NeilR

Stop today was not a town but a caravan park on 90 Mile Beach.   You get to it by a 10 km dirt access road through a cattle station.  This is another of the stops you get told about by several people and thought it sounded good so decided to have a look. 

The road would be OK in a 4wd but was not fun on the Vstrom with the corrugations and big patches of sand.  Took me 40 minutes to do the 10 km after getting stuck twice in sand patches and nearly dropped it a couple of times and remember thinking this had better be worth it as I have to get back out yet.

Well it was worth it and more.  At the end of road there is a ramp on a crest and into view comes a neatly laided caravan park.  The park was excellent with grass and small shade trees for the camping areas. Even had a little shop and you could get takeway food at certain times during the day.  You walked over a sand dune and you were on 90 Mile Beach.  The park is near the start of the beach but to the right the beach disapeared over the horizon.  The tide was interesting as it was going out and the water was quite a way from the beach.  When I came back for another look when it was low tide and the water was about 1 km off the beach.  Interesting walk out there if you looked down, lots of little crabs, hermit crabs, sea snails etc to look at.  Wuffy and Kenneth went shell collecting and said they had something to show me later.

Then sat a the beach to watch the sunset and you got the staircase effect as the sun set due to the tide being out.  Very nice. There was almost a full moon and it was bright enough to walk around without a torch, so after cooking tea, went for a walk to watch the tide coming back in.  By this time is was only a couple of hundred metres off the beach.  Very beautiful to watch in the moonlight as the water worked its way towards to beach.  Sat and watched this for awhile and I was the only person on the beach then realised when a couple of fisherman appeared that I had been for an hour.  So thats the meditative new age part of the trip covered.

Was worth the effort to get here and now to tackle the road in the morning and head to Broome.  Told Kenneth and Wuffy, they have to help push this time if we stuck again tommorow.

Modem is working again. Stupid thing needed a reset.

Had a relaxed morning as the mine tour was not until 10.

Ladies at Tourist looked after my helmet etc for me and it was off to minesite for the 25 of us.  Was not a great deal happening today as the crushers and processing are undergoing maintenance.  Was interesting anyway as the bus driver had a series of photos how much of the mountain has been removed and replaced with a big pit.  Mining is virtually complete and the main focus is shifting to a site 17km away and they are building a convayer to bring the ore to the existing plant.  The tonnage a day they ship out most days is amazing. Three to four trains a day of 360 wagons each holding over 100 tonnes of ore with each train loaded in about 3 hours.  Interesting stats were that the dump trucks use approx 20 litres of diesel per km and the triple locos spend most of their time braking on the way to the coast and use more fuel towing the train back empty to Tom Price which is the highest town in WA.

After a discussion with a norwegian couple who went to the national park yesterday, I decided to give the park a miss due the difficulty of the walks to any interesting spots which would not be such a good idea for my knees that have been behaving themselves lately.  Was still a interesting ride through the national park on the way the Port Headland.  Scenery changed to a boulder field after a while and them back to the standard flat stuff with scrubby trees as I neared the coast. 

Most common thing you see here is white Toyota Landcruiser and Hilux with Yellow Fluoro stripes and orange flags.  And by commom, I mean hundreds of the things on the road, in car parks etc.

First impressions of Port Hedland is I will not be here long.  The most expensive camp to date.  $40 for a patch of sand covered in a piece of torn shade cloth.  Plus it comes with the complementary drunk miners inflicting their musical bad taste on the park.  Funny thing the management does not seem to want do anything, maybe because every second vehicle in the park has yellow stripes and an orange flag. They are worse than backpackers. Earplugs again.

May have to turn Kenneth loose with the didgerdoo later.   Wuffy and our german neighbours suggested Rammstien but I think they were just stirring me about my Das Huast ringtone.  Already been asked twice if I am german because if it.

Anyway its off up the coast tommorow to somewhere below Broome.  Broome is aproximately my half way point.  My original plan was 9,000 km to Broome and 18,000 km overall and I will have done nearly 11,000 km by Broome so the total may end up being around 22,000 km. To give an example of the scale of this trip, tonight I am still over 2,500 km from Darwin via the most direct route, so there is bit to do yet.

Well not much to report on the trip to Exmouth apart from the vegetation gets a bit thinner as you go north.  Had a quick look a Coral Bay on the way in. Two caravan parks, a resort, some shops and a beach, nothing to see here so continue to Exmouth.

Got to Exmouth at lunch and pitched the tent and headed for the Tourist Info.  This place is very much focused on snorkelling and diving so not a lot for me except for the VLF site built by the US Navy during the cold war.  Approx ten guyed towers all over 300 m high spread over a huge area.  Kenneth hid in the Top Box for some reason when the Federal Police car went past while I was taking photos.  Must be a chinese thing.

Had a look at some other things, tried to have a look a river gorge in the national park but they were grading the road so 15 km of loose gravel and rocks was not going to be attempted.  Thought about staying and doing a reef trip but a bit on the pricey side and more focussed on snorkelling.

Off to Tom Price in the morning,  not much navigation.  Turn left, turn left, turn right and thats in approx 650 km, things are a long way apart up here.  300 km between the roadhouses as well which probably be the only buildings along the way.

Well that was “fun”.  National Park out of Kalbarri trying to outrun the rain yet again, except I was sucessful this time. Then after 100k changed to sheep and wheat stubble until the turnoff the Durham where it goes back to similiar to Kalbarri. The highway was nearly a Masters level class in caravan overtaking. Most I have seen since I started the trip.

You could not see any water for most of the way into Dunham from the turnoff.  First stop was Shell Beach which as per its name is made up of ground down sea shells and not sand.  Interesting fact is that this beach is a source of the shell grit you give chooks.  The mine is just outside the reserve.

The water is a deep blue and is quite shallow and protected so no real waves to speak off.   For a World Heritage Area, the roads into the lookouts need some work.  Unlike Kalbarri were they are all sealed, some could be best described as corrugated sand covered goat tracks.  Gave up on a couple, even after I had set up camp and lightened the bike.   The couple I did into were interesting but in my opinion, not in the same league as yesterday.

Just had tea on the water front and interesting to note that a reasonably numbers of the businesses in the main street are up for sale.

In a caravan park just off the main street. Interesting surface in the park,  the shell grit I mentioned earlier.  Wuffy said it is like camping in a chook pen.

Early start in the morning.  Have to be at Monkey Mia Resort before 7:30 which is about 28 km away for dolphin thing.  Then its off towards Carnarvon.