Advertisement
Published: July 19th 2014
First of all, here he is. A photo of Red Dog the Pilbara wanderer. For overseas readers just google that and find out about the little red cattle dog. There is a great Aussie movie about him. He is now an icon in this country. We actually drove an extra 250 kms to get to take our photos because we promised our friend Feral Sheryl we would. She now wants us to go back to the statue and steal it and take it home to Brinkworth so her partner Shane can put it in the lounge!
We mentioned in the last blog we were holed up in Newman. There really was no tourist stuff to do in Newman other than a tour of the iron ore mines. Been there, done that years ago. We both spent the two days washing, cleaning, reading, nattering, eating etc. The caravan park we ended up in commenced it's life as a park for workers but now much better accommodations are available for them. It seemed expensive but we found that the cost per night covered everything, including washing and drying our clothes but best of all unlimited hot, hot water. We ended up in
the camp kitchen having a free BBQ together on our first night there. Very nice. One fellow said to me. I think we have been following you around, you're in the little Tracker aren't you?
Watched the football, unimpressed.
On Monday we headed off to Karajini National Park. GMan and I got there first and paid for both of us go we ended up next to each other in Cockatoo Loop near Dales Gorge. GMan even managed to back into the camp site without hitting anything. My how this park has changed since we were her 24 years ago. No more stark bulldozed parking areas now there are beautifully designed camping areas with real space between sites with good clean loos, free gas BBQ's, specialist generator sites and all separated by native bush.
That evening we headed off to Richard and Gills caravan for an impromptu meal and we hosted them the next night.
On the second morning when we got to the sightseeing. The ways in and out of the gorges have been improved and more improvements are still being completed because a tourist fell over the edge and killed himself. Some of the more
inaccessible areas from 24 years ago are now really easy to get too. We actually climbed in and out of two gorges on the first day of sightseeing, Dales Gorge and Kalamina Gorge.
It was tough going because 24 years later and more kilos than we care to share made it difficult. When we were exiting Dales Gorge we were waving 10 dollar notes to workmen building a new set of stairs for a ride on their elevator. The scenery was as magic as we remembered. Everything from water falls, pools, start rock formations, huge fig trees, ferns, paper barks etc. The one thing that was missing was bird life again.
The road to Kalamina was really bad, very corrugated and our first bad road. Richard and Gill were following in their Ford ute. Once more we headed down into the gorge and by now our thighs and buttocks muscles were telling us they hurt. When we left we decided to head back to the Caravan Park a different way and it was a bit of a cake walk really. However the scenery was worth it, even better than we remember.
There really is no way to
describe the scenery of the gorges, hills and plains of this area. Seeing is believing. Even our photos do not do it justice.
On the road back we came across a couple James and Avery who had a flat tyre on their Station wagon which they had purchased in Perth three weeks ago. When then opened up the area where the lug wrench should be it was missing. Wonderful. This was the most essential tool required for the car. It released the lugs on the wheel, assisted with getting access to the spare tyre and worked the jack. They were stuffed.
Graham's rattle gun and mallet, Richards shovel and jack and we managed to get the wheel changed for them. They rewarded us with two bottles of becks beer and two of 5 seeds cider. Worked for us.
Next day Gills rheumatoid arthritis was playing up and she had swollen knees and ankles and Richard was worried he did not have enough fuel so we headed off by ourselves. We went to Weano gorge, junction pool lookout, Oxer Lookout, Joffre Falls and Knox Gorge. All in all we had a great day just walking about the landscape
and looking at the sights. On thing which we found poignant was a memorial to a volunteer SES worker who died trying to rescue a tourist trapped by a flash flood in Reg Gorge. There are signs every where advising you to be aware of flash flooding when it has rained.
Next we headed off to Tom Price. We needed fuel. Managed to fill up and to get the few groceries we needed before heading back to Karajini. We had left the campground at 8:30am and got back about 4pm. Had drinkies with Richard and Gill before retiring to our van to collapse with exhaustion after dinner. Our drinkies were cups of tea, how pathetic is that. After three days of climbing in and out of gorges our thigh and buttocks muscles were telling us who was in charge, we ached all over and smelled disgusting as there were no showers available and no matter how many times you top and tail it just doesn't get you really spray fresh.
We had been expecting rain all day when touring Weano, Joffre, Knox etc but it didn't happen. Just after we got to bed it started and we had
persistent light rain all night. It just didn't stop. Maybe we should have stood out there with a face washer and shower gel. However the sealing GMan had done of the roof worked and we had no leaks which was a bonus. It was so light it did not manage to remove all the dust from the back of the van simply about 80%, thought BOM says we got 4.5 mils. The Bonus of the rain was that when we headed out next day all the trees and shrubs had all the dust washed off and the bush looked terrific.
As we headed out from Dales Gorge Campground we noticed that there was fog on the top of the hills. As we moved further east it got worse before clearing about an hour later.
Hells bells GMan just looked up the temperature where our friends Shirley and Dave live, it is -.4 c. Get real. It is 8:33 pm here and 19.3 c.
Because of the rain we did not drive down the Wittenoom Road as we wanted to get to Hamersley Gorge and Millstream and Chichester Range national Park but headed off towards Port Hedland on
the tar turned south and headed off towards Dampier.
We ovenighted in a campground at West Peawah River along with another 17 vans. We had one loo to serve us all. A bit crowded. Next morning we were up early and headed off. As we passed Sherlock River we noticed it had lots of water and many black swans swimming about on the surface. All the other rivers/creeks we had passed were dry. Of course we were travelling at a speed which meant that no photos were possible.
I was talking to Big Barb on the phone when I saw some Stuarts Desert Peas on the side of the road and yelled for GMan to stop. It took ages for the message to get through but eventually I managed to get out and hike back 1 km to take a photo. On the road again we came to Karratha which we moved through to go to Dampier to find the Red Dog statue.
On the way GMan missed the road to Dampier and we ended up heading for the Port and Burrup Peninsula. This ended up being a good thing as we passed the turnoff to Hearsons
Cove where Chris camped over 30 years ago with first husband Tom. We went in to discover it is now a very nice day visit site with loos, shade, and lots of rubbish bins. When she was there before the Grey Nomads camping there would clean the area up each week and the locals would come in over the weekend and leave a god awful mess. A 7 day cycle. However it is a beautiful spot.
Followed all the instructions on the net to find Red Dog and missed it completely. Ended up in a Coles Servo to get some fuel and they had no fuel of any sort available at all. Very odd of course it was because we had a discount voucher. Headed off to the information bay to discover where the Reg Dog statue was and guess what, he was in the information bay. Hello, didn't say that on the net.
Took our photos and went back to Karratha to book into a caravan park. The first one was full so headed off to their sister site where we are now parked for two nights.
One of the things which has been interesting has
been we were keeping track of how many Jayco Sterlings were on the road, they were like pimples on a 13 year of pubescent boy last year. This year there have been very few of them. We drove in here and between the front gate and our site we counted 14 of them. GMan thinks it may be the Jayco Sterling graveyard.
There is a Hardly Normal here. Tomorrow we are going to look at Digital SLR cameras. I am shivering in anticipation.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.131s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0744s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Shirley
non-member comment
Snow
It got a lot colder than -4 here in Bathurst. There was actually snow in the village, a very rare thing. we missed the snow because we were in Sydney and coming home was slow because the roads were closed art several places in the Blue Mtns and beyond due to snow and ice. A leisurely brekkie in Glenbrook till the road opened at Katoomba; coffee in Blackheath until the road opened at Yetholme, then home through the snowy hills. I can send photos! it was never below 0 by the time we arrived but still pretty. You are currently in the country we travelled last year on the way to Derby. Very pleasant stuff. Last night we met a couple who lived for 2 years in Derby at the end of the last century (just thought i would get that phrase into this comment - not all that long ago really). Love Graham's shorts. Where are the sandals though?