Week 20 To Exmouth

Week 20




Back Toward the Coast

Awakening to a beautiful morning on the top of the world was a classic traveler’s dream.

The rest area was a great roomy camp where everyone could be in their own private haven. Staying here is definitely a recharge for our weary bones.

We headed on to Tom Price to stock up and head toward the coast. Tom Price is still green and well cared for. Birds in the caravan park are so tame they land all over you if you have food to share. The park also has entertainers, so Brian has been humming to some of his favourite songs sung by the free band the last two nights. They were good too.

The one big mistake we made was to play golf. The trouble we had finding the entry to the course should have been a warning. It was the worst game of golf we have ever played – end of story.

Paraburdoo is the next town from Tom Price. Brian was offered a ob here in the 70’s but his other half wasn’t interested in that lifestyle, so it was a no show. You can’t help but wonder how different life may have been, if…… At the shopping center carpark a truck was parked, back open, with a long line of people standing, waiting. Most had prams. What was going on? Antenatal clinic? Lifeline? Chest x-rays? No, the weekly fish truck.

The next few days were leisurely. We stopped at the Beasley River Rest Area, sharing with half a dozen others. The following camp, the Barradale Rest Area at Yannarie River, we shared with at least a hundred other vans, albeit spread out over a huge area. We have learnt not to get too excited about river stays. There is never any water, or if there is it is only a stagnant pool. With the roadside flood warnings we can only imagine the wet season is a different story.

We are headed toward Exmouth. More than a hundred kilometers away, the rolling low hills that look like waves frozen in time and the gnarled stunted trees littering the red plains like western bonsai gives way to low coastal heath. The landscape would do Holland proud. Low nothing as far as the eye can see and further again.

On the other side of the peninsula from Exmouth is the Cape Range National Park. There is a procedure for securing a site entailing an early rise, about 4:00am to wait at the entrance and hope for a site, on a beggars can’t be choosers scenario. We opt instead to book into Yardie Creek Homestead for the next four days and travel in to the park from there. We already have a parks pass so we don’t have a daily entrance fee.

Margaret and Chris have returned to spend a few more days here, camped by the fringe of the reef. They must be better at early rises than we are.

Our explorations here will be for the next web posting. After a few days here we will be heading toward Carnarvon, inexorably south.

Good luck to all the dancers back home who will be doing medals and cheers to everyone else . Here’s hoping the new blog address will cooperate long into the future.

Bye for now

The Nomads