Category: Planning

Posted on

Day 55: 23 July – Tom Price & Hamersley Gorge

Author: Mrs A

Distance driven: 83 km

Distance hiked: 2.2 km (Yes, mostly in the car!)

Flights climbed: 10 floors

After praising the Savannah Campground for its peace and quiet we were disappointed last night when a group of camper trailer toting friends turned up late and set up right opposite where we were camping. They then cracked open the beers and yelled across to each other until long after midnight, despite Mr A politely asking them to quiet down (he was told to ‘f-off’) and apparently the retreat manager told them on two occasions also. So this morning, we packed up and departed, forfeiting tonight’s booking (‘no refunds’).

We headed first for the nearby town of Tom Price, where we hoped to gain a permit to take the shorter mining road to Millstream-Chichester National Park. Unfortunately the information centre told us it was in terrible condition as there was a new mine opening along it, and that caravans were not allowed. We had no choice but to add 200 km to our journey and go via the ‘highway’ (a rough, corrugated gravel road!).  We stocked up on fruit and vegetables while in town and headed off.


As tends to be the case, our change in direction and plans was not bad. We passed the outer southern side of Karijini National Park and a final gorge which is visited by few. This made it our favourite location as we pulled in for lunch, and then hiked down into the gorge. What a fabulous spot. Absolutely stunning reflections and rippling sediments in the walls which any landscape designer would be jealous of. We sat for a while with our feet in the water, enjoying the serenity and watching the fish swimming beneath us, cautiously eyeing my blood-orange coloured toenails.


We decided against driving any further, and pulled into a bush camp nearby. It is by far one of the most stunning locations we have camped. Yes, of course there are other campers here (‘You’re never alone in WA’), but they are at least 200 metres away from us in any direction. We are surrounded by stunning hills of the Hamersley Range all around us and the chirps of Rainbow Bee-eaters, Firetails and Zebra Finches. I think we are going to be happy here tonight!

Posted on

Day 50: July 18 – Off inland for adventures new

Author: Mr A

From: 80 Mile Beach

To: Two Camel Creek, Great Northern Highway Rest Stop 

Distance: 413km

It was time to farewell the brilliant caravan park at 80 Mile Beach and the coast, and head south to explore the National Parks of Karijini and Millstream. We restocked near Port Hedland, including the all important wine cellar, and followed the Great Northern Highway past the huge mines that dominate the area. It was road train central today, these things take no prisoners and I pull over as soon as I spot them in the rear camera looming up. 

The odometer clicked over to 90,000km this arvo, so that’s 8,860km (5,500 miles) clocked up since we turned out of our drive in Sydney. The Landcruiser hasn’t missed a beat (touch wood), pulling the van today loaded up at maximum capacity with 300 litres of water and 240 litres of diesel, and enough food and drink to keep us self sufficient for the 11 days before we expect to see a supermarket again selling anything that’s greeen. 


We pulled over at a rest stop late afternoon – remember its dusk by 5.30pm, and you really don’t want to be on the road then. We wandered over to the toilets and by a motor home saw….a cat on a lead. Our first camping-cat spied since leaving Sydney. Well of course this beautiful Siamese (Henry) got plenty of strokes, we are so missing Tassie, and it was great to pick the owners’ brains about how they find life on the road with her (yes I said her…some confusion in their early stages of raising what they thought was a boy cat!). 


We eventually tore ourselves away and retired to our van for a lazy evening of downloaded Netflix and tacos. No – no wine – or tequila – we decided we must have some AFD’s (alchohol free days). Mind you with the road trains roaring past I’m not sure that was such a smart idea….groan. 

Posted on

Day 49: 17 July – Planning the next month’s adventures

Author: Mrs A

Being a bit of a organisation geek I felt somewhat uncomfortable not knowing what our plans were for the coming weeks, so insisted we spend the morning using our mapping resources, Dr Google and travel books to make plans. Mr A purchased brain food from the camp shop (a pie for him and a dairy-free sausage roll for me) and we set about our research.

Our rough plan from here is as follows:

  • Karijini National Park (6 nights)
  • Millstream National Park (3 nights)
  • Karratha – Point Samson (2 nights)
  • Ashburton River (2 nights)
  • Exmouth/Cape Range National Park (8 nights)
  • Coral Bay/Carnarvon area (5 nights)
  • Kennedy Range (2 nights)
  • Gladstone (1 night – our 15 year wedding anniversary!)
  • Denham (3 nights)
  • And the lovely named Prickly Point on Useless Circuit (2 nights)

There will be a few nights coming up where we will be offline (up to about 6) after which you will likely be bombarded with information!

The map below shows where we are now. Our plan is to head south, then inland for a few days:



We did a short 5km hike along the coast this afternoon, enjoying the final bit of coast for a couple of weeks and then enjoyed the stunning sunset.


Now we are semi packed up in preparation for our next adventure from tomorrow.

Posted on

Day 48: 16 July – Biking the beach

Author: Mr A

Distance cycled: 22km

Today we hit the beach – on bikes –  we wanted see how far we could get while the 6 metre tide (yes that’s big) was out. It turns out 11km down the beach before we had to dash back as the tide turned and raced in over all the hard sand. 


It was awesome – we soon left behind the walkers, and then the drivers (yes cars allowed on the beach) and we were the only people for miles. The only footprints (and tyre prints) were ours and the birds’. Brilliant. Riding a bike always makes me smile  – let alone riding along a perfect beach with a blue sky and nothing in the diary….except getting back for the lamb roast that the park was laying on tonight.



We got back early afternoon and pottered around, Mrs A painting and me trying to extract some more red dust from the truck. It was soon roast o’clock and up we went to the canteen. The average age is probably mid/late 60s in this park, and I was struck again by what a great time these people are having. Sharing drinks with friends old and new. Recounting their adventures on the road. No wonder the caravan industry is going through such a boom. There’s just not enough parks to cope with the swelling numbers of people who chose this lifestyle over staying in their relatively cold home turf over the winter. 

Every day here in northern WA you know the sun is going to shine and it will be 27-30 degrees. We are in no rush to head south, so we have just booked an extra night here. We could only get an unpowered site but our solar panels are re-charging everything during the day, and almost all of our stuff now is USB chargeable on 12v – even the toothbrush :). 

Posted on

Day 46: July 14th – Giving Broome the brush-off…groan

Author: Mr A

From: Broome

To: Barn Hill Cattle Station

Distance: 135km

Finally we escape Broome’s clutches and point our nose south…but the town wasn’t letting go that easily, it clung to us all morning. 

First, a pre 7am visit to the car wash (keen I know), and on the way back I heard a nasty scraping sound coming from the tyre…the new very expensive tyres. The front offside one was rubbing on the mud flap…sigh. So off back to the tyre shop and I was told ‘Fitted thousands of these to 200 Series…’ I completed his sentence; ‘Never had this problem before…don’t care…I do have this problem’. So off they went to buy a heat gun and ‘adjusted’ the flaps back. 

So I drove back to the van park…reversed back up to the van…same scraping….sigh. Back to the tyre place….this time taking the van as we had to be off the site. So more time spent hitching up then unhitching  for more mysterious work with the heat gun at the tyre shop. Again the manager started the sentence ‘I’ve fitted…’ I must have given him my death stare as he stopped short..paused and continued; ‘Just leave it with us’. We retired to the van to console ourselves with a brunch of snags and onions in a wrap. 

Finally at 1pm we left Broome, and for the first time on the trip pointed south. We had booked in at a van park a short drive down the coast. Barn Hill is a working cattle station still, but has tapped into the grey nomad revenue stream. There would have to be a couple of hundred vans here. All crammed together. Not our thing. Anyway there’s a stunning beach here and we had a quick swim and a lovely walk, complete with an Australian Kestrel which actually posed for Mrs A’s camera.




We spotted another Zone RV van here and went to introduce ourselves. Steve and Pam have build number 3, so it was fascinating to talk to them about their experiences as one of the early owners. Nothing but praise for the company, which echoed with our experience. No, Zone RV hadn’t got everything right on their van, as you would expect with such an early model, but had always been supportive in fixing issues, which has also been our experience. 

Even though we felt this place is pretty hemmed in, you cant deny the buzz that there is with so many people sharing drinks at happy hour with their neighbours. A real community. Some transients like us, but others have been here so long they have their own herb gardens growing outside the van! Brilliant.

Posted on

Day 45: Back down the peninsula to Broome

Author: Mrs A

From: Cygnet Bay, Dampier Peninsula

To: Broome, WA

Distance: 208 km

Time: 3 hours



I thought I should share our marvellous view of the moon across the low tide mudflats, captured on our walk home to our tent after dinner last night – just magical. They call this the staircase to the moon (though it is more of a ladder) with the moon tinted orange by the bushfire smoke – the local communities are doing a lot of early-season burn offs to prevent late season wildfires, which can be devastating to the wildlife and people in these parts if left unchecked.

We packed up camp and were off on the road by 8am heading back towards Broome. 

We made good time, and decided to call into Bantry Bay on the way back, tempted by its advertised bakery. Unfortunately the advertising was false, and the bakery was no more than a tin hut, where they microwaved frozen Mrs Mac’s pies – yuck! I took a quick look around the church, famous for its mother of pearl decorations, and we moved swiftly on.


We collected our mobile apartment from its storage area and commenced tackling the washing mountain. We then drove into town so I could stock up on fruit and vegetable supplies for the next few days while Mr A made the rather expensive purchase of 5 new tyres for the 4WD, ours being rather cut up by the Gibb River Road, and also nearing 6 years old.


This evening we at out at a local Indian restaurant – delicious curry (with a South Australian Cake Shiraz), and well deserved after our busy afternoon. Its 9.45pm now and I am about to hang out the 9th wash of the day!

 Tomorrow we will finally leave Broome and commence our journey south to adventures new.

Posted on

Day 41: 9 July – Back in the dust again

Author: Mrs A

We spent the morning getting ready to head off camping tomorrow with the tent, packing food and clothes for three days, trying to anticipate everything we will need to live only out of the car. I think we’ll be ok!

We then decided to explore a little more of the coast north of Broome to Quandong Point. After 15km of bitchumen road it all turned into sand and corrugations again so we decided to let the tyre pressures down, ready for tomorrow.


We continued our drive down orange sandy roads to the coast – just stunning. We had considered camping down here this weekend but decided against it, favouring a powered site at a caravan park so we could catch up on washing. I think we could have been quite comfortable down there though. Lovely deserted beaches, stunning views, lots of bird life and potential for yet more dinosaur fossil and footprint hunting. The new bikini got an airing too!


This whole coast is getting quite a reputation for its 130 million year old dinosaur prints, with more being found regularly (fishermen found some last  September, and some tourists hunting for shells found more in May this year!) – and up to 9 different types of dinosaur in this region alone. The only dinosaurs we found today were us and a British couple from Manly who were also hunting (and failing) for the same prints!

All in all a fabulous day out. Back to camp now for Aperol Spritzers before showers and a Sunday night chicken curry.

Posted on

Day 39: 7 July – immersed in nature 

Author: Mrs A

We hiked 7km before breakfast, deciding to enjoy the dawn birds. It was a fresh morning, about 15•C and blue, clear skies greeted us as always. 


Many birds were to be found including singing honeyeaters, yellow white eyes, red winged parrots, magpie larks, whistling kites, restless flycatchers, great bowerbird…and more. After breakfast we went down to the bay to see high tide. 


Roebuck Bay looked completely different without the mudflats, its turquoise waters, ochre sands and flocks of birds on the shore.  


We chilled out late afternoon, revising our plans for the next couple of days, trying to stay around Broome for the weekend. The moon is almost full and the region is famous for the view across the mudflats which creates a stairway. Sunday is our opportunity. 

We watched the great bower bird behind our caravan creating his bower – it’s a work of art. He creates a fabulous sculpture out of sticks and decorates it with colours which compliment his silvery feathers – in this bird’s case, shells and pieces of glass from the beach, the occasional piece of bleached wood and silver foil – quite different from the blues collected by the satin bower bird in NSW and Qld. Just lovely. I hope he attracts a nice Mrs bower bird!


Homemade chicken curry tonight with a Shaky Ground Shiraz, one of Mr A’s Broome purchases. Shaky Ground by name and by nature…had worse, but…hmmm…roll on the wine broker!

Posted on

Day 31: 29 June – Derby – the day of a million washes

Author: Mrs A

Well, sadly not every day can be adorned with beautiful birdlife and stunning scenery, one must clean up at some point. Today was that day…and we’re not quite there yet!

The first wash in our 2kg washing machine went on at 7am, and we pretty much chain washed (each wash is 36 minutes) until 4pm this afternoon….someone with more energy than I can do the maths on how many washes that worked out to be, but it was a lot, I can tell you! 

Mr A also spent the day turning our Landcruiser and two mountain bikes from red dusty dirty things to modes of transport we can safely use without turning ourselves red.

Yesterday afternoon we were very excited to see another ZoneRV pull into the caravan park – the first one we’ve seen on the road. So we spent the morning comparing notes with the lovely Vonda and Greg from country Victoria – who proceeded to help us fix up a couple of little issues we’d had after those hundreds of kilometres of corrugations. There’s bound to be something work loose – and we escaped lightly compared to many we’ve met. Again we are loving meeting people on the road who otherwise we would never cross paths with. Just lovely people. We are seeing a very different side of Australians – and they aren’t all grey either!

I note there has been a request or two to know where on the planet we are right now, so I have produced a map showing our route to date – we have gone from east to west, and now we see sunsets over the water instead of sun rises! 

Now preparing for roast potatoes and fresh barramundi on the BBQ with a pea purée…back to home cooking tonight. Mr A is selecting a wine from our ever depleting cellar….

We’ll be off line tomorrow as we are spending the night on a boat out at the horizontal falls – more adventures ahead! 

Posted on

Day 30: 28 June – Windjana Gorge and back to “civilisation” 

Author: Mr A

We absolutely loved our walk last night into the gorge – so it was up at dawn and in again – this time armed with bacon and egg wraps and a thermos of herbal tea. Very civilised. Even the crocs looked jealous. 


Then it was pack up the van (so easy!) and off to Derby. We were counting down to hitting the bitumen – first time for a couple of weeks – and mixed feelings about getting phone reception back. We knew there would be much to sort out after being offline for 10 days.  As it turned out, the world had pretty much carried on turning without us. Amazing really…

We rocked up at our caravan park in Derby and queued along the road outside to check in (it’s Australia’s last great wilderness, remember?) and got ourselves a lovely big site right near the front of the park. There’s more than two hundred sites here – so probably over 5/600 people. And they aren’t all grey….Catherine for instance is turning blond…not grey…she’s not amused as her gorgeous brunette hair lightens in the sun…I look on and smile…

We booked a table down on the wharf a 5 minute drive away and watched our first sunset over the ocean in Western Australia…finally it dawns that we have driven to across a continent. Feels pretty good. The lovely Mrs A chose the snapper and chips, and I went for the MASSIVE PORK RIBS! OMG – they were huge – so big I immediately lost 50% to my dinky wife and got in return a very small piece of fish. Not a good trade for me. This was our first BYO place since Sydney so we were excited to take our Saperavi from Gapsted Wines in the Victorian high country – a fabulous drop we think. 

With an enormous sunset flooding the sky all is again good with the world. 

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress