The road north: Days 1 & 2

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Tuesday the 17th, road trip #2 began. Naturally the packing up took longer than expected, and then I practiced driving a little, and drove us to the pharmacy and post office for international stamps- through very light traffic even. At one point I asked Susan (in some confusion) "Just to make me crazy, that car is parked on the wrong side of the road, right?" which meant, the left side of the road facing me, while I was carefully driving down the left side! She confirmed that I was not losing my marbles! The first leg was Perth to Geraldtown, 424 km. After we left Perth the country was quite flat, but presently we began driving past remarkable sand dunes, considerably inland of the ocean. We passed a small community called Wedge, which formerly was accessed either by boat or 4 WD through the dunes. I thought that their 'Welcome to Wedge' sign included some unique information. The next fascinating sight was an area called the Pinnacles, which has been protected by creating a national park to encompass the remarkable formations. some areas we drove through we're blackened and had clearly had recent bush fires roar through. We witnessed alovely sunset I one such area...finally we reached Geraldtown and in the dark found the Sunset Beach Holiday Park, and settled in for the night to the sound of enormous crashing waves.



Wednesday the 18th: Geraldtown to Carnarvon, 477 km. Susan and I like to stop and read the tourist information signs, and take pictures ( as you have noticed) so we don't travel all that quickly. It took us 7 1/2 hours to complete this leg. The roads are good, 2 lanes only with an occasional overtaking (think 'passing'😉 lane, and narrow shoulders. The soil in general is sandy, and the roads are very red in color. The landscape was changing a lot today as well. The land was rolling hills and an escarpment was visible to the east. I was fascinated by the 'grass' trees. In getting out to photo them I came across kangaroo skeletons. Despite the warning signs, a lot of kangaroos become road kill. The country had become very dry when another change occurred. As we approached Carnarvon things got much greener. Here the Gascoyne River spreads out into a remarkable Delta. The first livestock was sent from Western Australia back to the UK in 1900 from here. I guess previously just bales of wool went. Another reminder of how relatively young WA is. To load up the livestock they built a mile long jetty, which we walked out along to admire the sunset and the incoming tide in the estuary. It felt a little under maintained, but was very picturesque. Anyhow, this Gascoyne River area is the market garden centre of WA and produces most of the fruit and vegetables sold in the state. Much is raised under the cover of huge tent like structures covering hectares and hectares. The following morning we drove a bit on the Gascoyne Food Trail and I admired the tomato, banana and other crops.

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Comments

[sharontaeger]

Thanks again.I love reading about your trip. We head to Camrose today and Fri. to No.Dak.

[Emily]

It's like the stonehenge of the desert!