Carnarvon - Blowholes - Exmouth

Had a lovely night in Carnarvon, including a delicious chocolate covered frozen banana.  I have taken to making frozen half bananas on a stick now at home - banana has always been my favorite ice cream.  Frozen banana on a stick just eliminates all those pesky added ingredients.

We hit the road and about 50km outside of Carnarvon passed the turn off to The Blowholes.  It's a 100km detour off the main road....we blew past the turn off, discussed it, and then found a good spot to hang a u-turn and made our way back.  The road seemed interminable because you knew the coast was directly ahead but you couldn't see it until you actually finally arrived.  Interestingly I noticed all these fruits on the side and even in the middle of the road.  Finally pulled off to look and turns out it was watermelons. Tiny round watermelons...each about the size of a golf ball up to about softball size.  Creatures obviously eat them as they were gnawed on and scattered all over the place.  Did someone just eat a watermelon and spit the seeds out as they drove along?  Inexplicable!

The Blow Holes were SO totally worth the detour.

It is a magnificent coastline.  That shelf that you can see below Mike was full of holes and pools and when the waves rolled out we saw fish and crabs and other creatures that were trapped...though one speculates that their stay could easily be cut short by an extra large wave washing across. 

Back on the main road continuing north there wasn't a whole lot going on.  We had, including our detour, about 470km to cover so we got to it.  To get to Exmouth you turn off the main Brand Highway on to an even smaller 2 lane road with little in the way of a shoulder - thankfully there isn't much traffic because it could be a little hairy.  But - we had our rewards in the form of crossing the Tropic of Capricorn and sighting our first fields of termite nests.  They are remarkably attractive at sunset glowing red in the fading light.

We made it to Exmouth in the afternoon, found our campsite, and walked over to the Visitors Centre to book our glass bottom boat tour for the next morning.  The campground had a lovely little byo Italian restaurant attached so we dined alfresco next to a fountain decorated with fairy lights.  The night was cool, perfectly moonless and clear and the stars were just incredible.

Geraldton - Carnarvon

We awoke to the sqwaks of cockatoos and galahs in the trees on day two.  I'd planned the trip specifically as a dash north to Exmouth and a leisurely trip back so we had 480km to get through.   Basically 300 miles, which really doesn't seem like much...unless you're driving a giant camper in strong cross winds on narrow roads filled with warning signs about animals in the road (including feral goats - I imagined them with dripping fangs and bloodshot goat eyes).  Rather than the zippy 110km/70mph that is the legal speed limit we quickly realized we averaged more like 80km/50mph.   And any speed over 100kph seemed to border on the verge of foolhardy.

North of Geraldton/Northhampton the landscape starts to change from mostly farm and pasture land to the scrub land that seems to be the theme of much of Western Australia.  We noticed the trees got smaller and smaller...and smaller the further north we went.  And the landscape opened up so you could see just how shockingly huge it is.  We're from Texas so used to vast expanses of unfriendly land but we were both impressed.

This photo above is at a scenic overlook.  See that tiny white spec on top of the mesa to the left?  That's a camper the same size as ours lost in the landscape.

Once past Northhampton the map shows 3 named spots before Carnarvon - Billabong Roadhouse, Overlander Roadhouse, and Wooramel Roadhouse.  And the map meant it.  There isn't anything else out there on the main road.





We took the advisories on taking plenty of water and keeping the gas tank full seriously.  I'm sure we'd have been fine as there were plenty of cars of the road, but something about the landscape made you want to be careful.

The Wooramel Roadhouse - last stop for gas before Carnarvon.






So we're driving in to Carnarvon and pondering what we'd heard.  The town is famous for it's banana plantations.  But how?  Seriously, there is no water to be seen anywhere around here. Turns out that even though the Gascoyne river is a long red dust ribbon when you're looking at it they can  still pump water out of it  - the water flows underground.

In Carnarvon we found this guy - a dusky frogmouth - perched snoozing in the tree next to us. He was slightly pissed off - probably because of that loud back up beeper on the camper but managed to ignore us and go back to sleep.

We toddled off into town to find restorative beverages and dinner.  It was Mother's Day so the one somewhat swanky establishment on the waterfront was booked solid but they cheerfully sold us a couple of drinks.  We were bemused by the live entertainment - a guy with a drum set and a sound track playing songs like "Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys".  Interesting selection.  A nice long stroll along the esplanade at sunset and we headed back to sack out so we could get up early and head to Exmouth.

Downtown Carnarvon.   

Carnarvon foreshore 

Adventures in the outback - Perth to Geraldton

It is an utterly glorious autumn day in Perth. Blue sky, light breeze, perfect temperature. I'm sitting on the balcony looking across the river towards downtown and have the English Antiques Roadshow on the TV in the background for company. Got the fish organized for dinner, have my delicious Carnarvon bananas freezing for treats, and just let a clever wine merchant talk me into ordering a case of wine I've never heard of. I am perfectly content. Time to share the story of our great adventures north.

After discussing various possible options Mike and I decided that for his birthday week celebration a road trip was just the ticket. This kept me busy organizing for a couple of weeks between research, booking the camper, planning our route, booking the caravan parks, etc. Not to mention the packing list making and shopping. Finally preparation was complete.

We picked up our camper and immediately headed out of town to drive to Geraldton for our first night adventure. And got lost. Before we even made it out of town.

My bad.

Turns out none of the maps we actually had in our possession were precise in exactly which highway to take out of town to go north. Turns out its the Brand Highway. Never heard of it before. Regardless we eventually made it to the right freeway...glancing warily at each other to see if we could manage this first hurdle without harsh language. We did.

Free of the shackles of city traffic at last we hit the open road. Which is a two lane rural highway. Driving a big old panel camper on these narrow roads required the utmost concentration and two hands on the wheel at all times. Except then there were these horrible rattles and clunks coming from everywhere...under the camper, inside the camper, from our bags of unstowed stuff. It was like driving from inside a child's rattle.

After about 5 hours we made it safely to Geraldton and found our camping site. Mike was ready to set up camp, I on the other hand headed immediately to a bottle of nice rose and poured myself a full glass of restorative liquid before getting down to the business of stowing our gear and identifying the worst of the rattles. We found that two paper plates folded over twice and jammed around the edges, plus a tea towel inside on the glass tray were sufficient for silencing the microwave. And two large pillows crammed in the closet stifled the worst of the rattling there. Duct tape on a spot or two outside silenced a bit more noise. :-)

Still and all, we were on our way and the stars over head were worth all the 'adventure' of the day.

Camped in Geraldton

 

The interior of our glamorous nest. Note the pillows shoved behind the back headrests over our bed. More noise abatement in action.