Leaving for 3 weeks up north

Friday, our last day in Coral Bay, was a lovely sunny day. We did not do much. Just enjoyed the day. Anne did some sewing. Brian tried to update the Blog but had a few techincal problems and could not complete it, hence the delay in publishing. The bakery was a good place to visit when things were not right so went and bought some cakes and came back to the van for tea and cakes, followed by a beer and wine.

Caravan parks are a wondeful mix of people. We met a New Zealand couple who were travelling from Perth to Darwin in a campervan over 4 weeks. They were farmers from near Christchurch. Another young couple were from Tasmania and had lived in a station wagon for the past 6 months as they travelled around Australia. There were numerous overseas visitors travelling around as well as those from all states of Australia.

Time to go.

Saturday we packed up and started the journey home. We drove back to Carnarvon and then pushed on and stayed overnight at the Neren Neren overnight stay area. That was about 500 kms travel for the day. There were about 14 other vans, campers or buses there. The stars were absolutely beautiful overhead. There was no light from any cities or other places so it was very clear. It rained a little bit that night. It was so quiet after the caravan parks.

On Sunday morning we packed up and headed off again about 10am. We had intended to come home via the coast along Jurien Bay, Green Head and Cervantes, but the weather forecast was for gale force winds so we decided to push on to home. We arrived home about 6:30 pm after travelling over 600kms for the day. On the way home we passed through 4 speed traps. Yes four. 3 were well spaced apart in the Muchea area and 1 in Bullsbrook. As well, there were two on the other side of the road in Muchea catching those gloing north. We have never seen so many speed traps in an area. Obviosuly trying to capture all the holiday travellers.

Over both days there was a lot of traffic heading north. We have not seen so many caravans and especially boats travelling along the roads. It is the start of school holiday time but still it was incredible how many cars, vans and boats were on the road. The road was very busy.

Even though the weather has not been great over the three weeks we were away we had a great time. We have had a relaxing time doing as we feel, meeting some more people and seeing some parts of WA that we have not seen before. Our meetings with people have encouraged us to get the shower and toilet in action in the van as well as put on an annex and invest in some solar cells. These will allow us to stay in some of the off-track sites that exist on our beautiful coast as well as being able to stay overnight in roadside stayovers as we travel around. There really is a great world out to discover and many great people to meet.

We set off on August 1 for our Canning Stock Route adventure. Unfortunately there will be no opportunity during that trip to update a blog as we are out of any communication service except sattelite phone for the period. When we get back we will produce a blog on the experience.

Till then we hope life is good for you.

Cheers from Anne and Brian

On Thursday we took a day trip up to Exmouth. Exmouth is about 160km north of Coral Bay. By the time we got home at 6pm we had done over 400km. That's some day trip.

Around Coral Bay there are a lot (hundreds) of termite mounds. They range in sizes. The ones in the picture are about 1.5 metres high. These are small compared with those in the very north that get over 2 metres tall.

Exmouth and surrounding areas are very nice. The town is packed at this time of the year with lots of caravanners and others taking advantage of the sun. The seas around Exmouth are very pretty with lots of beautiful coastline. The picture below is from Vlamingh Head lighthouse of the caravan park, coastline and in the background is the Harold E Holt Communication Centre. Vlamingh Head is about 20 kms or so north of Exmouth.

The area to the west of Exmouth contains the Cape Range National Park. This area is the north part of the Ningaloo Reef which starts south of Coral Bay where we are staying. There are heaps of lovely sandy beaches and although we didn’t do any, heaps of great snorkelling and fishing areas. There are many camp sites within the park although at this time of the year it is very busy. The pictures below are of Neds Camp and Turquoise Bay. They are absolutely beautiful.

We had hoped to get down to Yardie Creek station and Mandu as both these have lovely gorges with short walks. Unfortunately it took us until 4pm to get to Turquoise Bay and we had a 2 hour drive back to Coral Bay. We will have to come back again and spend a few days or a week up here as there is quite a bit to have a look at.

The drive to Coral Bay was pleasant. We stopped off at Minilya Station roadhouse and had lunch by the river. It was dry but the setting was nice.

We had sunshine through to Coral Bay however the clouds loomed. At Coral Bay the first night we had a fantastic sunset as you can see from the pictures below. During the night however it poured. Thank god we were in a van. Those in tents had a few problems. The water drained away very quick which was good.

We ran in Dave and Loris here so we caught up with them. They are here with a group of about 15 people. They are heading up to Yardie Creek which is another 80kms or so further north. Coral bay is quite a small place. It is quite lovely. It is well regarded for snorkelling and fishing. A fishing charter group had come in on the Saturday afternoon and that had heaps of beautiful fish. Boy it would have been nice to have one of them for dinner.

We haven’t done much here which suits this place. We went out on a glass bottomed boat over the coral and that was fantastic. The coral here is “hard” coral. It is not the really colourful coral that you see on the TV but still very pretty with majestic pieces of coral. These cabbage-like coral are over a metre in width. There were lots of fish around. It was very windy, cold and choppy out on the boat. Anne went for a snorkel and really enjoyed it.
We had a call from Laura today (Wednesday) saying that she had seen Anne on Getaway in the markets in Carnarvon. That was pretty amazing as we were only there on the previous Saturday and it was shown on the Wednesday.

We left Horrocks this morning. We passed through Northampton to top up the fuel tanks. Northampton has a lot of lovely old buildings. The two pictures show the old convent and church. These are both made from the local stones of the area and are lovely. The convent is currently used for back packer accommodation.

After Northhampton we headed north for the long drive to Carnarvon. Along this road there is not much to see. The shrub is very low and there are very few land type features. There was lots of road kill along the way. Most were kangaroos, but there were a few emus, an eagle and a cow and a calf. Glad to not have been driving in the night. We saw lots of goats and some cattle along the side of the road. We stopped a few times along the way for breaks and lunch. There are some great camp stops along the way that you can pull off and camp at overnight, so we might take advantage of these on the way home.
We arrived in Carnarvon at around 4:30, checked out the tourist information centre and then found a caravan park close to town. Today (Thursday) we changed our plans and are to stay here for an extra day until Saturday. On Saturday we will move onto Coral bay and stay for a week before heading back home. It rained all night last night and is still raining this morning.

On the way from Dongara we dropped in at Geraldton to do some shopping and to fill up with fuel. Below is a picture of the lovely Catholic Church in Geraldton.

When we arrived in Horrocks it was past 3 PM so we decided to stay here rather than push on to Kalbarri. We still had about 90 minutes to get to Kalbarri and we like to be setting up around 4pm.Horrocks is a fishing and holidaying spot about 70km north of Geraldton. It is a very pretty and quiet place. It is also the base for a number of crayfishing boats. There is not much to do here if you don’t like fishing but the place is pleasant and peaceful. There are lots of fishing shacks. We sat on the beach with a glass in hand viewing a lovely sunset on the both the nights we were here. The coast here is also a path for migrating whales. From the beach we could see the splashes of a whale frolicking around jumping out of the water. Unfortunately it was a long way out so we could not see much except the splashing. A guy was doing some net fishing down near the jetty and he pulled in about 20 good sized whitings and a few herrings.

On Tuesday we took a trip up to Kalbarri via Port Gregory. Port Gregory is another small fishing settlement about 40kms north of Horrocks. Port Gregory is also the site for an unusual industry. The area has very salty lakes where a microscopic algae grows. The algae turns the lakes orangey-pink which you can see a bit of in the picture. The algae are harvested and the orangey-pink colour which is beta-carotene is extracted. This is used in vitamins and food colourings. Amazing.

Kalbarri is located on the mouth of the Murchison River. The approach to Kalbarri is along a set of high cliffs. These are very spectacular as you can see in the pictures. While on the cliffs one of the other tourists noticed a whale splashing about. It was quite a way from shore, but this time we could actually see the shape of the whale out of the water. Even though they were still a bit far away it was still quite exciting. We were amazed to see how Kalbarri has grown since we were last here about 7 years ago. There are houses being built everywhere with a huge sub-division being built down past Red Bluff. We had lunch in Kalbarri, did a bit of shopping and then headed back to Horrocks. It was a great day and even though we have been to this area quite a few times we saw a lot of things we have not seen before.


Tomorrow Wednesday we pack up and head off to Carnarvon. We have booked ourselves into Coral Bay for at least 4 nights starting on July 29.