We left Marble Bar Monday morning and decided to camp at Doolena Gorge.
PHOTO TO COME LATER
You have to drive through the Coongan Gorge (narrow, up and down and lots of curves - road trains are restricted to 40kph and other vehicles to 60khp) then turn off and drive approx 1.5km on a very narrow, pretty rough dirt track. We set up camp by a couple of beautiful trees. At that time we were the only campers although by late afternoon there were 4 other caravans there. The water in the gorge doesn’t appear to be flowing and although our reading material says it is a good swimming spot – and the water was probably deep enough – it was a bit dirty because of cows visiting it so I decided against a swim. I did mention to Royce – before the other campers arrived – that we should strip off and go for a swim! He wanted to know if we got naked and went for a swim would it still be called ‘skinny’ dipping???? There were quite a few egrets and some other slightly larger wading bird, whistling kites (their nest was across the river), and a lot of other smaller birds, including Spinifex pigeon which is quite a pretty bird. Several cows came down to the river and stayed for most of the day.
PHOTO TO COME LATER
We had to reverse out when we left and it was a bit tricky because we had to reverse the caravan into some pretty soft sand and almost got bogged!It was very windy Tuesday morning so had to roll up the awning quite quickly and keep fingers crossed the wind didn’t catch it. Luckily it all turned out all right – other than Royce lowering it onto my head while I was trying to get underneath it to hold the rope!
We encountered a wide load on the road back to Port Hedland and had to pull right off the road. It was a very large mining truck on the back of another truck and it took up the whole width of the road. Luckily we had room to pull right off the road. A bit further on, or a bit earlier (through Coongan Gorge) it would have been pretty tricky! We saw our first Sturt Desert Peas – quite a few small pockets of them on the Marble Bar – Port Hedland Road.
Not far out of Port Hedland you encounter a group of termite mounds which someone has ‘decorated’ with miners helmets.
PHOTO TO COME LATER
We drove into South Hedland, picked up a few provisions then headed to the Yule River (Herbert Parker Rest Area). The turn off wasn’t well sign posted and we had gone past it before we realised, so had to do a u-turn and drive back. It is a smallish area and by late afternoon we had 3 motor homes, another caravan, and some tenters! We ended up having a fairly long, rowdy happy hour with 10 of us (including 2 people in a bus who camped up top).
Wednesday we headed off to Cleaverville Beach. We continued to see pockets of the Sturt Desert Pea and lots of other wildflowers all coming into bloom. We stopped briefly at the Whim Creek Hotel and said hello to Harry (one of the major mitchells there). We drove across the Sherlock River which seemed to have a lot of water in it – about the only one we have seen with water in it for some time.
To get to Cleaverville Beach you drive through Roebourne and 13km on there is a turn off onto a 13km long gravel road. It was a bit rough in patches but overall not too bad. We drove around for ages trying to find a camp site that wasn’t really crowded. All the really good ones (right on the beach front) were taken and very crowded. We eventually found a reasonably good spot but we do have to climb over a sand hill to get to the beach. We are away from everyone else though and that is good. We went for a walk on the beach (boy is that sand hill steep!) and collected some nice stones. Almost no shells but lots of interesting stones and rocks.
PHOTO TO COME LATER
Thursday morning was very windy with quite a few very strong gusts but the awning held up OK (thank goodness). We packed a lunch and drove out to Point Samson which was a bit disappointing. To be fair we probably didn’t see it at its best – it was very, very windy and not at all inviting to walk along the beach or be outside. The water looked pretty dirty and not really good for swimming. We drove back to Wickham and up to Tank Hill Lookout where we ate our sandwiches and watched an extraordinarily long train come it – it had to be at least 3km long, if not more.
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We then headed out to Cossack and spent a couple of hours following the heritage trail. It was a fascinating place and there are lots of signs along the heritage trail to tell you all about the history of the town. We went to the old cemetery which is a pretty sad place but someone certainly looks after it. We encountered a lizard which desperately dug into the sand to try to hide from us.
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On Friday we drove to Karratha and on to the North West Shelf Venture Visitor Centre (between Karratha and Dampier). The whole process of finding, drilling, and converting the gas from gaseous form to liquid form was amazing! So much capital, infrastructure, and employment tied up in this. The gas is converted to liquid form for transporting – one ship full of liquid natural gas would require 600 ships if transported in gaseous form! A short trip down to Withnell Bay and we found a lot of Sturt Desert Peas and a couple of wallabies (mum & joey)
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From there we went out to Hearsons Cove. The entire beach is shells and in some places they must be several feet thick!
PHOTO TO COME LATER
We explored nearby Deep Gorge where there are over 1M aboriginal petroglyphs.
PHOTO TO COME LATER
We almost stepped on this little fellow walking back to the car
PHOTO TO COME LATER
We drove out to Dampier, which is quite a nice town, even though it is a working port. There were 3 very large ore ships in – one just leaving, one being loaded, one waiting to be loaded. Out further was another ship waiting to come in.
Back to Karratha where we had to get the car serviced (added cost we didn’t really need!). They told us afterwards that our tyres will need replacing very soon so it looks like we will have to book in and get that done soon. My glasses are very scratched and it was becoming very difficult to see through them so we found an OPSM in Karratha who will organise new lenses as an urgent job. Unfortunately I have had to leave my glasses there so for the time being I have to wear my sunglasses all the time. They are prescription lenses so that does help but it is a bit strange wearing sunglasses at night! OPSM have promised to have the new lenses ready for me by next Friday so we have decided to either stay a couple more days here at Cleaverville then go to Millstream Chichester National Park for a few days then back into Karratha and hopefully pick up my glasses and get new tyres on the car, or we will simply stay put at Cleaverville Beach until next Friday.
We have limited phone and internet service here at Cleaverville Beach so we have driven into Roebourne to post this blog. I am sitting in the carpark doing this! I am having trouble getting the photos onto the blog so have posted this Post and will try separately to do the photos - fingers crossed!
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