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Janice and Kevin
Camped next to us for one night at Denham, they are from New ZealandDAY 186
Awake nice and early this morning for moving day, but still did not get out of bed until 7.30, never mind, while Andy got a start on yesterdays blog, I showered and then made the breakfast.
It took us a little while longer to pack this morning, we had the awning up so that needed dismantling and I could not think straight this morning, I don’t know why, I only had one glass of wine last night so that could not have had an affect.
We said our goodbyes to Janice and Kevin; they were heading of towards Geraldton this morning and perhaps a stop at Kalbarri on the way, they were telling us that they had a text from some friends in the South Island of New Zealand and they had a camper van and were so cold their friends husband put his pants on his head when he went to bed to keep warm, We don't know if he had een waring them in the day time.
They are in a Toyota Hiace camper van nice, neat, compact and easy to pack up and go.
We would have been packed up by
9.30 but a lady from a few sites away stopped for a chat, she tells us that they are here for a month, giving us some tips on where might be nice to stop on our way to Darwin, we really are stuck for choice, especially as another chap stopped by early and asked for my map so that he could show us where there is an excellent place to stop and see. Still we will see how time goes. Some people on this site are here for 5 months to escape the cold winter months on the South Coast.
I went to the camp kitchen to make a cup of tea so that we could drink it on the way, by the time I got back Andy had already reversed the Patrol to hook up the trailer, that is usually my job (reversing the Patrol that is), but Andy was ready so did it anyway.
We hit the road at 10.00, another beautiful day here in Denham albeit a little bit cooler than yesterday. We are on our way to Carnarvon today, hopefully we should arrive by mid afternoon, it is a relatively easy run on Highway
The Facts
about Shell Beach and quarrying. 1, when you get to it anyway, there is about 100 kilometres to go before reaching it.
On the way we see a lookout, everything looks different when you travel in the other direction, so we stop to admire the fabulous view, we get the binoculars out to see what birds are sat out on the peninsula. Andy said, I can see Kevin and Janice, it looks like they stopped to do a bit of fishing.
Back in the truck we then stopped at Shell Bay, I wanted to walk onto the beach to see what it was like, you may remember that we wrote about it a couple of days ago, the beach is 120 kilometres of shells up to 10 metres deep in places, no one seems to know why this beach in particular. The beach looks as if it will be quite stunning, however it is worth bearing in mind that this beach is mined for its shells, you are not allowed to remove them from the beach, some say for ecological reasons but the cynics amongst us say that the shells are needed by the mine. They use the crushed shells in paths and
car parks in this area.
The beach is a bit disappointing in a way, it looks as if machinery has stripped the top bare and there are deep furrows that you have to walk through to get to the water, so it is not as spectacular as I thought it would be, however there are millions of tiny little shells, not a big one amongst them.
As we leave we bump into Kevin and Janice, Janice was laughing that they had only done 41 kilometres since they left and it was now 11.00, I think they must have left just after 9.00 this morning, they have also given us their address and telephone number with a promise that we are to look them up when we get chance to head over to New Zealand.
We come up to some roadworks, now the funny thing here is that we barely have to wait one minute before overtaking them, whereas in England the queue would probably stretch a long way and it would take an extra half hour or so to get through.
Once we hit Highway 1, we can speed up a little more. But find that
we are in between a pilot vehicle and two large trucks carrying over size loads. This is not a problem except for the fact that we want to take a picture of the two trucks.
We are soon past the pilot vehicle and someway down the road we pull in and await them to come past, we soon realise that they are coming up fast but we manage to get a good picture, but this has now also put us right behind them, so we are now sitting behind the rear pilot vehicle, but for now we are enjoying the view up ahead, it is quite a novelty.
As we try to take a picture from the rear a hand comes out of the rear pilot and beckons us past, these guys must be taking instructions from the front pilot to say nothing is coming, then for a moment I think, we have to trust these guys that it is safe to overtake. Now, the next bit is not funny because the oversize vehicle hangs well over the other side of the carriageway so Andy now has to pull over as far as he can, keeping up speed
in order to overtake, fortunately we see a long (very long) stretch of clear road ahead of us so we know that we are safe to overtake.
We are ahead and still in the distance we see the pilot vehicle, he is a long way ahead, but no doubt issuing road conditions to the drivers of the trucks and the rear pilot.
After a long while, well it seemed a long while, we come upon Wooramel Roadhouse, time to stop for a breather, by the time I came out of the roadhouse Andy said that the convoy has gone past, but at the speed they were travelling they will be well ahead of us. I was expecting them to stop at this roadhouse, but no. We drove over a bridge over the Wooramel River and it was a huge sandy area with absolutly no water at all, what amazed us was how wide the river would have been if water had been in it.
We are back on the road with only 100 or so kilometres we are now looking at vast open spaces of countryside with the occasional hill or view of the ocean, a sign
Shells
The entire beach consists of these little shells, can be 10 metres deep in places or two pointing out toward distance and isolated homesteads, otherwise nothing.
Except one thing has surprised the both of us, the excessive amount of road kill that we have seen on Highway 1 today, including one huge red kangaroo, I think the largest that we may have seen to date (not seen a live red roo yet!!).
We see some more road kill ahead of us on the side of the road, there is a bird sat on it, when we got closer I suddenly realised that it was a Wedge Tailed Eagle. Too late we have gone past it, however bear in mind you cannot stop that quickly when you are towing a trailer, so we decided that we would have to turn round and go back to get the opportunity. The Eagle was still there, then all of a sudden he took off, we sat quietly and waited hoping that he would return, but nothing so we moved on.
I was gutted another missed opportunity, well we tried and I am even more disappointed because when I read the Travelin Trueys blog I have seen that they have managed to picture a Wedge Tailed Eagle.
On Top
Andy on Shell Beach Next time!
In no time at all we arrive in Carnarvon, suddenly everything looks tropical and green. We arrive at the T Junction to turn left into Carnarvon and we see the convoy have stopped at the roadhouse to fuel up. As we turn left I immediately spot our campsite.
We check in, phew it is hot here. I see the swimming pool, but I know for a fact that the swimming pool is cold, it is winter and the water does not warm up at all despite the temperatures being in the 30’s.
When we checked in Mat the owner said there are some Tawny Frogmouth Owls in the tree near your site, pointing to a cluster on the map. “I suppose Wedge Tailed Eagles would be a bit much to ask for?” I am excited though about the Owls, we have not seen any of these as yet.
It is the usual routine and by 3.30 we are pitched up; all we need to do is pop into town and go to Woolworths for some groceries. Before we go I stand and look up into the trees, I cannot see any owls perhaps they
120 Km
This beach of shells stretches around the coast 120km are out? In Carnarvon we find an interesting little town, seems to have most of what you need except for a large Bunnings but I am sure we can live without that at the moment.
Back at camp we jump out of the truck and I stand and look in the trees, focusing my mind to find the owls and then suddenly I can see one, exceptionally well camouflaged, then not only to I see one, I see two and as I stand and stare I see a third owl.
They don’t even move but every now and again an eye will open slightly as if to say “I know you are there and I am watching you”. If we had not been told they were there we may not have seen them, there build and the colour of their feathers are so well designed to merge into the tree, not only do they look the colour of bark but they actually look like the stub of a branch.
An uneventful evening, after dinner we play cards, of course I annihilated Andy, we then checked on our owls, they had left for the night to go hunting
for lizards and mice.
It was a warm night so we had more of the inner flaps open to let some air through, which was very pleasant.
Finally we just couldn't think of a name for the blog for today, hence its called "No Name"
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