Carnarvon, Wooramel and Kalbarri

16/8/2015

Coral Bay to Carnarvon

Enjoyed a nice dinner and glass of wine at Bill's in Coral Bay yesterday evening and went to bed early as I was tired from the lack of sleep the night before.

In the morning, I said farewell to the crew in the dive shop and got a last coffee from the bakery. Starting from tomorrow I'll have to activate my Aeropress again and try to organize some freshly roasted beans somewhere. It was too much hassle in Coral Bay to brew my own coffee as they had no camp kitchen, no kettle or a decent burner to heat some water in the morning.

The drive to Carnarvon was rather boring – the land is very flat here and the vegetation consists of shrubs, grass and some colorfully blossoming wildflowers.

In Carnarvon I stocked up on fuel and groceries and washed down the van at the car wash – that hasn't happened too often on that trip to be honest but I had to get rid of some of the red dust that was all over the van. Looks shiny and much newer after the wash!

Checked out One Mile Jetty and the beach and then booked into Wintersun caravan park. Soaked all my snorkeling gear, wet suit and rashies in fresh water and hung them up to dry and cleaned the floor in the van. What a maintenance day!

The first model of a road train?

One Mile Jetty

While I was cooking a mid afternoon dinner, I heard a large group of people next door cheering loudly while watching the Western Australian AFL derby: West Coast Eagles against the Fremantle Dockers. The Eagles were all over the Dockers and led by a huge margin when I started cooking at half time, so I didn't join the crowd to watch the remainder of the match as it didn't promise to be too interesting.

My neighbor behind the van

Caught up with Val and Brian in the evening and met Terry, a neighbor camper who is a Vietnam war veteran. We had some lively discussions and I listened to many stories shared by the three of them. Time ran quickly again this evening, and soon enough it was time for bed again.

Distance traveled: 258km

17/8/2015

Met the coffee van people who were located next to the camp kitchen in the morning – the couple from Victoria that I met and had coffee from at Bullara Station. Dumped the idea of an Aeropress coffee and instead had a freshly prepared flat white with my buttery egg omelet. They are traveling around the country working a few hours in the morning to sell coffee before enjoying the rest of the day. An idea I briefly had before heading out on this trip, but which I didn't pursue. Looks like it would have worked!

Visited Val and Brian for another coffee and to show them how I use WikiCamps. Ended up setting up a blog for Val and show her how to write and edit posts on her newly started blog. She's got many stories and apparently many photos to share. I'm looking forward to reading up on some of it once she starts to release blog posts!

Went to one of the farm shops to buy fresh vegetables. Carnarvon is renown for its locally grown bananas – and they had frozen chocolate bananas, ranging from $2,50 to $4,00 depending on the size. I opted for a small one as they use milk chocolate but I have to say it tasted amazing. I let it thaw a bit, but it was still like an ice cream with chocolate. They had some other frozen chocolate covered fruits as well, but without a freezer in my van, I had to limit my experience to the banana. Would have liked to buy some fresh avocados, but talking to the lady working in the shop I learned that the cyclone in March this year destroyed most of the avocado crop for this season, hence none were available at their shop and rather expensive at the supermarket.

On the road to leave town, I visited the former Overseas Communication Station and space museum. Carnarvon's huge 30 meter diameter satellite dish was used to track comets and relay data to space stations and space missions. The former station was recently converted in a cool little museum with lots of memorabilia and old equipment from the days of the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and other NASA space programs. I did the virtual start in the Apollo 11 capsule, a 7 minute simulation where you get the live video material from back in the days when they got sent into the orbit. Interesting experience! They had some old tape drives and NEC computer systems on display that were used back then – unbelievable - firstly that such missions actually worked and secondly that every smartphone today would outperform these huge beasts by light years – pun intended.

Walked up to have a closer look at the huge satellite dish too, a huge piece of history that must be cyclone proof as it is still around, despite being decommissioned in 1986.

Now that is a speed limit that makes sense ;-)

... and I thought driving in Australia is considered long distance...

Apollo simulator

I didn't touch any buttons!

They knew how to motivate a crew!

Workstation from the 1960s?

Did my research on WikiCamps before I left Carnarvon and pulled into Wooramel Station, only a good 120km south of Carnarvon. They got hot artesian springs sending hot water from about 240m depth to the surface. The water has a high mineral content which apparently has soothing effects on tired muscles. After a quick walk around to take photos, I joined the others in the warm spa and joined into some interesting discussions about camping, mining, famous and rich Australians and footy. Just when I left the spa it started to drizzle and after a shower in the remarkable barrel shaped amenities I enjoyed a short walk to my van in the rain wearing nothing but a towel and thongs.

Wooramel Station is located next to the Wooramel River, which is an underground river that only 2-3 times a year carries water on the surface. The wildlife here is fantastic – I saw whistling ospreys, many species of smaller, colourful birds and parrots, a lizard and many wildflowers. Due to the thick cloud cover and rather bad light, I didn't take too many photos. The station is operational, raising cattle, sheep and goat on their 356,000 acre. The property occupies an area of 1,430 square kilometers (unbelievable for my European mind, yet small compared to really big stations) with 60 km of coastline to the Indian Ocean backing onto the Shark Bay world heritage area.

The barrel bathrooms - cool design

Fireplace and the Wooramel River (dry) in the background

Spa!

I hid in my van, listening to some Rewild Yourself podcast episodes, waiting for the shower to pass. A quick shout out to Daniel Vitalis who does this podcast. He is interviewing interesting people who incorporate ancestral and primal ways of living into their lives to live in a way that is more appropriate to our species. I find many of the episodes eye opening as they often question our modern day assumptions and provide alternative views.

Did my cooking outdoors at the back of the van after the shower stopped – unfortunately the millions of flies were back and some mozzies were attempting to eat me alive while I was steaming the Shark Bay mullet fillets and cut up the salad. They almost succeeded!

Just for the record: these were the first rain drops since the Atherton tablelands in north eastern Queensland!

Distance traveled: 124km

18/8/2015

Left the camp site in the morning, doing an intermittent fast as the millions of flies that were swarming around me on my way to the bathroom didn't motivate me to share breakfast with them. Stopped at the Overlander Roadhouse at the turnoff to Denham/Shark Bay. Their coffee prices are still astronomical, but I noticed an improved quality of the coffee by several notches compared to my memory from when I last visited them several years ago with my parents. Still far a way from good coffee though.

The drive down the highway was eventless – the countryside being mostly flat shrub land with many wildflowers growing close to the road. Took the turnoff to Kalbarri and had a look at Murchison river and the lookout at the Zuytdorp Memorial.

Indian Ocean (left), Murchison River (right), Zuytdorp Memorial in the foreground

Checked into Kalbarri Tudor Tourist Park mid afternoon to catch up on some computer work and enjoy the comfort of a good camp kitchen to prepare dinner and wash the stuff I used yesterday. Nice place, rather busy at the moment and I notice it is getting cooler on my migration down south.

Distance traveled: 330km