Step 71 Onslow – Dampier 318 km's

Sunday 5^th June TED

Overcast again this morning but while we slept someone has been out fishing. Well crabbing to be precise. A flurry of activity at the cleaning table as they sort out their catch of the day.

The guy setting up next to us this morning has been living in Karratha for a few years, in his van. Apparently the big money they earn on the mines is somewhat whittled away by the cost of living up there. He has been paying $400 per week for a powered site at the caravan park and that's the long term rate, with a $1600 bond. Property prices and house rentals are astronomical. Mean house price in Karratha is apparently more than in Sydney. 

The lady in the office at our park suggests we head for the Dampier transit caravan park if we are only staying for a night or two, the Big 4 at Karratha charges at least $55 per night.

So it's on the road again, after a quick stop at the public toilet dump facility. For those of you interested, Western Australia seems better set-up for motor homes and has many more toilet dump sites than other states. Come on, secretly, you were interested weren't you?

Slight drizzle as we set off and then it turns into rain as we head down the main road. But at least that seems to have got rid of the locusts for a while.

The road is certainly outback up here and red. Even the road kill has changed, today we saw a dead cow beside the road. Reminds me of the Top Gear episode where they were on a trip and only allowed to eat road kill. Jeremy drove in to camp with a cow strapped to the roof of his Mustang. Di didn't seem keen to re-enact this, so we just kept driving.

After morning tea stop (iced coffee and muffin) Di took over driving for a while, which was unfortunate because we saw another dead cow and she wouldn't stop.

It's much greener now (although still red underneath) 

and even some of the wild flowers are blooming red, yellow and purple.

For the non-botanists amongst you this is a Sturt Desert Pea

As we get closer to Karratha there is a lot of activity. Lots of mine vehicles, new gas plants being built, road works and plenty of evidence of the mining boom up this way.

Following our advice from Onslow (well the lady at the town of Onslow, not Onslow Hyacinth's brother-in-law) we checked in at the Dampier Transit Caravan Park. Now technically it's prime waterfront accommodation but given it's a major mining shipping port it's not as attractive as it might be. Mind you at $24 per night it's better value than the Big 4 charging $55.

Dirty cockie
Even they can't resist the money of working in the mines

As you will have noticed from the heading, it's Sunday. So Dampier is shut. Apart from the pub which appears to have every mine vehicle that's not actually working parked in the car park. Tempting as it seems we did not venture in to the bar. Although the sign advertising “skimpy barmaids this week” nearly tipped us over.

Proof readers note: well it nearly tipped Steve over

I'm not saying that this place is a little old fashioned
but even the photo came out in black and white

Sam's Island

 Had a quick walk and read up on a few local brochures and settled in for the night.

Apart from the history of the town the local brochures featured two main stories:

1: Sam's Island. A tiny island in the shipping channel that a local Hungarian guy settled on and built his own little castle.

Editors note: I realise that strictly speaking you can not be a “local” Hungarian in Dampier Mr./Ms smarty pants. This guy was born in Hungary and settled in this area in his 20's. In his 40's he took up squatting rights on the island and Rio Tinto eventually signed a “gentleman's lease” with him, allowing him to stay on the island. He became quite a local celebrity and ended up passing away on the island where he is now buried. By the way his name was Sam. That's how they cleverly came up with the name Sam's Island.

 2: The other story which crops up in all the brochures, appears on the Information Board on the way in to town and even includes a statue: concerns Red Dog. Now I would enlighten you on the details of the story but none of the aforementioned sources actually provided any information. So apparently the famous Red Dog, was …...

a red dog that lived in the area.

We may all be more enlightened later in the year because apparently someone has made a film about Red Dog. We all wait with bated breath.

 A nice finish to the day with the rest of the spangly for dinner, with greek salad this time. We also managed to have a chat to Jean Leary on the phone and get Steve's weekly update on dancing with the stars. Devastated to hear that Luda has gone ( a personal favourite). Not quite sure who Dan the celebrity was but Luda, 5 times world salsa champion, darn... :-(

This is William Dampier.
He found Australia quite some time before Captain Cook
But he was deemed too unattractive to be credited with
discovering a country.
Eventually they named the town after him though.

Step 70 Exmouth – Onslow 429km's

Friday 3^rd June – Saturday 4^th June

Bit of a late start this morning, despite having no breakfast. (Slight mistake on counting the bread slices and the yoghurts). But we did have a lovely chat to our next door neighbours before leaving the Park.

Quick stop in Exmouth town for breakfast, at last. A toastie at the bakery then a bit of  a top up shop at the supermarket. Next stop Kalis fish wholesalers where we topped up on Spanglies and prawns. That should keep us going for a few days. Who needs a fishing rod, this is the way to catch fish.

Out on the main road and for some reason there seems to be a lot of vans heading South. This is very unseasonal, people should be heading North at this time of the year. The world's gone mad.

There's also a lot of motorcycles heading South. Looks like there must have been some sort of rally because we must have passed fifty bikes, in groups of 5 to 10. Makes us a bit sad, having left the bike behind in Tweed.

Aaah, the open road

Not much work for the navigator - may as well relax

 Twenty kilometres up the road and we hit our first swarm of locusts for the day. Well that's cured us of the pining for the bike. The thought of picking locust out of our teeth for a hundred kilometres is less than appealing.

The locusts were something to behold, these things were the size of small birds, and thousands of them. When they hit the metal parts of the van they made a “bong” like hitting a metal drum with a hammer.

Editors note: Well that's the sound I imagine a hammer hitting a metal drum would be like. You know I don't use tools or do manual labour. I keep telling you, I'm a software person. NOT hardware.

We ended up going through about half a dozen swarms during the course of the day.

Stopped for a sandwich at an overnight park by the Yannarie River. Tried to talk Di into deep fried locusts but she declined.

Editors note: Surprisingly Elke HAS eaten deep fried locusts. On one of her trips to China. I say surprisingly because we struggled to get her to eat broccoli when she was younger.

Yannarie River - lunch stop.
Did I mention it's very red up here?

It's been quite the David Attenborough day today, because as well as the locusts we have also seen loads of hawks hovering over the road as well as loads of termite mounds. I must admit I was a little perturbed when we saw the first hawk hovering because I thought it might have been the biggest locust anyone had ever seen. Quite a relief really.

Might I just mention these are not the only hawks that are soaring at the moment. C'mon you mighty Hawks.

Didn't manage to get a photo of the hawks - but this is a hill.
It was bigger and wasn't moving so it was a bit easier to capture

 As we approach Onslow I begin to wonder whether it has changed from David Attenborough day, to Biblical day (Old Testament). Having already survived the plague of locusts we are now faced with the parting of the red sea. Again, I may be being a little melodramatic there. But the road did have the water on both sides of the road and it did look a little red.

Exodus 14:21
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.

In this case I think it was actually the WA roads department.

 As we enter the town of Onslow two things go through my mind:

1: Who recommended coming to Onslow?

2: Maybe this town was named after Onslow in the TV show Keeping Up Appearances. 

Editors note: Keeping Up Appearances – UK TV Show 1990 – 1995;

The main character Mrs. Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced bouquet) has a brother-in-law (Onslow) who is a less than attractive man. The town is less than attractive.

Interestingly (well I think it's interesting) the actress who plays Hyacinth is Patricia Routledge and she went to Liverpool University. I like to think Patricia played hockey for LUHC. Up until Elke and the rest of the cast of “The Other Way is Liverpool” appeared on the scene Patricia was the most famous alumni of Liverpool University. Although now that I think about it maybe there was some other guy who won a Nobel prize or something

Editors note note: Actually according to Wikipedia there are nine Nobel Laureates and one Poet laureate who attended Liverpool University. Plus, Professor Sid Watkins the former chief medical officer for Formula One. 

But none of them could go into the local kebab shop and say “the usual please” and get their order. Elke's friends can.

In the immortal words of Onslow: “Awww....nice”

However, the caravan park at Onslow and the lady that runs it are loverly. Ocean View by name and ocean views it is. Well from our site, and that's all that matters.

Apparently the locusts have been through here too. Twice last week.

Discovery for today: Locusts don't like gum leaves. Well they don't eat them anyway. Maybe they heard the gum leaves were making the Koalas infertile.

Last week this tree had leaves.

This one too

 In the evening we managed to Skype El, quickly, she was on her way to the pub. The exams are finished! Her time at Liverpool is nearly at an end. Liverpool survived a blitz and the Beatles hopefully it will recover from Elke. The big question is will The Other Way is Liverpool survive without her. It's up to you (in alphabetical order): Bronagh, Chris, Danielle, Dee, Haydn, Kate, Lou, Ollie, Rosie & Simon. Do us proud.

Later that night I have a quick flashback to English TV. With our TV program finishing there comes the unmistakable sound of Big Ben. Bong, bong, bong.

Wait that's not Big Ben it's. . . . . . . . . 

OH, locusts bashing into the side of the van.

Saturday: it's housekeeping time. Di is off washing and Steve is hard at work on the blog.

Morning tea is a little emotional this morning as we finish the last of V&H's sultana cake. It would have been a lot more emotional if we didn't still have a Jean Leary fruit cake.

A quick walk along the beach front and around town doesn't take long. Unfortunately the beach is not that good to walk on and the town is not that big. Or inviting. The lady at the caravan park may be lovely but all the windows on the shops have metal grilles on them so some of the locals must get a bit boisterous.

View from MM

I was a little worried this afternoon when we discovered that the camp BBQ that is on tonight is also doubling as a Tupperware party. Fortunately Di seems to have recovered from her Tupperware addiction and we stayed in instead (need I remind any of you of the fact that at one stage in our married life we had tupperware containers for our tupperware so you can understand my trepidation).

So instead of sausages and tupperware it's spangly for tea tonight and very yummo it was too. Those Kalis boys at Exmouth certainly make a good fish (well catch a good fish then). The fish tonight is accompanied by a Popeye and Olive Oil salad. It was meant to be greek salad but one of us read the label wrong. I am now taking credit for making the mistake because the salad was very nice.

Sunset and low tide at Onslow

So we are still not sure if Onslow is worth the 85km trip off the main road (and back 85km's again). I'm guessing if you are a fisherman there's probably more to make it worthwhile. Although I think you probably need a boat of some kind. But it's nice and relaxing. Great with the ocean view from MM and the lady at the caravan park is a gracious hostess. Let us remember Onslow as " a quaint little secluded fishing village".

Step 69 Coral Bay – Exmouth 205 km's

Step 69 Coral Bay – Exmouth 205 km's

Two omissions from the previous Coral Bay update:

1: You don't need a big boat, but boy do lot's of people have them.

That's a Mitsubishi Pajero not a Mini
That's a BIG boat

2: Telstra and Channel 10 came through for us on Sunday night. We managed to watch the Monaco Grand Prix on the laptop. Would have been even better if Jenson Button had won, as it looked like he would for awhile.

Wednesday 1^st June TED

A sad sad day. We packed up this morning and left Coral Bay. We WILL be back.

A bit of pottering around, picking up a couple of bits and pieces from the supermarket, maintenance check on MM, pick up more free food from our fisherpeople friends next door. This time a dozen eggs. To be honest I would have preferred another couple of kilo's of Spanish Mackerel but a food parcel is a food parcel. I'm sure my nans didn't complain about the contents of food parcels during the war.

As we were leaving we saw a Wicked Campervan parked on the side of the road. Now all Wicked campervans have a “saying” painted on the back of the van. Most are not suitable for posting, on this family oriented blog. But it appears Vicki may have been moonlighting as a signwriter because this one read:

              The average woman would rather have beauty than brains

              Because the average man can see better than he can think

Wise words indeed.

Not far to drive today, but it turns out to be spectacular scenery along the way. We're in the Pilbara now and as I said earlier it's starting to get quite red. We've also hit a couple of groups of flying insects. They are the size of small birds! Pretty sure they are locusts but I'm glad we are not on the motorbike.

We are also getting into gorge country. I am trying really hard not to say “and it's gorge ous” but really it's probably best if I just get it out of the way right up front and we can move on. It's gorge ous.

Anyway, just before Exmouth there is a turnoff to the Charles Knife Gorge.

Editors note: Although the Earl of Sandwich invented the Sandwich I am fairly sure Charles Knife did NOT invent the knife. Wikipedia, neither confirmed nor refuted that.

Back on the road, or rather off it in this case, as the road quickly turned to rather rough gravel. Mind you the views were well worth it, I'll say it again, this country is truly amazing.

Back to the main road

Oops, too far. Should have turned left back at that last intersection.
Is that pebbles? What, are we back on Brighton Beach UK

MM is in amongst those trees somewhere

V & H have told us that there are some really nice (cheap) camping spots in the Cape Range National Park just the other side of Exmouth. They have also told us that there is no booking so people get to the Nat Park gate before 6:00am to try and get a spot. Since we have not seen 6:00 am since we left Melbourne it is unlikely that we will get a spot in the National Park so we have booked into the Lighthouse Caravan Park instead. A better recommendation from V & H than their National Park one.

So that's how they got the name for the Caravan Park

 A quick haircut for Steve and then where has the day gone? It's wine o'clock already, followed by a quick walk across the road to the beach for a bit of sunset gazing. From the beach you can see the oil rigs on the horizon, with the flame of the overburn glowing in the fading light. In the fading light you can also see a tear roll slowly down Steve's cheek as he sits and thinks: “If only that was a Bounty Oil rig, off the coast off Newcastle NSW. Pumping out millions of barrels of oil and natural gas and pushing the share price above the 3 cents it currently sits at."

 Editors note: Steve has two plans for funding his retirement.

1: Win First Division Tattslotto

2: Bounty Oil shares hit $2.00 and continue to climb while paying a dividend.

Option 1 is looking more likely since Bounty drilled a hole in the middle of a gas field the size of Tasmania. And missed the oil and gas.

Thursday 2^nd June

A big day planned today exploring the National Park. Well not that big, a bit of snorkelling and a bit of gorging (not gorging ourselves on food, taking in the gorge ous gorge views).

Proof readers note: Sorry about that, he just can't help himself.

First stop Turquoise Bay. Oh stop it, this is getting ridiculous, everywhere up here is just stunning.

 Again the reef is just off shore and again no strenuous swimming required, the current just drags you along to take in the view. Although to be honest the current is bordering on a little strong, we are moving along quite fast. But then again not as fast as we moved when Di pointed out the SHARK swimming 3 metres below us. SHARK!

Let me fill in the details:

Drifting along happily,

oh look that coral looks different to Coral Bay,

mmm isn't that little fish pretty,

wow is that another small Manta Ray,

tap tap point from Di,

double take from Steve

lift heads out of water

Di: “what was that big fish?”

Steve: “it was a reef SHARK”

Di “that's what I thought! Get me the hell out of here”

Steve: “ok, if you insist, but according to the sign we saw they are harmless”

             to be honest, by the time I said that I was already half  way to the beach.

NOTE: the sign, and Herb, said that Reef Sharks are “relatively harmless”. What I want to see in a message like that is that they are “COMPLETELY harmless”

Now based on our new motto: “Never swim with anything bigger than you can eat in one sitting” we probably could have stayed in the water. (Once he was filleted and cut up into flake sized pieces, I think we could have managed to finish him off in one go. Not too many chips with that though).

So I am making an addition to the motto: “Never swim with anything that can eat YOU in one sitting”. Given our friend was about the same size as me (I kid you not) we gave him the benefit of the doubt and decided the risk of skin cancer laying on the beach was a much safer option.

Relatively harmless. I don't think so

 Once we got the heart rates down below 200bpm each we headed off to the next stop for the day, Yardie Creek. Time to don the hiking gear and head off in to the wilderness. Now I am starting to feel like Steve Irwin. Crikey. To be honest it's only about a kilometre walk, it's steep in places though.

Again, the views make it all worthwhile.

I'm staying up here on the cliff
the way our luck is running today
there are probably croc's in the creek

Either they overdid it when they were banging in the posts
or it gets quite windy around here

Are you looking at me?
Are you looking at me?
(even emus do that famous De Niro impersonation)

 After the walk, and given it's quite warm we are already re-thinking our vow never to swim at Turquoise Bay again. After all it was only one shark, and being as tall as Steve really means it was only a metre and half long. Let's give it a try.

All going well as we put on our flippers and goggles and then two young (pre-teenage) kids drift by and say hello. “Wow, it's great out there, we saw sharks.”

What do you mean sharkS, that's more than one SHARK.

“How far out were they?” we ask bravely.

“Oh, quite a long way actually.”

“Excellent, we'll see if we can see them then” - or maybe not.

A very quick snorkel in the shallows and it's back to the beach for us.

It's still a SHARK

But despite all the excitement/fear it's been a brilliant day. Next stop the Lighthouse lookout to watch the sunset. Yep, another V & H recommendation.

Oh look two men in a bathtub, suspended below a kite, powered by a lawnmower engine
and they charge you for this?
Sunset tours in a microlight.

 Quite a crowd up there, but we found ourselves a nice little spot for MM and propped ourselves up in the reading room (driver and passenger seats) with a couple of drinks and a cheese platter. As the sun sets into the ocean and the dolphins frolick in the waves we think to ourselves: “It's a tough life.” But we are prepared to put in the hard yards just so you can all enjoy this blog.

Once the sun goes down the view isn't quite as good

 Back at the camp site we have a chat to the couple next door who went out fishing this morning, not far from Turquoise Bay. While impressed with our story of swimming with the Reef Shark, they kind of trump us with their story of seeing a Hammerhead Shark bigger than their tinny swim by. 

Translation for UK readers: tinny = small metal boat. Hammerhead shark = a not at all harmless shark Now if that had swum by us there would have been some serious walk/run on water action.

Definitely time to move on tomorrow. No swimming for awhile.

Step 68 Point Quobba – Coral Bay 265 km's

Wednesday 25^th May – Wednesday 1^st June

Well this is it. We have found paradise. We have found our favourite spot. We have ARRIVED. Coral Bay.

It's not exactly a town, I'm not sure that it qualifies as a village. Maybe a hamlet? Two caravan parks (each with it's own set of shops and tour operators), a backpackers hostel, a pub/hotel. But the setting is just magic. A lovely bay, white sand beach and 5-10 metres off the beach the Ningaloo (Coral) Reef. Honestly you walk into the water up to your knees and you are surrounded by fish. You step off the sand bar and you are drifting over the coral. To top it all off, you don't even have to swim because the current drags you slowly along the beach. Did I mention we found Paradise.

Actually, when I say "we found" paradise I must admit mum and dad, V & H and others have been telling us about this area for years. But we finally found it for ourselves. 

Seriously, this is standing knee deep in the water.
These fishies obviously know this is a protected zone 

 So what have we done all week:

• Walk along the beach
• Swim and snorkel over the reef
• Seen more fish and more different types of fish than ever before
  • including some of the biggest snapper ever
• Paddle a glass bottom kayak over the reef
  • that would be: Steve paddle. But Di did help by letting me know which direction to paddle in to see the coral
• Walk through the dunes
• Watch the sunset (missed the sunrises. All of them)
• Nightime star gazing
  • twinkle twinkle type stars, not Jennifer Aniston type stars
• Wine O'clock
• Eat seafood
• Chat
• Relax on the beach

For each day pick 6 to 8 items off the list above and then repeat the next day.

Highlights:

• The fish that swim right up to you. (just taunting you, because they know it's a marine park and you can't catch them).
  • huge spanglies
    • for you non-fishing folk that's Spangled Emperor or Western Snapper
    • as a non-fisherman you can trust me when I say that they were all over 7kg's and the last one we saw must have been 15kg's at least
  • manta rays (they are stingrays but without the sting)
  • little electric blue fish (latin name electricus blue-ous)
  • wrasse – know to me as the big bright green fish
  • sausage fish
  • zebra fish (Latin: collingwoodus fishus)
  • parrot fish
  • ghost fish
  • black spot yellow fish (that might not be the technical name, but that's what they were)
  • giant clams – noooo I'm having flashbacks to 20,000 leagues under the sea, or was that a giant squid. Whatever, don't put your foot IN the clam

• Eating the scallops, prawns and snapper from Carnarvon, just beautiful
• Our neighbours on the left are serious fishermen. They have been going out for 10 hours a day and fishing in 130 meter deep water miles off the coast. Feeling sorry for us as non-fisher-people they gave us a large pack of Spanish Mackerel (beautifully filleted). Another first for the kendall kitchen and again just superb. Simply shallow fried in olive oil with salt and pepper to season.

  The pack lasted us for two nights!

  
  
  
  
• The bakery across the road
  • beautiful fresh whole grain bread
  • lamingtons
  • blueberry crumble (and ice cream)

Spanglies everywhere
OK, the fish in this picture not be spanglies but they are big fish
and they look tasty. We did see spanglies at some point.

These fish missed the sign that said:
If you swim past this point you are not protected anymore

No flapping from Di this time
On the other hand she is a long way from becoming Steve Irwin
and she was long way from this lizard when I took the photo

Steve's walk to the boat ramp
The guy out the back lied - it was more than a 20 minute walk !

Looks like a 4WD came this way - must be careful
Hang on, that single line looks like - a SNAKE trail
Walk faster Steve

Swim with the Whale sharks – NO

But Steve, Coral Bay and Exmouth are famous for swimming with the Whale sharks
Yes, but our new motto is: Never swim with anything bigger than you can eat in one sitting.

View from the glass bottom kayak.
The coral at the bottom looked like a geranium
I named it - Geranium Coral

Similarly this shall be called "electric blue finger coral"

Sponge coral

Lowlights:

• On Monday we felt like John Milton
  • You know John Milton, he published Paradise Lost in 1667, probably in December
  • Too dramatic? Paradise lost? Couldn't you just say it rained Steve? Well however you describe it, it wasn't good. But it was only for an hour or so in the afternoon. We still got to eat dinner outside.
  • The good news for dedicated followers of the blog is that the rain gave me a chance to catch up a bit. Hence the flurry of activity a couple of days ago (as you read this).

Editors note:

Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 (though written nearly ten years earlier) in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse.

In some respects this blog is becoming an epic in itself and nearly as long as Milton's work

• Our chairs broke. Well the backs did. I think maybe that leaving them out in the rain at Kalbarri may not have helped.
  • Never mind, I fixed them with gaffer tape
• Our chairs broke again, maybe gaffer tape wasn't the answer – Herb, heeeeelp.
• So I guess in the immortal words of the Chairman of the Board, Mr Francis Albert Sinatra:
• “Regrets, I've had a few. But then again too few to mention”
• Well apart from the couple above, which I did mention

So that was the week that was, Coral Bay, definitely our favourite spot so far. But don't tell everybody, we don't want it to get spoiled. Finished off the week by popping down to the pub on Tuesday night for Happy Hour and “the best burgers in town”. Not sure if anywhere else in town does burgers, but they were very good anyway and $9.80 for a schooner of Carlton Draught and a piccolo of Yellow (small bottle of Champagne for the uninitiated) seemed very reasonable.

You don't need a big one to catch fish at Coral Bay
Boat
You don't need a big boat