Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 73 - Thursday July 21st 2016 - Exmouth to Karijini National Park, Western Australia

It was another early one this morning. The alarm had been set as this was to be the longest drive of the whole trip so far, over nine hours on the road.

We showered and had a quick bowl of cereal before packing up the van (we are getting quite quick at it now, there is certainly a routine to it), handing in the keys to the ablution block (yes that’s what they call the shower and toilet blocks) and hit the road.

We first had to travel about 80km on the road we had come down on yesterday as Exmouth is on a headland so there really was nothing to see, just more sheep on the side of the road.

Our journey today would take us both north up the coastal road (although you can’t actually see the sea from it) and then inland to the park.

We had worked out our driving rota, it was two hours on then two off then one on and one off and then we would see …….

As we headed onto the new road north two things happened that are quite unusual. The first was a distinct landscape change. We left the bush and the grass behind and were faced with orange red dessert on both sides of us. It was really striking in colour and its vastness and flatness. Blackened trees protruded from this red earth looking burnt and withered, it really was like looking at a film set for the red planet, a mars documentary if there was such a thing.

The second thing was roadworks!! Now Australian roads out of the city are normally very quiet, very straight and very long so to suddenly hit some major roadworks was actually quite amusing. We watched as gigantic machinery moved piles of red earth around to widen the roadway. The machinery they use over here also looks like something from a space station on a remote planet, its huge and the tyres are just monumental.

We watched as road train after road train took away soil from the site as eventually we passed through the various manned points of single carriageway to the open road once more.

The red desert eventually changed back to the more familiar bush and remained pretty much like that until we got all the way to Karijini.

We actually did not know where we would be sleeping tonight. You can’t make reservations at the National Park and sites come on a first come first served basis. We knew in the back of our minds that there was no way that we would be getting there first so with our fingers crossed we just ploughed on.

The drive really was endless but it’s not like driving in the UK or Europe where the roads are busy and you are constantly stopping and starting. Here you get excited about seeing another car as the road is littered with road trains or caravans and campers, cars are actually in the minority. A two hour drive on an empty straight road does not actually feel that long at all and by the time you swap drivers the time really does pass. We stop at every road house that we see, even if it’s to only fill up quarter of a tank of unleaded. Petrol is really the only thing that we worry about. Have we got enough to make it to the next road house? We always have but Trevor had to do some sums on consumption and mileage just to make sure. Of course the other nightmare would be a flat tyre but let’s not even go there.

So I should also tell you about the coach trip of pensioners that is following us. Since before getting to Monkey Mia there is a blue Adams coach full of pensioners on an Aussie outing that seems to always pull up where we are some three or four hours behind us and in some cases even less than that. Today was no exception.

We had made a lunch stop in a 24 hour layby, one hat you are actually allowed to camp in for the night. They have toilets on site, or drop toilets to be more precise (you can guess what the drop means) and these two were probably the worst examples we had encountered, really dirty, thank god for antibacterial hand cleaner!

Anyway so there we are quietly enjoying our roast beef and mustard sandwiches when in drives the blue pensioner bus full of the same people again. They all got out, used the loo and ate their lunches with a hot cup of tea. I just can’t imagine being stuck on a coach for all that time every day continually as they have been, I would not call that a holiday at all.

We had left the west coastal highway 1 and were now heading east on the 136 towards Paraburdoo and a roadhouse to top up with petrol.

There really was not much going on in Paraburdoo at all. It is clearly a mining service town as the drive ways were all full of white pickup trucks with large CB radio antennae. We filled up, bought a doughnut each and headed off to the so called town centre to book up some campsites on the phone / web as we were finally back in signal receiving status.

As the driving was going so well and neither of us were feeling done over by it we decided that we would leave the national park tomorrow afternoon and head off to Port Hedland for the night before reaching out for Broome and another six hour plus drive.

We were learning that we needed to book if we wanted a powered site which of course we did. We managed to sort all of them which was a huge relief as we seemed to get the last sites available. Our plan was to stop in Broome for three nights (the first night we will get there late due to the mammoth drive) and actually have some chill out time and get ready for the drive through real country in the Kimberley’s.

With nothing in Paraburdoo to do, we left and headed on the road to a place called Tom Price. This really made us chuckle as we have a friend called Tom Price and it just seemed far too random that he would actually have a place named after him in the middle of nowhere in Australia. We actually didn’t drive into the town itself, it was actually taking us about 20 or so kilometres out of our way but we had to get a picture of the welcome to Tom Price town sign. All Australian towns have them, like a banner or a post or a really decorative sign, they all welcome you and this one was no exception, complete with a kangaroo!

We were now a stone’s throw from Karijini National Park, the long drive was nearly over. The landscape had changed again and now we had views of rocks and mountains on the horizon. The rock formations really are random in Oz. Here they looked like man had been involved but clearly they hadn’t. What I mean by that is that the formations were like lots of smaller rocks all piled up on each other making a larger mound or hill if you like but these formations were abundant. The mountains in the distance were all red copper coloured rocks covered in grasses and trees, from so far out we really couldn’t see just how red they were but we were to find that out.

On our way into the park we kept on passing many unsealed roads marked as mining site. This is where Australia’s main income come from and what made their economy boom. Out in this red wilderness were the iron ore mines. Although you could not actually see the mines from the tarmac sealed roads that we were using you were never the less still very aware of them. Nearly every car or van that passed us seem to be a mining vehicle, always white, normally a four by four or a pick up and the driver was always wearing a navy blue shirt with a fluorescent yellow strip to the shoulder part, its most definitely the uniform!

Campsites here what were on our minds now as we finally entered the park and paid our $12 fee into the honesty box. As we pulled up towards the entrance to Dales camping area we were gutted to see the sign that told us it was full!

Luckily they were directing us to a carpark some 300 m up the dirt track where we would be allowed to stay for the night but there were no facilities here other than a drop toilet. We had been expecting this to be honest so it was no big surprise or disappointment. All it really meant was that we had no shower for the morning as even the campsite had no powered sites so we were not losing out there.

We found a quieter spot away from all the other vans that were also here and cooked up some dinner whilst we still had some natural light. Tonight’s dinner was Satay chicken and rice, I won’t say it was a taste sensation because it wasn’t but it was perfectly edible and it was hot.

We had arrived at the car park camp in really good time and actually the drive had not been too bad at all. It was a long night though in the an even if we were the last to bed that night in the car park. All the other lights were out in the other vans and cars and there was not a sound anywhere.

We spent the night watching our iPads. Trev was watching the film Paddington and was making the whole van shake with his laughter! Jonathan watched a true story film called Black Mass that was actually really good if a little dark. We drank some beers and some wine and too many biscuits for dessert, there really was nothing else to do.

The Karijini National Park is known for having an abundance of wild Pythons in its wilderness. This knowledge really did not make me happy at all but what can you do? I always tell myself that the snakes are more afraid of me than I am of them (even though I don’t think that is remotely possible). I went to sleep that night with the thought of waking up to a python in the campervan and freaking out (understatement). Still in all truth we both slept really well if a little cold but we were fine.

It was all adding to our experience, sleeping in a car park literally in the middle of nowhere, not often you get to do that!