After a week in Broome and a week inland, we have a very slow internet reception at Dampier (it has only taken an hour to finally get on to the website...the joys of being rural)
Days 42 to 46 Broome
Days 47 & 48 Eighty Mile Beach
Days 49 to 51 Karajini National Park
Day 52 House Creek Bridge (outside Parabadoo)
Days 53 to 54 Dampier
A week at Broome, I thought it was a bit along the same lines as Noosa. It had one main street of shops and cafes and a beach that everyone raved about!
We played tourist and enjoyed the Courthouse markets, drove to Willie Creek Pearl Farm for a tour (which was a nice way to spend a couple of hours)
We enjoyed Fish n Chips on Cable Beach and watched the camels stroll past and watched the sun go down, which was most pleasant
For a rare night out we went to the Sun Cinema and it is an open air theatre and sat in deck chairs and watched Red Dog (i cried the whole movie). It was great fun until I jumped two metres into the air as the Qantas flight went right over head and I thought it was going to crash into us...yes you guessed it the airport, was right next to the town. I swear I could see the passengers faces looking down and watching the movie also!
We drove to Cape Leveque which was a 400k round trip, so it took us most of the day as it was on a corrugated road, so it was slow going in parts. We visited Beagle Bay which has a lovely shell alter at the local Catholic Church (we made a small donation of course), the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm (to look at some more lovely pearls) and to One Arm point, which is where the local aboriginal community lives. If we wanted to have a look around and where they farmed the trocus shells you needed to buy a permit...we decided not to, but we did by a Trocus shell pendant which one of the local kids made and the proceeds went to the school, which is now hanging from the rear mirror in the car and probably annoying Paul!
On the way back we stopped at Koolijman, which is a 'resort'' which is owned by the local aboriginal community. It is where the beautiful red cliffs meet the white sands of the beach. We needed to purchase a $10 day pass to go on the beach and have a look around, but it was very lovely.
We did have a quick passing thought to may be a bit healthy on our travels and decided to go to an organic cafe a few km's from town. It only opened a couple of days a week, but I enjoyed my sandwich and Paul followed a Tofts tradition of having breakfast at lunchtime (I wonder where he get's that from...)
When we left Broome it was a long boring drive to 80 mile beach. It is the worst part of being the passenger if you are driving for about 5 hours if there is nothing to look at other than scrub at the immediate side of the road, we usually end of getting a bit crabby at each other by the time we get out of the car.
It was a hot day 37deg and when you got out of the car the wind was even hot! We pulled into the one and only service station at Sandfire and petrol was priced at $1.81 so we thought we would use the cheaper fuel in the Jerry can. But then I thought I need an icecream, it was $10 for an ice cream and an ice coffee...they saw us coming!
When we got to 80 mile beach, they had a few vans there. It is very popular with the grey nomads as they come here for 4-5 months at a time for the fishing as the caravan park is right behind the dune and the beach is 220km long.
Paul tried his hand at fishing a couple of times...but to no avail (it was too windy). We celebrated that night on the beach with our dip and biccies with Donna's bottle of Moet and watched the sun go down. It was lovely and one we thoroughly enjoyed and Paul didn't have to drive anywhere.
At night we like to look up and see the many stars. Well we were very lucky this night to see 3 satellites and two of them crossed paths, which I have never seen before, it was a good thing they didn't collide!
We left 80 mile Beach to start heading inland to Karajini National Park and there are many trucks on the road as we are now getting into the Pilbara, which is mining country for Iron Ore. We stayed at the best free campsite (i thought) as it was look over a gorge and we were camped on top of a range wo it was beautiful (pity we had to share it with other vans)
We stayed at Karajini National Park for 2 nights and we were just surrounded by fantastic scenery. They had camp hosts (who collect your fees on the way in) and and give you a handout on the walks. Even though it gives you the grading we were very surprised by the lack of signage on the tracks and handrails & fencing.
We went walking through Weano Gorge the next day and it was a bit of an adventure as the trail could have gone a couple of ways. I was scrambling over rocks and ledges and poor Paul ever the hero husband and to keep stop and helping me over the rocks, but I eventually made it until I saw the steps back up out of the Gorge. Well let's just say I had to stop a couple of times! They were steep and eneven and the rock was very slippery. It amazed me that we came across a German couple with 3 young toddlers. I must admit that I was very tempted to say how irresponsible I thought they were bringing children on the track, but when you here the next bit to my story it makes you even madder!
That afternoon Paul decided to head down to Fortescue Falls for an afternoon swim and I stayed back at the van to read. He was gone for hours and I thought he had got chatting to someone, but he came back a bit of a mess and had been helping the rescuers as a man had fallen 14m over a cliff top as his 7 year old son slipped on the track and went under a bit of wire, which they called a fence. He had to go back and help the police, so he took the car and took off. I thought I can't wait here, so Iwalked to the car park and waited a couple of hours for him to come back, but it was about 6pm and unfortunately it was when he was helping retrieve the body, so it was a sad end to the stay at Karijini. The little boy is critical in a Perth Hospital.
We drove to Tom Price to start heading back to the Coastline, but as things go astray as they do, the sole fuel stop had fuel but no bowsers working. How can this happen twice to us in our trip..unbelievable. But we have learnt our lesson this time, we have jerry cans of fuel on the roof, so that enabled us to detour to Paraburdoo.
Stayed the night at a free campsite at House Creek bridge then drove to Karratha then Dampier. Karratha is a huge mining town and every one is in their safety gear and driving around in utes/4wd with orange flags and lights!
We checked the local paper and the rents here for a basic house start from $2,500pw can you believe it and none of the houses have gutters and they are all made from Colourbond...it is very strange! We stopped at the Information centre to ask about Caravan Parks as we want to stay for 2 nights and if we want to stay at Karratha it is $54pn or if we drove a further 15ks towards the coast to Dampier there is a transient caravan park which you can only stay for 3 nights and it is $24pn. That will do us fine thanks!
Not much at Karratha/Dampier. There is a shopping centre which we had a quick look around, a pub and about 5 sports grounds. We drove out of Dampier to the Burrup Peninsula and had a look at the Information centre which overlooks the Liquefied Natural Gas Plant, which was quite informative and a quick drive to some aboriginal carvings, which were quite spectacular. We had to take a picture of the Red Dog statue as this is where he was from.
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