Drifting South or rather Blown South

Well I must admit I quite liked Carnarvon and thoroughly enjoyed my four night stay there. Little did I realise I would be returning much sooner than I had planned and more than once. Picked up a very early birthday present from my siblings, a nice wee telescope for looking at the night sky. You get some wonderfully dark nights with minimal or no light pollution to contend with. So thank you one and all for that, rest assured it will get plenty of use. Anyway back to Carnarvon, it has a lovely esplanade which was very neat and tidy and was a good spot for a stroll with the dogs, or rather a dawdle at Whispers pace. The only drawback was the wind, it blew everyday I was there with some gusts really quite strong, luckily I had the awning well anchored with the guy ropes and also the privacy screen which definitely helped keeping it stable. Anyway after the four nights were up I decided to head inland a bit to a small township of Gascoyne Junction which was about 180kms East.

Not a bad drive out to Gascoyne Junction and got myself three nights in their caravan park. On driving through the town it caught my attention that for a population of less than 400 people there was a bit of building work going on and all the properties looked new, including the caravan park. Anyway got myself all set up and decided to have a little explore. In the shop/cafe/petrol station/pub/caravan park office I found a nice little display explaining why all the new builds. In 2010 the town was destroyed by floods and all the people had to be evacuated, there is a story told there of the pub landlord being woken up in his bed upstairs by the flood water. Now the township is on a slight hill and a good 500mtrs if not more from the river. So Im not sure how deep and how wide the river was in full flood but it must have been one heck of sight that’s for sure. Most of the people who were evacuated came back after the floods receded, and slowly set about reclaiming and rebuilding the town. My curiosity at all the new looking buildings was explained.

That evening I was giving Cody a bit of a fuss and I noticed or rather felt a small lump just on the side of his bottom jaw, probably no bigger than a pea. I wasnt overly concerned as he gave no reaction when I touched it, but reminded myself to keep an eye on it just in case. Well the next morning I didnt need reminding as all of his bottom jaw was very swollen. Luckily I had the internet so I looked on line for a vet in Carnarvon and managed to get him an appointment for the Monday afternoon. It looked like a very big abscess had grown, probably from a broken tooth or something being stuck in his gum line. Anyway he still didnt seem to mind me touching it and he was still eating albeit not as rapidly as he normally does and still drinking, and also he didnt appear to be worrying it or scratching at it. The following morning (Sunday) when he got up to go out there was some blood from where he had laying, and when I looked under his chin he had obviously been scratching at it during the night, I managed to wipe most of the blood off him. So Monday afternoon comes around and off we trot to the vet to find out what is what. The vet had a good look and yep she says looks like an abscess or possibly some insect has bitten him. Well the speed at which it blossomed I think I will go with the latter, as he does like sticking his snout in places he shouldn’t. As they would have to shave all his chin he would have to be sedated so he was booked in for first thing Tuesday morning. After dropping him off Whisper and I went back to the van park, and about two hours later I get a phone call from the vet receptionist saying the vet wants a quick word, before she concluded the sentence with there is nothing to worry about, all sorts of thoughts went through my mind. The vet said that they had found a growth on the bottom on one his back legs and wanted to know if it was ok to remove it, she said it was right on the side of his paw. Now I have noticed this for the last 8 years or so and just thought he had an extra pad on his paw, but as the vet explained it wasnt, so permission was granted. When I picked him up later that day he had a lovely smart bandage on his leg and a very clean shaven lower jaw, and a neat little hole which they had left to help drain the wound. I won’t be coarse and tell you what the bill was but lets just say I think the vets next all expenses paid holiday in some pacific island is well and truly paid for. But they were super friendly and very helpful. By the by still very windy in Carnarvon.

So after a week of free camping it was back to Carnarvon for a check up for Cody and all was healing nicely, and a nice clean bandage on his leg. I had to wait a few more days to get his stitiches out so booked myself a spot in another caravan park. A few days later the stitches in his leg came out and we were all set to hit the road again.

The final time that I was in Carnarvon I went to their main tourist attraction namely the Space/Technology Museum. I must say I found it very disappointing, it all looked a bit run down, but there was quite a bit inside geared to keeping kids happy. The one plus was that they had a full size model of the Lunar Module that landed on the moon way back on the 20th July 1969. The one thing that really struck me about it was its size, it was far bigger than I thought it would be, no wonder they needed such bloody big rockets.

Anyway back on the road again and drifting slowly South, my next stop was a campsite called Gladstone Wharf. it was $10 a night and about fifty meters from the sea. very pleasant location and plenty of room. The whole site was about 3kms long and about 150mtrs wide. 6kms of dirt road to get to it and I dont think the road has ever been graded, man-o-man it was rough going, lets just say it took the best part of 30mins to cover the distance. But it was well worth it when you got there. The land this site was on was owned by the Yarinda Station and a good job of it they had done too. Only bore water which wasnt suitable for drinking but it had flushing toilets and a dump point so all was good. The only drawback to the place was guess what? you got it the bloody wind, every single day. I stayed for five nights and the dogs had good fun playing in the sea, well Cody did Whisper just tended to lie down in it, her days of chasing sea gulls are well behind her. The water was crystal clear and you could wade out over 100mtrs and it was still only as deep as my knees. Need to get some proper reef shoes as my sandals weren’t really up to it.

From Gladstone Wharf it was a fairly quick trip to my next destination of Hamelin Pool, with a quick stop at Overland Roadhouse for fuel, coffee for me, water for the dogs and diesel for the truck. then it was a right turn onto Shark Bay Heritage Drive. In no time I was pulling in to Hamelin Pool caravan park $25 a night again no drinking water or dump point but power. A basic but very popular caravan park and the ladies who run it were super friendly and seemed to know everyone by their names. I think there are only 10 powered sites but lots of room if you wanted unpowered. Very very basic supplies in the little shop they had there to get proper groceries, bread milk etc it was a 100kms trip up to Denham, and as I was low on both and many other things it was a trip I had to make the following day, more on Denham later. Had some lovely walks while at Hamelin Pool and I was disappointed that I didnt see the Pied Piper at all. There is a boardwalk there as well where you can walk out over the sea, but, unfortunately this was badly damaged when cyclone Seroja hit WA in April causing a severe amount of damage along a good portion of the WA coastline an further inland as well. There is also a shell quarry at Hmelin Pool where over time the shells get so compacted and eventually dry out to form a soft rock, which in days gone by were cut by the locals to build with. I ended up staying for six nights as it was so peaceful , and yet again it was windy every blooming day.

After my stay at Hamelin Pool I managed to get possibly the last available powered site at a caravan park in Denham for two nights. I needed to stock up on a few supplies and to refill the caravans water tanks and the dogs water containers. 194 litres for the van and 60 litres for the dogs, and ten more litres of bottled water for me. Denham is very much geared up for holiday makers and tourists who enjoy water sports, diving, scuba dolphin/shark/whale watching and of course the ever popular fishing. Basically everything that is worth seeing or doing is on one road which runs parallel to the sea for about 1.5kms and that’s it. Due to the school holidays starting and it being a long weekend the place was fully booked, anyway 2 nights were plenty for me so it was back to the road and 130kms later I was back at Overland Roadhouse for my much needed cup of Joe, stretch and water for the dogs. It was then about 60kms down to Billabong Roadhouse where they had free overnight camping and the cheapest diesel so far in WA of $1.48 a litre, and if you pumped more than 450litres you got it for $1.43 a litre. Im now currently parked up at a gravel pit about 30kms or so North of Northampton heading to Geraldton on Friday , which will be by far the biggest town Ive hit since Darwin. Definitely cooler as Im heading South, but guess what, yep right again its still windy, that’s every day since 21st Aug. After Geraldton Im heading inland to hopefully get away from it for a while.

Not too much on the photo front Im afraid but here are a few