Hellooooo! Yes, long time, and no update. However this last bit of the trip has been off in the wild wilderness for the most of it, and so we’ve been out of contact. So, there’s going to be one GIANT update now that we’re home, just to finish it all off. Or maybe there might be two - there's a lot to tell, and lots of pics, of course. AND in this and the next blog, there's GUEST STARS! I know, it's just too exciting.....
DAY 69 (3rd July): We woke up this morning at Tjukayirla Roadhouse (THE one to stop at, if you are doing this road) with the task of making a more dustproof back window. I refused to look too closely at just how much redness had coated the contents of the canopy – it was going to be bad!
This was just the OUTSIDE!
So, with the help of an overpriced roll of Duck tape, I set to. Jenna thought it an appropriate time to go wild-flower hunting….
… and this was the final result. Stylin’, hey?
Note the gaps at the sides that I THOUGHT would limit the amount of dust allowed in.
So we continued down the endless road of redness,
So we continued down the endless road of redness,
stopping along the way to take some more wildflower pictures, which I can now name, as I have bought me a handy-dandy flowers of the Pilbara guide. I never saw this many flowers out when I was up in these parts - there must've been a fair bit of rain!
A Sand Hibiscus
We had been warned to expect an abandoned car for every kilometre of this road – it wasn’t QUITE that extreme, but there were lots of them!
Ummm….. I always wanted a Sandman…. Might need a bit of work…..
Further on which we found a massive patch of Sturt’s Desert Pea. I’ve never seen such a big patch! It was Pete who spotted it, and it was that spectacular that he even turned around without me whining at him to do so! :)
Eventually, it ended, and it was back to old stomping grounds for me. We came through Laverton, with a quick stop for fuel, and then continued on to Leonora, where I had spent a couple of years teaching in the 90’s. Just out of town, is a ghost town, Gwalia, that the locals did up for the centenary while I was there in ’97. I don’t think I ever went around it properly while there, it’s a great place to have a poke around in.
All corrugated iron.
Hessian walls, and this one was a bit posh - it had a brick and cement floor instead of wood laid directly over the dirt.
One of the old unlicensed bars.
Not sure how much tickle is left in these ivories!
Nursing/doctors station
Whoever left THIS car must've done alright for himself at the time...
Boarding house.
Eventually they built a proper pub, its the mining office now.
From there, it was up to Leinster to stay over night – the town I started teaching at!
DAY 70 (4th July): Woke up to find that very little had changed in the town, although the school is now a primary school only (not surprisingly, I had 3 kids in my Yr 10 class, 5 in the Yr 9 and 11 in the Yr 8 one when I was there!). Its still a closed town, and so everything is run by the mine. And the mine really isn’t THAT interested in the minutiae of running a caravan park, so we managed to stay there for free, AND do all our washing on FREE washers and dryers! Believe me folks, that’s a BIG thing when you’re on the road. I washed EVERYTHING. Twice.
Pete did some running repairs on the trailer, which had lost the wiring to the right hand lights He wasn’t happy. And wouldn’t smile for the action shot.
Back on the road, and heading north, we passed this sand dune – it’s a brilliant red, and I was told when I lived up here that it has Dreamtime significance, being a big dragonfly dropping.
It really is striking, hard to show on a camera.
At Wiluna, we were going to hit some more dirt, and so in the interest of protecting all my recently washed stuff, I did some more taping. This version was pretty effective.
Lucky it was a big roll of Duck tape.
We had been warned to expect an abandoned car for every kilometre of this road – it wasn’t QUITE that extreme, but there were lots of them!
Further on which we found a massive patch of Sturt’s Desert Pea. I’ve never seen such a big patch! It was Pete who spotted it, and it was that spectacular that he even turned around without me whining at him to do so! :)
Eventually, it ended, and it was back to old stomping grounds for me. We came through Laverton, with a quick stop for fuel, and then continued on to Leonora, where I had spent a couple of years teaching in the 90’s. Just out of town, is a ghost town, Gwalia, that the locals did up for the centenary while I was there in ’97. I don’t think I ever went around it properly while there, it’s a great place to have a poke around in.
From there, it was up to Leinster to stay over night – the town I started teaching at!
DAY 70 (4th July): Woke up to find that very little had changed in the town, although the school is now a primary school only (not surprisingly, I had 3 kids in my Yr 10 class, 5 in the Yr 9 and 11 in the Yr 8 one when I was there!). Its still a closed town, and so everything is run by the mine. And the mine really isn’t THAT interested in the minutiae of running a caravan park, so we managed to stay there for free, AND do all our washing on FREE washers and dryers! Believe me folks, that’s a BIG thing when you’re on the road. I washed EVERYTHING. Twice.
Back on the road, and heading north, we passed this sand dune – it’s a brilliant red, and I was told when I lived up here that it has Dreamtime significance, being a big dragonfly dropping.
At Wiluna, we were going to hit some more dirt, and so in the interest of protecting all my recently washed stuff, I did some more taping. This version was pretty effective.
Another shot of a different endless reddish road.
And ended up in rainy Newman for the night.
DAY 71 (5th July): We drove. That sums it up pretty much. It had rained ALL night, and we got up and it was still raining. It had to catch up to us sometime, I guess! Anyway, we drove through the Karijini road, and the weather was so bad, that all the mountains we passed had their tops covered in clouds. And these are WA mountains. The clouds were pretty low…..
Anyway, we decided to brave a free camp on the side of the road, and made ourselves a nice cosy little campfire, then hit the hay.
The camp spot was in a on the side of a creek bed.
Our cosy campfire - the first one we'd had! The last time we free-camped was in the Coorong in SA, and being a national park, we couldn't have fires.
J bunny-earring the dinner!
DAY 72 (6th July): From our roadside camp, we headed to Coral Bay. We had three days here, for a bit of (well deserved!!) R&R before we were joined by the rest of the adventure crew for the final two weeks.
First stop for me was to clean out the back of the car. It took four hours. To make it a particularly delightful task, I found that one of our water containers had split, and so it wasn’t just red DUST, it was red MUD. Oh, and I also found that at least half of the window had not fallen on the OUTSIDE, but had gone into the trailer. So it was red, GLASSY mud. Not cool.
I forgot to take a photo when I took all of our stuff out of here. It was bad.
DAY 73/74 (7th/8th July): Okay, car cleaned, clouds gone…… time to hit the beach! Woohoo! Not warm enough to swim, but the kids had fun splashing around. We drove around to Maud’s Landing and Pete tried his very hardest to look like he was taking his fishing seriously……
And the kids splashed around on the super-crowded beach
DAY 75 (9th July): We were due to depart today, so, knowing that there was to be even MORE red dirt roads, I made a more durable canopy window. Out of a shower curtain! I had a choice of ducks, frogs or spots. It seemed the sensible choice.
This resulted in our car being named "Lollypop" for the rest of the adventure.
We met the others, making an expedition group of 17 in all, and set off along the coast, aiming for Winderabandi Point to camp. Unfortunately, all the old free camps have now turned into pay ones, and the hope we’d held to have some place of the coast to ourselves was not to happen. Winderabandi Point was full and we ended up camping at Jane Bay, a bit further south. Along the way, drama struck, with one of the trailers having a little issue with the axle - pick what’s wrong with this picture!
This is what had happened - the bit on the left was still meant to be attached to the hole on the right. This was the story on both sides of the trailer.
This resulted in a little creative repairs, with some welding being done by joining car batteries together for the power supply! Just as well we brought McGyver Mic with us :) This is the battery set up.
Marc, McGyver Mic's sidekick, in action.
This delayed our arrival a bit.
We arrived, set up, and it started to rain. WE weren't so surprised by this, of course, but it did make cooking dinner interesting! Luckily, we were all on roster, and it WASN'T our turn. Jenna and I did volunteer to anchor the makeshift cooking shelter.
Dinner! Nom-nom-nom..... Mongolian Lamb......
DAY 76 (10th July): Camp breakfast time!
Found a flower right outside out tent! Perhaps an Austral Trefoil, FYI.
And then it was down to the beach! Pete caught a Crocodilian Longtom, and Mitchell caught a live olive shell. I caught some sandfly bites......
The Longtom
A mean set of teeth! And the fish's were a bit scary too!
Olive shell.
Me catching nuthin'
Then Pete went and caught a....
...shovelnose shark!
A trio of of toughness (and Pete!) where the boys went to play boy games....
...like motorbiking!
DAY 77 (11th July): Went for an early morning stroll down the beach, and found part of a whale skull. Nothing like a whale skull in the sunrise light……
Then back down to the beach…
Crowded again.....
The kids loved having someone else around to play with!
Until the end of the day…
It was our round for campfire dinner tonight. Curried Sausages. They look a bit.... ah.... innappropriate in the photo!
And then the boys went off to play with fire. This is steel wool, lit up, on the end of a piece of wire.
They also played flaming soccer – two rolls of toilet paper, held together with wire, soaked in kero, and lit to form the ball. It must be a boy thing.
DAY 78 (12th July): Packed up and headed off again. Two cars drove along the coast to Yardie creek, and we escorted the car with the precious trailer. The road into Winderabandi was very corrugated, so we had to go very slow, so as not to break it again. Stopped on the way, for lunch, and found this little fella:
who really, wasn't so little. Normally, I detest cockroaches, but as this one had chosen to be such a pretty one, he wasn't scary at all :)
We made it to Exmouth, and the others went around to do fun stuff, we stayed and did the washing. Yay. The others had stopped at a campsite around the other side of the Cape, and showered, so, as we were going out...... I snuck in and stole a shower from the local caravan park. Best shower I've had - mostly because we hadn't showered for three days!
Then at night, it was dinner at the pub, who had changed their menu and upped their prices since we were last there!
DAY 79 (13th July): After staying the night at Yardie Creek Station, we packed up (and found this hiding under one of the campers!)
and then went and did some snorkelling at Lakeside. Ah, the brilliant blue waters of the Ningaloo Coast - lovely! :)
M not quite ready for the splash! :)
As always, lots of colourful fish to see.
J trying (not so successfully) to master the use of the reef viewer. She didn't really like to put it IN the water.....
Then back through Exmouth for a quick re-stock, and
... a quick photo with the big whale shark, then we hit the road again. We stopped at another free camp spot on the Yannarie River for the night:
And lit the campfire...
What a life, eh?
DAY 80 (July 14th): Another morning of pack up and hit the road....
... but not before a flower find by Miss J.
On the way, we passed a creek, creatively named "Cave Creek", I guess for the cave that sits above it.....
View out of the "upper level" of the cave.
Tree on the creek bed - interesting roots!
Continuing on, we had another stop down the road when the tarp came loose from the dodgy trailer, leaving a trail of luggage down the highway. A truckie had picked up Mic's swag, but hadn't stopped for his backpack. While that was sorted...... I found more flowers! It's turned into a bit of a treasure hunt, now I have the book!
A Mat Heliotrope
The landscape was very stark, and the ground covered in small stones, that were almost reflective in the sun.
Stopped for lunch at the Fortescue River, which still had a fair bit of water in it. There were heaps of flowers. I couldn't help myself. This is a Rough Bluebell.
Cliffs with graffiti, not exactly sure how they got there to write so neatly!
Fortescue River
My "Tri-Flower" shot, with Sturt's Desert Pea, Nodding Mulla-Mulla, and Tall Mulla-Mulla.
After many, many wildflower shots (trust me, you're getting but a smidgeon of what I took!) we continued on to 40 Mile Beach, up near Dampier.
The camp at sunset.
And I'm going to have to split this last episode into two, it's just too big! So will post this and continue with the rest soon. Python Pool and Karijini to come....
Ciao-ciao!
K, P, M & J
And ended up in rainy Newman for the night.
DAY 71 (5th July): We drove. That sums it up pretty much. It had rained ALL night, and we got up and it was still raining. It had to catch up to us sometime, I guess! Anyway, we drove through the Karijini road, and the weather was so bad, that all the mountains we passed had their tops covered in clouds. And these are WA mountains. The clouds were pretty low…..
Anyway, we decided to brave a free camp on the side of the road, and made ourselves a nice cosy little campfire, then hit the hay.
DAY 72 (6th July): From our roadside camp, we headed to Coral Bay. We had three days here, for a bit of (well deserved!!) R&R before we were joined by the rest of the adventure crew for the final two weeks.
First stop for me was to clean out the back of the car. It took four hours. To make it a particularly delightful task, I found that one of our water containers had split, and so it wasn’t just red DUST, it was red MUD. Oh, and I also found that at least half of the window had not fallen on the OUTSIDE, but had gone into the trailer. So it was red, GLASSY mud. Not cool.
Red dustified. The jeans will never be the same.
Red dirt will be coming out of this car for the next ten years, I reckon. DAY 73/74 (7th/8th July): Okay, car cleaned, clouds gone…… time to hit the beach! Woohoo! Not warm enough to swim, but the kids had fun splashing around. We drove around to Maud’s Landing and Pete tried his very hardest to look like he was taking his fishing seriously……
And the kids splashed around on the super-crowded beach
DAY 75 (9th July): We were due to depart today, so, knowing that there was to be even MORE red dirt roads, I made a more durable canopy window. Out of a shower curtain! I had a choice of ducks, frogs or spots. It seemed the sensible choice.
We met the others, making an expedition group of 17 in all, and set off along the coast, aiming for Winderabandi Point to camp. Unfortunately, all the old free camps have now turned into pay ones, and the hope we’d held to have some place of the coast to ourselves was not to happen. Winderabandi Point was full and we ended up camping at Jane Bay, a bit further south. Along the way, drama struck, with one of the trailers having a little issue with the axle - pick what’s wrong with this picture!
This is what had happened - the bit on the left was still meant to be attached to the hole on the right. This was the story on both sides of the trailer.
This resulted in a little creative repairs, with some welding being done by joining car batteries together for the power supply! Just as well we brought McGyver Mic with us :) This is the battery set up.
Marc, McGyver Mic's sidekick, in action.
This delayed our arrival a bit.
We arrived, set up, and it started to rain. WE weren't so surprised by this, of course, but it did make cooking dinner interesting! Luckily, we were all on roster, and it WASN'T our turn. Jenna and I did volunteer to anchor the makeshift cooking shelter.
Dinner! Nom-nom-nom..... Mongolian Lamb......
DAY 76 (10th July): Camp breakfast time!
And then it was down to the beach! Pete caught a Crocodilian Longtom, and Mitchell caught a live olive shell. I caught some sandfly bites......
DAY 77 (11th July): Went for an early morning stroll down the beach, and found part of a whale skull. Nothing like a whale skull in the sunrise light……
Then back down to the beach…
Until the end of the day…
It was our round for campfire dinner tonight. Curried Sausages. They look a bit.... ah.... innappropriate in the photo!
And then the boys went off to play with fire. This is steel wool, lit up, on the end of a piece of wire.
They also played flaming soccer – two rolls of toilet paper, held together with wire, soaked in kero, and lit to form the ball. It must be a boy thing.
DAY 78 (12th July): Packed up and headed off again. Two cars drove along the coast to Yardie creek, and we escorted the car with the precious trailer. The road into Winderabandi was very corrugated, so we had to go very slow, so as not to break it again. Stopped on the way, for lunch, and found this little fella:
We made it to Exmouth, and the others went around to do fun stuff, we stayed and did the washing. Yay. The others had stopped at a campsite around the other side of the Cape, and showered, so, as we were going out...... I snuck in and stole a shower from the local caravan park. Best shower I've had - mostly because we hadn't showered for three days!
Then at night, it was dinner at the pub, who had changed their menu and upped their prices since we were last there!
DAY 79 (13th July): After staying the night at Yardie Creek Station, we packed up (and found this hiding under one of the campers!)
and then went and did some snorkelling at Lakeside. Ah, the brilliant blue waters of the Ningaloo Coast - lovely! :)
Then back through Exmouth for a quick re-stock, and
And lit the campfire...
DAY 80 (July 14th): Another morning of pack up and hit the road....
Continuing on, we had another stop down the road when the tarp came loose from the dodgy trailer, leaving a trail of luggage down the highway. A truckie had picked up Mic's swag, but hadn't stopped for his backpack. While that was sorted...... I found more flowers! It's turned into a bit of a treasure hunt, now I have the book!
After many, many wildflower shots (trust me, you're getting but a smidgeon of what I took!) we continued on to 40 Mile Beach, up near Dampier.
And I'm going to have to split this last episode into two, it's just too big! So will post this and continue with the rest soon. Python Pool and Karijini to come....
Ciao-ciao!
K, P, M & J
loving the gorgeous pics....what a great family adventure you had.
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