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Published: July 15th 2009
We arrived in Marble Bar around lunch time and went straight to Peter and Marreta’s to pick up our wine that had been delivered from “Get Wines Direct”. We were soon made to feel at home.
We combined the makings of a cooked lunch with the Banes and had a wonderful cook up for lunch. An invitation was extended to us to stay for a BBQ that night to farewell Heather as she had decided to take up a job offer in Canada and was leaving at the end of term. A great night was had by all which meant that Sunday was a very sedate day. During the evening David offered us another 2 days work at Marble Bar School which we accepted. This became 3 days during the first day. Judy had almost 3 days in the K-1 class and Rags spent most of his time with the Year 2-5 class.
Before leaving on Thursday we attended the morning assembly as we both had merit awards to give out and wanted to say our goodbyes. After hosing down the caravan and Jeep we set off for Port Hedland, feeling a bit sad at leaving a place that
Hovering wedge tail
During our morning explore along the river Judy sank deep in the mud and let out a loud squeal. Almost instantaneously a couple of these fellows came to investigate!had started to feel like home.
On stopping at Dreyfuss Rest Area for some morning tea we met Arthur and Annette who were trying to fix a destroyed wheel bearing on their caravan. Luckily, Rags knew how to replace the bearings and even though the hub was damaged was able to make a repair that got them back into Port Hedland. We followed them until we reached the Great Northern Highway, about 100kms further on, to make sure all was well.
The next 2 days were spent at Cooke Point Caravan Park and we spent a great deal of time shopping for supplies, replacing caravan tyres and in the purchase of a battery power pack. The latter was purchased so that we have a better supply of power without a noisy generator. So far we have found this very useful, having already used it to provide us with music through the Iphone and power this laptop to make writing this possible today.
We left Port Hedland after spending some time in MacDonalds downloading our email and drove the short distance to the De Grey River crossing where we found a delightful camp spot under the trees near
the river. Here we spent 2 nights and tried hard to learn how to relax by doing nothing much during the day. This area has many lovely camp spots, all of them filled by caravans and trailers. It’s a deservedly popular spot indeed.
Pardoo Station was our next stop, this being a very popular one where it was difficult to find spot. After setting up camp Rags took his fishing rod and headed to Pardoo Creek where he promptly caught a couple of threadfin salmon after being given some bait by a kind lady from Mandurah.
At 5pm we joined the other campers around an open fire for drinks. Here we met a friendly couple from New Zealand.
The next day was Rags birthday and he was pleased to speak to his mother before reception failed and also to get messages from his 2 daughters. Rags spent the morning fishing and Judy jogged down to join him 4 kilometres away. He christened his new rod with a double header of threadfin salmon. He only caught 2 others after that. One of the other fishermen had too many fish and gave him another 2 as we were leaving.
Judy baked a chocolate cake for afternoon tea and we invited the generous fisherman and his wife to join us.
We left Pardoo early and made our way to Cape Keraudren. On the way Rags remembered that he put the good kitchen knife (that he was using for fishing as he doesn’t have a fishing knife) in the bait bag with his diamond sharpener and put the bait bag in the bin so those fish cost us dearly!
We hadn’t been sure if we’d stop Cape Keraudren as we’d heard stories of nasty sandflies. This wasn’t the case and in fact there were far fewer flies generally than at Pardoo. Judy who had started feeling most unwell spent most of the day in bed. The first night was spent right on the cape overlooking the beautiful turquoise waters of the bay. In the morning whilst Rags was having his morning coffee outside a kangaroo came to the van, sniffed his hand and then spent the next half hour eating grass in front of the caravan. What a great spot.
We decided we wanted to be able to walk to the water which we couldn’t do here because
it was too rocky so we decided to look for a new spot where Judy could rest while she got better. We checked out Cootenbrand Creek and decided we would join another 2 campers at the mouth of the creek. When we arrived later with the caravan in tow other vehicles had parked where we thought we could go and we promptly got bogged! Luckily the other vehicles belonged to a Victorian 4WD Club and they snatched us out of the sand. We moved further up the creek and parked on a lovely flat rocky outcrop overlooking the creek and beach. Paradise for the next few days!
Judy’s head cold lasted another day and then lifted so she could enjoy the panoramic scenery too. Each day we did a bit of sightseeing, visiting Firewood Creek and walking along the Cape. Rags took to bathing in the tidal pools each morning and Judy joined him when she was better.
When we started to run low on water our fellow campers (we were one big family by then) helped us out by allowing us to use their water containers to fill our tanks and then we drove to Pardoo Roadhouse
and refilled the containers for them. Our neighbour Jeff told us his power was fully charged from his solar panel one day at lunch time and offered to allow us to connect it to our battery which we did. We were sold as it recharged our battery giving us more time at this beautiful spot. We really enjoyed relaxing here but decided we were ready to move on after 4 days. We really enjoyed the company of our fellow campers each evening and the serene and beautiful scenery and thought we’d be lucky to find anywhere as nice (or as cheap) as this further north but nonetheless we had itchy feet so set off for the long drive to Barn Hill Station where we thought there may be a chance of discovering whether Kerry and Steve had caught up to us yet.
We arrived at Barn Hill Station just after lunch and set up camp to the cacophony of generators. We’ve camped near these a couple of times and although originally thinking of buying one we are quite cold on the idea now as they really spoil the peace and quiet of some wonderful bush or beach settings. Barn
Hill Station have a cooked dinner and a band every Sunday during the season (April to November) and we paid our $15 a head at the same time as our camping fees as we’ve been told not to miss this event!
We had some problems unhitching and crossthreaded the jockey wheel thereby making it useless. With the help of a nearby camper we set the draw bar on the jack. Luckily it was a solid jack that Rags had retained from a Nissan Patrol he’d had many years ago. We were glad we didn’t miss the evening’s entertainment at Barn Hill as the food and indigenous bush band were great and we sat next to and enjoyed the company of another Perth couple, Ray and Moira. Moira was a teacher too and she and Judy hit it off immediately. Moira is Irish and has the gift of the gab too - just like our friend Maretta in Marble Bar!
During the night we awoke to sound of the wind picking up to such an extent that Rags went out at 3am and rolled in our awning. In the morning the wind was blowing the dirt around and making it
so unpleasant we decided to leave. Judy went for a walk on the beach to look at the interesting rock formations but Rags was too concerned in making sure he could hitch up without a jockey wheel.
Before we left we exchanged contact details with Ray and Moira who we hope to catch up with when we get home. They are leaving too but heading to Exmouth.
As we’ve heard horror stories about how busy Broome is we decided to stop at the first caravan park which is the Roebuck Plains Caravan Park about 30 km from Broome. Because we were early we were given a lovely tree lined spot. We settled in here before lunch, showering, washing hair and clothes and generally getting everything in order again
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Chris (son)
non-member comment
hmmmm
Rags has 2 daughters?! What's her name?