the gaslight. We looked in vain for a bottle shop, and eventually found one but it was just a pub and so we are in dire state as far as wine goes.
We then went to have our lunch and although the sun was very hot and the sky clear blue, there was a really strong gusty wind blowing which could suddenly blow the sand up and spitefully hit you and so we had to sit inside but overlooking the lovely scenery. We had to keep the roof down because with it up we were frightened it would take the roof off as it suddenly blew in great gusts.
We stopped off to view the Little Lagoon but it was too windy to be pleasant. We drove into the Francoise Peron National Park for 6 km through a lot of nothing again to the Peron Homestead and here there was little walking trail round showing the artesian wells which pumped water for when they had a sheep station here, it all looked pretty hard times to me.
We drove on to Monkey Mia and established ourselves in the Resort Caravan Park, and we pitched the van, it was very windy which made life very hard as far as I was concerned. One of the first things we did was to have a swim in the icy cold pool and then to sit in the hot tub and while we there, along came Marge and Dez from a couple of nights ago. We'd already put the washing in and then hung it up as it was rather blowy and thought it would dry quickly. We then tried to locate what was going on at this place and where one's supposed to see dolphins. We went on a short walk, out the back of the site amongst the bushes - it was very very windy, but warm.
The weather looked ominous and Adrian got the washing off the line and had to resort to putting the washing into the one tumble dryer on the site which he had already inquired about. We ate our second crayfish for supper, which was excellent and by now a big storm was brewing, we could see lightning. We walked out briefly to the beach but huge spots of rain came as Adrian went to collect the washing, and as I got back it rained very heavily [and he got very wet running back to the van with the washing!]. A very big storm followed.

Shark bay from Denham

Monday 8^th June 49 Km

It was still windy in the morning but the great gale had blown itself out a bit. Although I hadn't slept well I was awake before seven and got a cup of tea and after that we went down to the beach and joined a group of other people and were soon joined by lots more people to see the dolphins. We actually stood knee deep in the water for about an hour resulting in our feet feeling a bit numb afterwards, although it didn't feel cold in the water, and we did see four of the the dolphins.
All these dolphins had names which were Nicky, Puck, Piccolo and Kia. We watched them for quite a long time, they did come swimming right up near our legs. There were two Rangers there and towards the end of the time, the dolphins were fed some fish.
[The Rangers took some time to explain that these dolphins were 'wild' and they couldn't predict when they would come, but that they couldn't resist a free feed!]

Then they went off by which time it was 8.45 and time to go back for breakfast. We had our breakfast and then got ourselves cleared up and put a bit of extra water into the tank. Drinking water, as we knew, was difficult to get from there, and most of the water on this site was bore water which wasn't for drinking and it left everything with a milky film on it, but we loaded a bit of drinking water into the tank.
We then moved the van out to the car park and returned to the beach with the idea of having a swim. But when we passed the dolphin area we realised the dolphins were in again. There were two more this time, one ot them called Surprise and soon after we were there the Rangers fed them again and I was lucky enough to give one of them a fish, it was the one called Nicky.

The dolphins at Monkey Mia

So having had that nice experience. I then did have a swim a bit further along the beach, which was very pleasant and then we both went in search of the shower and had a shower and hair wash and then returned to the van where we had coffee and tea. It was midday by the time we left, it was hot.
We set off towards Denham and on the way, we stopped where we saw something funny hanging in a tree - a list of some animals or something and we could hear some birds sounding a bit like bell birds making various sonorous sounds. We reached Little Lagoon, which looked absolutely lovely and reminded us of Fraser Island, with the turquoise of the sea and the lake being a bit lighter in colour, surrounded by greenery and blue sky. We then went on a new tourist bit of road, finished earlier this year, which had a nice lookout down to Denham.
When we reached Denham we went briefly into Foodland, got one or two things, went into the tourist office and got some postcards and enquired about a flight out over there but there didn't seem to be anything we particularly wanted and we weren't that keen because it was very windy and we thought it would be a bumpy flight. We then had lunch sitting on the front, it was windy, but not as windy as yesterday, the sun was hot. I'd had a go on some monkey bars’ which I couldn't resist in a little park and Adrian had managed to buy a couple of bottles of wine in a local resort hotel. There were two hotels there each having a bottle shop but nothing like the bottle shops we'd been used to where wine was a real bargain, it was very expensive there.
We drove back to Eagle Bluff and it was a few kilometres down the sandy track that we'd been down yesterday, we knew that, but it had rained since then and there were two places where there was a large flood of water across the road and we had to do a bit of four wheel type driving to get through it. We managed that and positioned ourself near the sea. There was another coaster there, a couple Rod and his lady and a dog Russell and they invited us in for a cup of tea, they were like Chris and Andy Jones - he was a labouring sort of fellow. We chatted to them for some time, they were very interesting. We perhaps could understand John's attitude more - they'd got a porta-potty but never used it and he wasn't too fond of washing!
We then had a long walk around the bay, it was still a quite strong wind but a pleasantly warm sun. We saw several dead puffer fish and some mangrove looking trees. Later in the evening we walked down to the beach and walked in the other direction, but quite soon we came to a little river coming out which we couldn’t cross, so we made it a small circular walk, it was very light, almost a full moon, although there were some clouds.

Rosie feeding the Dolphin called Nicky

Tuesday 9^th June 172 km

We were awake early and saw the sun rise in a blue sky, and were ready to leave by 8.45, so we decided to go for a little walk to see the beach again, which was a bit ill fated because on turning to return, I walked into something sticking out of the sand and rather nastily bashed my big toe. It was nine o'clock when we left. We followed the track back to the main road. One of the large areas of water that we came through last night had dried up but the one nearest to where we were camped was still quite deep.
We drove back down the Francois Peron Peninsula going south some 30 km from Eagle Bluff and turned off and drove 3 km down to Nanga Bay, but this was just a resort. When we got there, you couldn't do anything except go into the campsite, so we returned to the main road. We stopped for coffee just in an area that we'd seen beside the road on the way up and stayed inside the van, but lots of little biting flidges came in and it was most unpleasant. We remembered that when we were going towards Monkey Mia there was nowhere else to stop on this bit of road on the southern end of that peninsula. In fact, it was about 160 km of absolutely nothing before we reached the North West Coastal highway, just blue sky and shrub, mostly flatland with red soil, and there wasn’t much else when we reached the mainland either.
We stopped at the Overlander Roadhouse, which was very busy with people stopping for diesel and petrol, probably travelling north, but it was also the junction of the Monkey Mia and Peron Peninsula road. We got diesel, Adrian did the tyres, and also phoned Landbase and said to send our post to Exmouth. We continued for some miles in this sort of nothingness and we turned off to a lookout, it was about 12.30 and we were just deciding whether to make this our lunch stop. We looked out over flat ground with a wee bit of greenery and a bit of water and blue sky and on going outside, I could hear a hissing sound and it turned out we had a puncture. So this definitely was made the lunch stop and while I prepared lunch, Adrian did the magnificent task of changing the wheel. It was pleasantly warm, a slight breeze and annoying flies, but apart from that it was okay and all the jobs completed, we were ready to leave by 1.45 [This was the only puncture we had during the whole year, and even this one was easy as it was on the outside of a pair of dual wheels on the back and attached separately, so I only had to drive the inside wheel onto a plank of wood and I could change the outside one without even jacking the vehicle up!].
We drove a few more miles and then we came to the turn off to Gladstone Beach. This entailed going through a gate so we nearly missed it and then it was a 6.5 Km rough track and in a couple of places was exceedingly difficult to get through being rather wet. It was beautiful day as we travelled down it so we're hoping it didn't rain hard before leaving there the next day. The place is quite a idyllic because a there were a lot of virtually free ($1 each) campsites on the beach which was still in the inlet opposite the Francois Peron Peninsula so very calm water, there were only a couple of caravans here.
We settled ourselves in, put out the awning which made the sun go in and it became quite cloudy and breezy and made a cup of tea. I washed out the new pillowcases as I’d found mine had sopped up some water from the window the other day and was dirty. We sat outside and I wrote a letter to Val and Mike and several postcards as well, one to Emma and one or two friends, but we came indoors to finish that because it actually got quite chilly, later the wind did drop again. We went for a walk along to bit of a jetty but it was quite blowy and I'd had this sore toe, so we we didn’t go far along the beach and we came back and had a drink and a packet of crisps and listened to half of recorded tape 6 on the south coast around Esperance and Stokes Inlet which was very enjoyable. It had been nice sky and there was a full moon shining down.

We drove a few more miles and then we came to the turn off to Gladstone Beach. This entailed going through a gate so we nearly missed it and then it was a 6.5 Km rough track and in a couple of places was exceedingly difficult to get through being rather wet. It was beautiful day as we travelled down it so we're hoping it didn't rain hard before leaving there the next day. The place is quite idyllic because there were a lot of virtually free ($1 each) campsites on the beach which was still in the inlet opposite the Francois Peron Peninsula so very calm water, there were only a couple of caravans here.
We settled ourselves in, put out the awning which made the sun go in and it became quite cloudy and breezy and made a cup of tea. I washed out the new pillowcases as I’d found mine had sopped up some water from the window the other day and was dirty. We sat outside and I wrote a letter to Val and Mike and several postcards as well, one to Emma and one or two friends, but we came indoors to finish that because it actually got quite chilly, later the wind did drop again. We went for a walk along to bit of a jetty but it was quite blowy and I'd had this sore toe, so we didn’t go far along the beach.

Adrian changing the wheel on the Platybus

We came back and had a drink and a packet of crisps and listened to half of recorded tape 6 on the south coast around Esperance and Stokes Inlet which was very enjoyable. It had been nice sky and there was a full moon shining down.

Adrian at Gladstone Beach

Wednesday 10^th June 154 Km

There was some rain and wind in the night a grey morning when we woke up. We had discovered that the jetty at Gladstone where we were, was for exporting sandalwood and wool. There's absolutely nothing there now, just the remains of the jetty. We decided not to stay another day and to go for it and hope we could get through the track, leaving at 9 o'clock, however disaster struck as we drove the 6.5 km back.
We got through the first dodgy patch which didn't seem too bad but then we came to a very long stretch of thick, mud rutted road with lots of water. Adrian expertly got us along there until we were within shooting distance the far end of this stretch, when he lost control of the van and we got literally stuck in the mud. For about two hours or more, he tried various schemes of digging us out and we sometimes moved a little bit. During the time while he was trying to dig us out it rained very heavily once or twice but it brightened a bit but then we realised that we weren't going to get out on our own.
So about 11.15 he set off to walk to the road which looked nearer than walking back to the campsite, in the hope of finding somebody who would be able to tow us out of the mess. After half an hour or so a white 4WD van approached and I expected Adrian to be in there - but he wasn't, only a gentleman and a lady who worked for the fisheries - they had a little badge on their jumpers. I explained the situation and they said they would go back and try and find Adrian. It turned out, he had just got to the end of the track after about a 2 km long walk and gone off to a farmstead on the other side of the road, when the van had arrived. Anyway they met up and came back together and after some time managed to hitch up our vehicle to theirs and started to try and pull us out. We then had a really heavy downpour which meant that the surface was really really slippery and we slithered and slid and we sometimes wondered if the van would make it even with them pulling us out. They towed us right out to the gate and they went on their way and decided not to go back down the track. [One of the many, many things I miss about not being with Rosie is, if we later ever got into any dodgy situation when we were travelling, with our motorhomes. I didn't have to explain how I felt I just said 'Gladstone Beach']

Oh dear - Gladstone beach

We thanked them profusely and while I got some crumpets ready for lunch, we had no bread or anything else left, Adrian began the cleaning up operation - everything was thick red with mud. His sandals had given up after falling apart completely. After lunch, instead of after breakfast as planned, and rather cleaner and fed we proceeded towards Carnarvon.
We stopped at the Wooramel Roadhouse where Adrian checked the spare wheel air pressure and a bit further on we pulled into a layby, which had some water lying in it, where he washed off some of the muck from the wheels. We crossed the Wooramel River which was wide and thick and red, and then whole sections on either side of the road were flooded with red coloured water. We passed lots of goats running wild in this area. The land was absolutely flat, with nothing but ground level vegetation for much of the way. We had seen a whole crowd of galahs in front of us at one point, but apart from that there was very little, a few dead kangaroos - playing 'I Spy' would have been difficult there.
We arrived in Carnarvon just before four o'clock and Adrian went first to see about having the puncture mended. We also checked about the service for the van tomorrow, which we had booked some time ago and we also located a bottle shop and bought a few bottles of wine. I found somewhere to take my film in to be done and posted the letters. The place looked rather flat and uninteresting. There were particularly banana plantations in this area, but it was rather windswept, there were lots of palm trees, it was very flat and there were lots of Aboriginal people around.
The first campsite we went to, there were at least half a dozen there, was actually full and so we tried a second one the Carnarvon Caravan Site, which we booked into and started to organise ourselves after this mornings dilemma, filling with water, plugging in to electric and all sorts of things like that. Despite this rather not pleasant weather, overcast coolish and windy, there was a little swimming pool on the site and I decided to go for swim. The woman when Adrian enquired if the pool was open, thought I was mad and thought it was freezing for here, but I had a pleasant swim, no one else around of course, followed by a shower and hair wash, which was nice. We put some washing in and as we were plugged into electric, I cooked a chicken meal in the microwave, while Adrian did all the nasty jobs like emptying the loo and everything.

Friday 12^th June 136 km

A clear blue sky but quite a chilly start the day. We were ready to leave by 9.30. Adrian went to look up the number that we could ring so we could try and sort out the telephone problem. He did that and managed to find the problem, we had been disconnected because we hadn't paid the bill, which wasn't surprising as we hadn't received any bills. He managed to sort that out, including knowing that John's second name was Robert when the man said John Robert Miller without thinking that was the code he was going to ask. So we'd now been reconnected. We then went to try and sort the battery, which didn't really work. We didn't find anything out except there was nowhere around here doing anything, the chap tested the battery and said it was duff, which we knew anyway.
The next thing was far more successful and we visited the Westoby Banana plantation, had a tea and coffee and a cream scone, which was very reasonable and nice and then we had a very enjoyable and informative tour of the plantation. The chap that ran the plantation was an absolute laugh, he had all the dry humour and lots of jokes, very amusing and entertaining, so that was a real winner. [The one I remember and have repeated often was when somebody asked had the plantation been in his family long. He said, very slowly – “Well my father and his grandfather before him - had nothing to with it at all, he bought it 10 years ago”! ].

The next thing we did was visit the Bird Park, but that wasn't so good, the cages seemed quite small for the large numbers of parrots, but we did see a lot of different coloured parrots. We could have had fish and chips there but having not long had the scones, we said no.
We made our way to Chinaman's Pool which is part of the Gascoyne River, very red at the moment and very full of water. It was not as pleasant as it could have been because of the mosquitoes which we had been a bit plagued with today, we were bitten several times, despite having put all sorts of stuff on and taken tablets. We had a walk along by the river, there were some trees down which Adrian and had to move, and then we went to have our picnic at a table beside the river, but we thought that the mosquitoes were going to disturb us so much that we took our picnic back inside and had it there.

Paul, the owner of the banana plantation

We then got some diesel before leaving Carnarvon at two o'clock.
We travelled north with rather uneventful scenery, we passed a hitchhiker and only afterwards thought of Tom sitting there waiting for someone to pick him up. It was flat land, low shrub, red soil, blue sky, quite lot of water around, and later on a slight variation of the height of the land. We stopped at Minilya Bridge Rest Area at 3.45, beside a bit of red river, probably the Minilya River but the name was missing on the map, it just said river. It seemed to stop a little way up or go into the ground or something, it was beautifully warm in the sun, so we sat out and enjoyed a cup of tea.

Rosie by the very full, Gascoyne River

A chap called Terry, who came from Denmark (W.A.) from another van, came and spoke, he was a bit self opinionated and then he went and put his generator on! He did turn it off in the evening, but it meant that when we were sitting out, as well as the frogs which sounded like people applauding going clap, clap, clap or someone banging pegs in, we could hear the generator. We were very bothered by mosquitoes here which was annoying.
We then chatted to a very nice young couple Geoff and Brigitte from Vancouver, Canada although she was German from Darmstadt originally, and they were travelling around Australia. They were getting bitten by mossies and getting cold as they stood there chatting to us. I cooked the meal inside but in fact we ate outside, it was quite chilly by then, but a lovely sky as the sun went down and then a huge amazing orangey coloured moon rose into the sky. I labelled the most recent lot of photographs.

Minilya Rest Area by the Minilya River (streetview 2008)

Saturday 13^th June 94 km

A fine morning, but quite cool and we left at 9.30. We soon took the road towards Coral Bay and Exmouth and passed a very large oxen with big horns by the road. At 10.10 we passed a sign saying the Tropic of Capricorn, it didn't feel very tropical. We saw two birds beside the road possibly young wedgetails and we also passed an area of large termite mounds.
We arrived at Coral Bay at about 11 o'clock and we soon realised it was hot, the sun was shining and we also found the place was very crowded. There were two caravan sites, we chose the cheaper of the two, Bay View Caravan Park, and it felt like arriving in Spain in the summer, but we found ourselves a pitch and put the kettle on for some coffee. After our coffee, things then happened quite quickly. We walked around to see what was going on and enquired about a long trip tomorrow, out to see the reef and various marine items, but tomorrow's was fully booked so it would have been Monday. We then inquired about the one o'clock trip which went for two hours out to the reef for snorkelling and that was on, so we agreed to do that. As it was gone 12 o'clock by now, we came back and quickly had a bit of light lunch, sitting outside.
We then made our way down to the caravan where one got organised for going out on the trip with our goggles, snorkel and flippers and then went out on the glass bottomed boat for something of absolute sheer delight. We went out over the coral which comes in close to the shore at that point and saw lots of coral and lots of fish and when we got out to a point on the reef, we had three quarters of an hour swimming amongst the coral and fish which were just so magnificent, from tiny little fish up to enormous fish of about a metre long. There were all sorts in between, I saw a ray on the sea floor and also some long skinny fish like a pole and things like a cucumber, drifting below and all sorts, I sometimes just gasped in amazement at how beautiful these fish were, just sheer delight swimming with them.

Thursday 11^th June 38 km

I'd had a good sleep, blue sky when we woke up but clouds had come up by the time we were ready to leave just before 9 o'clock. We stopped off to take the tyre in and then took the van in to be serviced and had a lift back. I went into the hairdresser's and had my hair trimmed and afterwards Adrian did as well.
The morning just vanished in wandering around this little town which didn’t have much in it, a few shops, and the tourist information which we went in and not a lot else really. We just wandered about, we did collect my film, and looked at the pictures while we had coffee. We went to the bank and got some money, we got a phone card which we had to get from a video shop and we then went to Woolworths, which was big with a large selection of stuff, although I wasn't so impressed with some of the fresh stuff and very little fish. Adrian went to collect the van while I carried on shopping and by the time we were done, it was time for lunch. So we went down to the front and had our lunch there and then went to collect the tyre.
We then drove back to the part of Carnarvon called Babbage Island, where we drove down to the one mile jetty. Nearby there was a museum, which we didn't go into, having seen so many others, but outside there were quite a lot of nice old steam engines and bits and pieces. We then drove down the south of the island as far as Carnarvon Beach Resort, which was pretty awful and the only thing on a long sandy spit. Everywhere looked very flattish and no trees and made me think of the area of Middlesex near where I used to live and all the gravel pits. We had a look at Dwyers Leap on the northern part of his island, where the Gascoyne River came out and then returned and went to South Carnarvon and went down to the small Boat Harbour, and saw lots of boats in there and a lot of fishery places round about. We passed Pioneer Park, a miniscule park, supposedly interesting, there were whale bones at the entrance, but apart from that it was just a small area of grass. We passed the Catholic Church where it said they had sturt peas growing in the ground, but I couldn't see them.

We drove off to a garage to the east of Carnarvon to see if they could spray some of the muck off the bottom of our van, but apparently they didn't do it anymore, so that was that. We did see on a notice in the Tourist Information to say that the Gladstone Road was closed, the road we got stuck in yesterday.
We then went to Marloo Caravan Park , supposedly for the over 55’s, they didn't query our age! and we saw one or two younger people around. There was nothing exciting to say about this place, the ladies toilet was full of hideous artificial bright red and yellow flower displays, you couldn't see anything else for them, the men’s obviously wasn't as bad. There was a swimming pool but the cover was on it and the man said it was freezing, the water actually felt warmish, but the weather was not as one would expect for Carnarvon - it was windy, partly sunny, but a lot of cloud, not exciting. We made the discovery that the mobile phone didn't seem to be working and when we phoned in, all we got was something saying not available, which was rather disconcerting. Adrian cooked steak outside for supper.

The Catholic church at Carnarvon (streetview 2014) - there were no pictures today and this was the best thing I could find!

We then stopped at the place where we were going to feed the fish and I thought this was just handing a bit of food over the side to them, but no, it was actually swimming in the water with the fish. So although I'd just taken my costume down to my middle and put a top on, I had to put my wet cossie back on again because I knew I had to get back in the water. Swimming with the fish and feeding the fish was just a fantastic experience, they were just swimming all around us, they were all shapes and sizes and colours.

On the reef at Coral Bay

We stayed about 20 minutes or so, swimming with them and we were reluctant to get back into the boat again. When we did so we set off back but stopped over other bits of coral, lavender coral I think it was and then we were taken to another place where fish all congregated around us, so all told we had an excellent trip. It was well over the two hours and by the time we got back it must have been about 3.30 and I'd felt pretty chilly on the way back, although the water was warm.
We went immediately to have showers and hair wash and put on some dry clothes and we then said hello to a couple from Newcastle (England), Ruth and John, who were camped opposite us and who we'd seen on our way to the boat trip. We ended up spending a couple of hours sitting with them drinking their wine and chatting, so it was about 6.30 by the time we came back to have our pizza and to sit outside, it was a pleasant evening and didn't seem to be too many mosquitoes.

Some of the fish we swam with