Canarvon-Middalya

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Canarvon to Middalya


Driving up the northwest costal highway we stop just south of Canarvon at a spot called new beach this was going to be our camp ground for the night. But by the time we had cooked the squid we had caught in Denham the flies were driving us all nuts. Zoe wanted to phone home as her Mum was due out of hospital from her hip operation. Natalie too wanted to phone home, so as we were not impressed with our choice of campsite and there were no quarrels from the boys’ side. We packed up and headed into Canarvon itself which is surprisingly small considering the size of dot it gets on the map. After a quick explore through the town to find there are a few small shops in the centre, two supermarkets, two petrol stations and a few other shops on a small industrial estate on the way out of town and a huge satellite dish on the outskirts which no longer works. It was starting to get late in the day and we hadn’t even thought about where to camp so we quickly booked ourselves into the Coral Coast caravan park. This is a rarity as they are expensive, well you have to pay. This park wasn’t too expensive ($18 about 7 Stirling).At leased we could get a shower. I think we were in need of one by this point. The next morning we got up just before kick out time to go into town shopping for supplies, we had a further look around town, we were very good and didn’t spend any money on anything other than the essentials. We met up with Charlie and Natalie down at Pelican point, they had bought a crab net and were trying to figure out how to use it but with little success. We couldn’t decide whether we move out of Canarvon to Quobber point or go back to the caravan park from last night. We couldn’t reach a decision so we stayed there unofficially for the night, at leased it was free and right next to the toilets.

When we woke we noticed painted on the wall of the toilet was “No camping”. Ah well. Besides which we weren’t camping we were resting. Dictionary definition of camping “living in tents: living outdoors in a tent or trailer while on vacation or as a recreational activity” and I don’t think we were any of these as we don’t have tents or trailers and what we are doing it’s not really a recreational activity so there for we are not camping. But anyway that’s just us bending the rules. So we quickly headed north to Quobber point and to some of the most spectacular blow holes that we had seen. The drive there was good also. We found a small mango/banana plantation which was selling allsorts of mango and banana products, I never realised you could do so much with a mango but the crème de la crème was chocolate dipped frozen banana, mmm dammed tasty. After the mango/banana plantation we found a dirt road (a short cut) which was pretty entertaining with big ruts and lots of dust. When we found the tarmac on the other side, we were cruising along at our cruising speed (about 90-95km/h) when I spotted a little lizard on the side of the road, I only caught a glimpse of it but knew straight away what it was and quickly turned the Jessie around to go back and have a look. It was a Thorny Devil. As we came back down the road it was there still basking in the sun. We both laid down in the middle of the road (you can do that in Australia) and snapped a couple of pictures of this fascinating little creature. Its lack of movement at first made us think it was dead. It wasn’t flat, so hadn’t been hit by a car maybe it had been frightened to death by nearly being hit by a car. Then we saw its little eye following us so it wasn’t dead. I was delighted to have seen a Thorny Devil and it was alive too! The blow holes at Quobber point were pretty spectacular but there were signs everywhere saying “King waves kill” so we were careful of getting too close to the cliff edge but had a good look at this impressive jet of water being blasted up to 200 feet into the air. We found Charlie and Natalie at the camp ground just south down the coast from the blow holes and as it was a third the price ($5) of the next nearest camp ground at Quobber station we opted for staying there too. As the scenery at the camp ground was really nice we figured we should have a day of relaxation and at only $5 why not. So we read our books, caught up on our travelblog entries and generally took it easy. Charlie and I went fishing as we still had some squid left over from what we caught at Denham and we were a bit dubious about eating it ourselves so if nothing else we could feed the fish. Again we didn’t manage catch dinner but did however catch some quite pretty fish, green with purple and blue stripes as they didn’t know what they were, we figured it would be best to put them back. The next morning when we went to start Jessie all she did was click. Ahh. Once again we had flattened the battery, we managed to catch Charlie and Natalie before they left and roped them into jump starting us. Unfortunately we had parked on a rather soft piece of sand and Charlie struggled to get their bus in beside us and ended up scraping up against our “roo bars” and left a big blue streak down the side. Oops sorry Charlie. At leased they have something to remember us by. Before long we were up and running again and were off to explore further south along the beach but it didn’t take long for Jessie to throw another tantrum. This time the temperature was rocketing up. We pulled off the track and before I had even opened the bonnet we knew we had a bigger problem. This time there was liquid pouring out from the bottom. Looking closer it was coolant coming from the radiator. Any ideas we had had of getting up as far as Red Bluff and Gnarloo Station for a spot of surfing were fading fast the only way forward was back to Canarvon.

As we made our way back to Canarvon with our eyes flicking between the temperature gauge and the holes in the road we were thinking of what the monkey mechanic was likely to say when he saw some fresh tourists pull into his yard. It was obviously going to be a big job and expensive too. Then Zoe had the brain wave of phoning the Hearman mob from Middalya station as they are local (ish only a 2 ½ hour drive out of town) they may know of an honest mechanic if there is such a thing. After a quick call to Tiff and explaining our predicament Tiff never even hesitated in recommending a man, Steve Whitburn. The only problem being that he is up at Middalya at the moment and wouldn’t be back in Canarvon until morning. With a recommendation from Tiff we felt pretty confident about this guy, so we went back to the campground we had stayed at a few days earlier to wait for Steve to get back to town. We got up early the next morning topped up the radiator again and took our broken bus to see Steve, when we got there we explained who we were and that Tiff had said to come see him because we think we have a leaking radiator, as he looked around Jessie she had stopped dripping and there was still water in the radiator, typical. But thankfully he did believe us and pulled out a pressure tester and pumped it up. Sure enough there was a “psss” and water was dribbling onto the floor “Yes, you do have a leaking radiator” he said. Before we had a chance to ask him how much it would be to put a new one in (as that is what I was expecting), he had pulled our radiator out, filled it with air and was dunking it in a tank looking for the damaged cell. Once he had found the leak he pulled that part of the radiator out and used an oxy/acetylene torch to solder up the top and bottom of the radiator to seal it. Although every time he thought he had it fixed it some where new would open up. It didn’t take too long to stop all the leaks and Steve soon had the radiator back where it is supposed to be and filled with fresh coolant. With Jessie running again we asked how much we owed, to our surprise Steve only asked for one hundred bucks and considering he put fifty bucks of coolant in. What a nice chap.

Leaving Steve we headed out once again to Red Bluff in search of some surf. The road to Red Bluff was another unmade road just dust with a bit of gravel and bumpy as hell. When we got to Red bluff it was pretty late and almost dark and we were both pretty hungry, so we needed somewhere to camp. The facilities at the camp ground were pretty basic to none and they were charging us $20 for what I don’t know. When it got light I had a look at the surf but was put off by the fact it was breaking about half a mile away from the beach over what seemed to be a very rocky bottom. So I made the decision to check out the surf further up the coast, as we continued to head north to 3 mile camp which turned out to be even more expensive at $30 a night for a 2 minute cold salt water shower. I once again inspected the surf but was still a bit reluctant due to the low tide and rocky bottom. The next morning we once again continued to head north to Gnarloo Station. Where we enjoyed the afternoon snorkelling and messing around on the beach. We both really enjoyed watching the fish swimming below us as we drifted around the bay. Later we headed back to Quobber point to camp the night at the much more sensible price of $5.50 a night.

Once again as we were leaving Quobber point Jessie was having problems. She was overheating again. We popped in to see Steve in Carnavon to have her checked. He thought it had something to do with the thermostatic fan, so told us some things to look out for while we drove to Middalya station where Zoe had worked a few months ago. If it was the thermostatic fan Steve would talk Doug through how to fix it for us. Through out the drive to Middalya Jessie continued to over heat whenever we reached 100km/h. After a about a 150kms north on the highway we turned right on to the long dusty dirt road that would lead us out to the station. Lyndon Road was not in the best condition, there were plenty of potholes and dusty blowouts along the way to catch us out. We even came pretty close to hitting an Emu, who had decided to run along in front of us a while before ducking back into the bush. They could cause a lot damage if you hit one. Stupid birds. When we arrived at Middalya, Doug gave us a warm welcome, and we all enjoyed the rest of the afternoon chatting on the lawn in the shade sinking a few cold ones. It had been about 38 degrees that day so they went back easily. It was also great to able have a nice shower with no salty bore water, yey.

The next morning I helped Doug with their troublesome generator that powered the homestead. Doug not being very electrically minded had “fixed” various bits just to make it work, bypassing fuses and other unimportant bits. So I was put to work to make the generator behave itself. Before long it was doing pretty much as it should although I couldn’t say exactly what I had done to get it working. Guess the fairies had fixed it for me. But at leased it works and Doug was happy.

In the morning we were up reasonably early to go with Doug to the southern most part of Middalya which backs onto the Kennedy ranges. Part of the Kennedy ranges once belonged to Middalya but as it was too steep for cattle it was sold to the governments Conservation and Land Management department. I’m glad Doug knows the tracks around the station so well, as we were tearing through the bush at quite a rate knots. Zoe seemed pleased to see the station again and this time everything was a different colour from the universal red dirt colour of last time. This time there were plants growing, grass, trees and even flowers. Quite a transformation from the almost barren landscape she had left just a few months earlier. Amazing what a bit of rain will do for a place. While Doug was busy repairing a bore pump Zoe and I took time to take in the scenery and look at the cattle all of which were looking much healthier and fatter than the pictures I had seen, there were even a couple of newly born calves which must have only been a few days old. As Doug fixed a leaking pipe the cattle gathered round to investigate what was going on crowding round forming a circle around us to spectate. That afternoon we jumped in Jessie and headed out to the northern part of the station to do some bush bashing and some fossil hunting at “fossil creek”. We found some great fossils, some shells but mostly a type of coral stem. We had a look at the river which was still dry bar a few stagnant puddles before returning to the empty homestead as Doug had gone to Mia Mia station one of the neighbouring stations to help out with their muster. It was quite strange having a whole station to ourselves knowing that the nearest person is half an hour drive away. So we had dinner, showered and settled into bed enjoying the peace and quiet.

As we had flattened the battery in Jessie a few times over the last few weeks and were fed up with asking jumpstarts. We decided it would be a good idea to install a second battery, having bought all the necessary parts while in Canarvon we set about doing just that, well I installed the second battery while Zoe wrote some more travel blog. After a bit of swearing and cursing I had the second battery installed just as the sun was setting. The sun had gone and there was still no Doug so we had another night of having the whole station to ourselves.

Friday was going to be shopping day in Canarvon. As it is a five hour round trip to go to the shops we wanted to get going earlier Doug had given us a shopping list of beer and steak and instructed us to put all our shopping and fuel on the Middalya account. Cool. As we left the station we drove over a bump in the road and there were suddenly sparks hitting the windscreen. Ooh Crap! It didn’t take long to figure out what had caused the sparks, our newly fitted battery terminals was perhaps a little too tall and had touched on the bonnet as we went over the bump. The battery had blown a hole clean through the bonnet. I made the battery safe and we carried on our way to Canarvon, with our extra ventilation hole. We called in to see Steve to chat about the overheating and pick his brain on how best to fix our latest problem. The overheating was being put down to our radiator being old and tired, and perhaps an electrical fault with the indication too as if Jessie really got that hot the engine would just stop and melt. As a new radiator was looking to be expensive ($400-$500) we opted to see how long it lasts with Steve’s patch repairs. The electrical fault was being put down to a faulty sender unit as that was my best guess and I think it was cheapest. As for the hole in the bonnet Steve pointed us next door to a panel beater. Who was a really nice Scottish man who could talk the hind legs off a donkey. But he was really nice and only charged us $20 to weld up the hole, the only trouble was getting him to stop chatting to us and start welding. We did get it done in the end though and were off to continue our shopping run next stop to get a new temperature sender and try and convince them to exchange our battery for a smaller one. We almost had them convinced to exchange the battery until they saw a slight bit of chaffing from being in Jessie, then nothing either of us could say could convince the lady behind the counter to do the exchange. So it was back to the drawing board to figure out how to get this battery that is too big to fit, without blasting anymore holes in the bonnet. Shopping in Woolworths (It’s like Asda over here) was fun not having to worry too much about the price as it was all on Middalya account. But we were very well behaved and bought what we normally would. We still had to pick up some batteries for Doug, which were huge and made Jessie lean to one side when they were fork lifted in. By now it was getting pretty late and the dirt road back to Middalya was hard work in the daylight so we refuelled Jessie and began the two and a half hour drive back. We got to the dirt road to Middalya just as it was getting dark. Thankfully we made it back managing to avoid all suicidal kangaroos, emus and cattle, yey. There was still no Doug though just a note saying “gone next door for beer”. After our trip to the shops we were pretty tired and ready for bed, unfortunately the batteries had to stay in the car because at 100kg were too heavy for us to lift out. So our bed was on a bit of a slant but none the less we were tired and so watched an episode of prison break and fell blissfully asleep despite the funny angle.

The next morning was my birthday but as it’s getting too hot now to have a real lay in anything past eight is too hot to be comfortable. Besides which I had promised Doug I would help with the batteries and Zoe was really helpful supervising. Then I had to figure out how to make our second battery shrink by about half an inch. The theory being by using a shorter bolt, using a nut without wings and covering with a bit of old car tyre inner tube, this was bodging at its best. But it all works now and there won’t be any more holes blasted in the bonnet. Before we had time to look round it was dinner time and as a birthday treat I asked for steak chips and peas, we all sat, ate dinner, drank wine, Doug supplied fruit and custard. It was really good just to sit, chat and enjoy good company.

Sunday was spent not doing too much just relaxing, catching up with travelblogs and a walk to the river before tea. After a day relaxing we offered to give Doug a hand moving some cattle to be sorted for sale which was great fun as we were given the buggy. Which is just like our Jessie, just a shorter wheel base and with a riot cage on the outside. It was great fun, the cattle would try and hide in a bush then we would come crashing through the bush to find them and drive them on. If they broke away from the rest of the mob then Doug or Dave would give chase on the motorbikes and bring them back, but they knew what was going on and were pretty well behaved. Once we had them all in the pen. We left for a couple of hours, firstly to get them used to the idea of being in the pen so they are more manageable and not crazy and secondly for us to return to the homestead for cold drinks before we returned to sort them. Doug made sorting look really easy but I’m sure that if we were to be left alone to do it there would be cattle everywhere. Doug pulled a few aside for dehorning and tagging, which went through the crush. They put their head through a gate which then closes around their neck holding them in place to be worked. Doug used what looked like over sized garden shears, in fact Zoe was sure she had used them to do the gardening last time she was here. How Doug managed to chop off the right part of horn I don’t know as they really didn’t like the crush and were trying their best to wriggle out of it. But with a quick chop and a quick snip snip, they were soon back in with their mates, even if they did have a bit of a soar head. We had planned on leaving Middalya that evening but as always the best laid plans go to waste. Darkness had beaten us and we didn’t fancy running the gauntlet of the dirt road in the dark so we stayed another night in the comfort of Middalya. But much to my dismay we still had to leave in the morning. I think I could get used to station life and the peace and quiet.

You can find Middalya on a satellite image like Google Earth at coordinates S26°54’23.7”
E114°46’06.4”

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Photos

Thorney Devil
it is alive

Blow hole
Quobber point blow hole

Quobber
the waves coming in, big swell

Osprey
diong better at fishing than charlie and i

Quobber
Big swells, no surfing here!

lodgers
these little guys wanted to move into jessie. they even flew into the cabin looking to make a nest.

new born
sticking close to its mum

Windmill
Lifeblood of this arid part of Australia

Fossil
One of the many found at fossil creek

Minilya River
Crossing the Minilya River

White Gums
Big White gum trees

I get the buggy
Wow i must get one of these

Dave
Dave on the muster

Muster
Cattle v Buggy

Doug
Rolling a smoke and riding a motorbike

Cattle pen
Doug sorting cattle for market

in the crush
they didn't like it

Pet spider
Golden orb spider just outside the kitchen

Bungarra
a big Goanna