I think we launched off the wrong boat ramp (we used the private one at the yacht club) but no one shot at us, so it was OK! We got in about 4 hours fishing-it was slow for the first 3, then on the change of tide we caught 3 types of cod we’d never seen before, a stripy sea perch, bream, yellow fin bream, and bald chin gropers so it was pretty interesting. Our freezer is full, so we kissed them and put them all back!
It was so nice to drive back into the park after fishing and see my BIL Peter walking to the office. After a shower we spent a nice afternoon catching up, then cooked a yummy dinner of tuna we caught in Denham and had been saving for them. Glenda and Pete are travelling in the opposite direction to us, so have come down through the Kimberly and Broome. It was good to hear their recommendations of parks to stay in and interesting places to see!
Monday, we all changed bed linen and did our washing, then headed out to Dampier and the Burrup Peninsula. Burrup Peninsula is famous for Aboriginal rock art. Last year I read 40,000 paintings had been catalogued, now I hear it’s 5000000! Whatever, it’s very interesting. We took a wander through a little valley along a creek and found heaps. The iron rich rocks lay in huge piles looking like leftovers from the mining process and the art can be found like early graffiti on many of the rock faces. We could see turtles, boats, kangaroos, fish, people etc. After a walk around them and a drive to the lookout over Dampier, we headed down to the pub for lunch. It was windy, but still pleasant to sit out (by ourselves) in the beer garden overlooking the harbour. Back in Karratha, we went up to another lookout then did a bit of shopping before heading home. We had dinner at Glenda and Pete’s that night.
Glenda, Pete and Russ at Burrup Penisula
Tuesday we took Glenda and Pete’s car and went out through Roeburn to Cossack. Cossack is a ghost town with a few buildings, the cemetery and a tiny museum remaining. It’s got plenty of signs recalling its history though and is a nice walk around. On then to Point Samson where we had lunch at one of the two cafes in town. Afterwards, we took a walk down to the beach and a drive to the boat harbour. It’s such a pretty place. Pete had a van tyre repaired for a slow leak and had to pick it up on the way home. Glenda, Russ and I left him at home fixing that and headed back into town to do some shopping for dinner and the move on to 80 mile beach and Port Smith. Karratha was established about 40 years ago for the mining industry and has a pretty large and good shopping centre. We especially needed to stock up as the next two stops we planned to make are in quite remote locations.
Wednesday, we headed North (planning to stay 4 nights at 80 mile beach) and Glenda and Pete were off to stay at Exmouth for a couple of days.
The Road out of Karratha
About a month ago, I called 80 mile beach CP to be told they don’t take bookings, but they had plenty of sites and all would be fine!! We drove just under 500ks, then turned off the highway and down a dirt road-not a whole lot of fun with our strictly onroad van! We arrived to find that they only had un powered sites left and would put us on one of those, then we would be able to move onto a powered site when it became vacant (probably in the morning). We can’t do that, we need power, so we walked out, went back up the dirt road and headed another 40ks to Sandfire roadhouse for the night. The 80mile beach CP had a sign at the start of the dirt explaining pricing of various accommodation, facilities, no dogs etc. I think it would be a courtesy to send someone out to the sign to put up a notice when all powered sites are gone. Grrrrr. I have been told they don’t take bookings due to too many no shows, but I would have happily paid in full. Who looses out then if we don’t show up?!
Sandfire roadhouse was a scary looking place-the actual roadhouse burned down 13 weeks ago and they were using transportable offices. We camped out the back behind all that and had a really nice quiet night-even though we counted 26 geese, at least 60 peacocks of various sizes, a huge Brahman bull, two horses and a friendly chook! The ablutions block had seen better times and was in need of a clean, but I can live with that for a night. We were booked in at Port Smith 3 nights later, so gave them a call about arriving early-which we did yesterday.
A Spacious, Shady Site at Port Smith
What a pretty place this is at the end of 20ks of red dirt road. The van made it in fine with only one cupboard open and a few things upended in the fridge when we arrived! We’d made it in time for the dinner they put on every Thursday, so no need to cook tea that night.
A camper trailer followed us in along the dirt and we said hello to the couple down on the beach later on. I saw them again at the dinner and they sat and joined us. Russ had gone back to get our chairs when they asked what he did for a living. It turns out Mark is one of his former Chemical Users Course attendees that he (Russ) did for TAFE. Mark and Leah are from Hamilton on 4-6 weeks holiday to do the Gibb River Road. This is the second time we’ve met someone who did the course-the first time was on day one of this trip in Mt Gambier (that seems a long time ago).
Dinner was well attended by easily 100 people. The park put on chicken and veg soup followed by a sausage sizzle. They had raffles and games and a local band that played almost non-stop for 3 hours. The local band was called the Shoveller Family Band and came from the Aboriginal community about 40ks away. It consisted of dad, son (maybe 25), son (almost 14) and nephew (almost 13). The 7 year old sister Peta sat with us and got up and sang about 4 songs, the other sister Lalaine just watched and chatted a little as they didn’t bring her piano. Dad is a music teacher at the community’s High School and father of 7 children. He wrote a lot of the songs they sang and they sang a lot! The teenage boys break danced; they played pipes for didgeridoos and all in all put on a wonderful show. It’s nice to see kids with such high self esteem. Mum wasn’t there as she had taken her mother into Perth for an operation. Perth is 2000ks away now, so quite a drive!
Today we went out fishing on the lagoon. It’s quite amazing to see everything under water as we saw it last night when the tide was out. We are in the areas of large tides now and it was about 6 metres higher than we saw yesterday. Tomorrow it will be 7 metres difference and by Tuesday it will be 8 metres. The tides go out very fast and there is only a fairly narrow window of opportunity to retrieve your boat. If you leave it too late, you just leave the boat and get it as the tide starts to come back in. We had put the car into 4WD and let a lot of air out of the tyres to get the boat out of the water.
All that was very interesting, but the lack of legal sized fish was a bit of a disappointment! We caught many cod, but had to throw them all back. It could be to do with the full moon tomorrow night, we’ll have to wait and see and hope it improves. At least we have enough meat, fish and chicken in our freezer to survive!
Tonight Leah and mark are coming over for a drink and chat before dinner, and then Russ and I are having a curry.
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