Tuesday, March 18, 2008

DAY 18 - ROCKY POOL – CARNARVON

17 March 2008

DAY 18 Pilbara – Kimberley Trip

ROCKY POOL – CARNARVON

It is hard to believe but, I am sitting outside on a lovely balmy evening, a sea breeze blowing, not far from the Indian Ocean, no bugs to bother me accessing the internet and communicating across the globe. What sort of world do we live in!!!

Yet over the last week we have travelled along the Kingsford Smith mail route where mail took 10 days to get from Carnavon to Bangamall or Meekatharra to Bangamall not that long ago. Even now the mail run to the Gascoyne area runs only on Wednesdays and Fridays. Yet I have access, admittedly only in towns, to the whole world.

We travelled the 55k to Carnarvon today. A nice town but obviously a place to base oneself and then explore the area around it. Brochures suggest going on 2 day tours to Mt Augustus (been there), 1 day tour to Kennedy Ranges, (been there), Rocky Pool ( been there too). So maybe our nomadic lifestyle allows us to experience it a bit differently as we move from place to place more frequently.

A lot of places are still closed – waiting for the tourist in flux in April. I loved the coastline.

We went to the 1 Mile Jetty and walked along the old rail track. I was very surprised to be asked to pay for this privilege. The tourist train along this track was not running yet.

The light house on the coast was not very noticeable.
The mangroves formed an interesting back drop to the sea.

We saw a landrover out near the sea separated only by narrow shifting sand bands from water on all sides. An interesting sight.

Whilst I was at the tourist centre internet office dear hubby went to see an auto electrician to see how to solve the battery charging problem for the fridges. Whilst there, he backed into a tree and told me that the outboard motor hit the tree but everything was fine. We drove around the plantations and stocked up on free range eggs for Easter, as we will be painting them, and fruit. After stocking up with groceries for Easter we booked into Plantation Caravan Park. A lovely spot just outside of town.

I went to raise the pop top and thought something is not right as the hooks all seemed out of alignment with the vehicle by about 3 cm. I tried to lift the roof but it didn’t go up. Got hubby in, he lifted it with difficulty with lots of funny sounds emitting in the process. He went outside to check and goes what the heck – when he backed into the tree he did some damage to the pop top. The lifting scissors were bent, a little hole in the back and a crack on the side. He borrowed a ladder from the manager of the park and spent some considerable time fixing the problem. In the process he even managed to bend his very large shifter. A permanent reminder of what happened according to him. Anyway he fixed it. We had a drink to celebrate and finally had a barbeque dinner.

The caravan parks are still very empty – the nomads haven’t hit the place yet. We met another couple from Canberra in the park. They were taking two weeks to do Perth to Broome. Didn’t envy them.

Well the moon is shining, the stars are out and I’m about to download this onto the blog site whilst Min is working to improve the car electrics.

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