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Published: August 23rd 2011
Scavenger!
Finding an old Toyota wreck, Jeff thought he'd see if anything was salvageable...only after we checked for survivors of course!After a brief stopover over night at Gladstone Lookout (a popular spot thanks to the “Camps” book – there were about 15 vans/campers on top of the hill!) we arrived in Carnarvon on the Friday, promptly noticing a blackboard on the way in promoting Carnarvon races the next day – you beauty! Not to mention the weekly markets were on Saturday morning too. So we went for a long walk via the old tramway out to the port precinct, worked up a thirst and had a coldie & shared a burger on the balcony of Carnarvon pub. Not needing a refill or to do any washing, the nearest freedom camp was about 20 mins back outta town, so we crashed there for the night then headed back in the next morning.
The markets were really cool, we stocked up on fruit & veg, grabbed a coffee & snag in bread for breaky & headed out to the racecourse for an afternoon of betting & belching. Boris had prime view watching each race come in, however once we had paid to go in the gate (and of course have access to the bar!) we had to stay in the grounds. We
Shothole Canyon
Cape Range NP, near Exmouth managed to have a few good wins, a few losses and just about broke even (except for personal bar expenditure!) and had an awesome day hanging out with all the cowboys!
We secretly hoped that no-one would care if we slept the night in the races carpark, and after lying low for a couple of hours while the carpark emptied, not a soul bothered us and we slept soundly till daybreak. Mission accomplished!
We did the usual when we hit a big town, refueled the bus, the pantry & the fridge and headed off inland to Gascoyne Junction, on our way to the Kennedy Ranges. We had heard all the roads had re-opened since we had been rained in so we were stoked to be able to get in there. After passing through the flood-devestated town of Gascoyne Junction (practically a ghost town since Feb), we hit the corrugated and rocky road to the ranges, stopping overnight at a diggings not far off the track. Jeff had his ultimate dream at this spot…his very own MotoX track in his own backyard! He spent sometime giving Daz a good burst, awesome!
Once in the Kennedy’s we enjoyed several
beautiful walks, a pre-sunrise bike ride to catch the best view, the only thing that ruined it for us was the bloody school holidays! Snotty kids everywhere! Needless to say, we limited our stay to one night, but enjoyed the scenery immensely.
Now it was time to make the decision…do we stick to the track and rough out another 290km of dry, dirty, corrugated track to reach our goal of Mt Augustus? YEAH! Soooooo, nine and a half hours later we pulled almost into our destination, tired, rattled to the bone & hungry. This day, we only had about 30km to go til Mt Augustus, but after 9 hours on the road & considering it was after 7pm , we pulled into Emu Hill Lookout (naughty, no camping allowed!), had a tuna sandwich (boring!) and slept soundly til morning. Well, what a view! An early morning walk with the mogs, overlooking superb Mt Augustus in the orange light, it made all the rattle & shake seem worthwhile indeed.
We decided to stay 2 nights at Augustus Station, Jeff spent the first day patching up some notable “dust portals” we detected on our dusty trail, while Tab washed out
chimney from hell
camp at Rocky Pool all the bedding as we’d not shut one of the windows properly upon leaving Kennedy’s and had a sizeable layer of bulldust coating the whole bed! Until we opened the cutlery drawer…….(see pictures).
That arvo we boarded Daz and went on an expedition to see some Aboriginal rock carvings around the base of Augustus and enjoyed a quick spin along the “Loop Track”that does the 49km baseline of the rock. Mt Augustus, known as “The Largest Rock in the World” (true) is a Monocline (for all you google-geeks) and is twice the size of Uluru, rising 730mt above the surrounding plain (maybe about 1200mt above sea-level?? Go on, Google it!) and on the second day we undertook the big one, the Summit Trail. 6km up, 6km back, all signs saying “Allow 6 Hours”. Armed with a belly full of porridge & strong coffee, a stack of egg & lettuce sangas in the backpack (at least if we ran out of puff a bit of man-made wind might give us a push up-hill!) we started the trek about 7.30am. We are proud to report we only took 1.5hrs getting to the top and surprisingly about 2hrs back down, so all
that hiking must be paying off! Back to camp for a few well earned bevvies!
It was at the shop there that Jeff first noticed a sign in the window asking for a couple to do some caretaking at a nearby station for about a week. We gave them a call and got the job, heading off to Mt Philip station, about 1.5hrs south of Augustus. There we met Pat (nearly 80y.o) who had been knocked down by their ram and had a broken hand. This tough old chick had been working the station all on her own since the accident in April, so we helped her out with a few of the bigger jobs (cleaning gutters on the homestead, mowing lawns etc) and Jeff serviced all the mowers etc. We also headed off each day on the “mill run”, jumping in the 4WD to check on all the windmills, clean out the cow troughs and do any running repairs. In the end we only spent 5 days on the station (due to one of the dogs being a certified cat-killer, made us a bit wary!) but a great experience indeed.
The day we left Mt Philip we
called into the other station owned by the same family “Yinnetharra Station” and had a quick bite of lunch with the other couple caretaking that property, John & Rik. They had been there about two weeks, so Jeff got a bit of welding done that we needed, and also welded up John’s caravan so that was great for both.
Onwards to a beaut spot just outside of Carnarvon called Rocky Pool, where we chilled out for 3 nights, swimming during the day, awesome campfire at night. Tab has been working on perfecting damper, and our stop here was one of the top ones yet! With departure day, being a Saturday, we decided to hit up the markets and restock with local fruit & veg, do a shop & restock the minibar before heading north again. We had also busted a tyre on our way to Augustus so we dropped that in for repair too.
After leaving Carnarvon we headed out to Miaboolya Beach to do a spot of fishing in the estuaries – forget the fish! Jeff was pulling in the biggest mudcrabs right off his fishing line! Needless to say we cooked those babies up that night
with a garlic, chilli & tomato sauce on fettucini…YUM!
Heading north we called in at the Blowholes on our way to Quobba Station, and possibly up to Gnarloo Station, however the road was really really corrugated so we just went to Quobba, asked about work (none) and headed back out to the main highway. The day turned out to be incredibly windy so just when Jeff said “we need to find some rocks to camp behind” lo and behold a rock formation appeared on the left, so we tucked in behind and spent the next 3 nights in a fab little spot! Not a soul knew we were there, except when we climbed up onto the rock each morning to welcome the sunrise, we are sure the truckies would have been able to see us from the highway!
With Exmouth & Cape Range NP in our sights we made a quick stop overnight by the Minilya River and arrived in Learmonth, promptly finding a free camp tucked in behind some trees on the road in to Exmouth. We had been warned of how busy Exmouth was, but we were shocked at the amount of nomads nonetheless! Each morning
crew would line up in the vans across the road from the caravan parks (there were about 3 parks) and as 1 lot left, another would drive in! Same with Cape Range NP, with about 7 different camp areas to choose from, all were full, so all we could do was go in there for the day and do some beautiful walks, then drive back out again. Not our idea of fun being that busy, so we went to see all the stuff we were interested in and high-tailed it outta there asap!
We had heard about the good fishing at the next town up called Onslow, where we definitely went “on slow”! We grabbed a bit of food in the town and headed out to Three Mile Pool for the next few nights, just chilling by the water. Met a lovely couple George & Kay, who, after a rocky start to the friendship (Jeff went over to complain about their generator that was going quite late at night!) became kindred spirits in no time. Hello to you both and welcome to our blog, hope to see you both on the road sometime again! Funnily enough, the day they
left, a family with 3 screaming kids went into their spot, so we promptly texted them and asked them to come back with the geni!!
Driving back into Onslow after a few days, reality struck that we really should think about getting some work sometime soon, so we called into the caravan park in town (none) and then out to the other park who said they’d be able to offer us both work, but that we couldn’t start for at least another few days. That was fine with us, we had our daily walks along the beach to the awesome little pub for a pint, afternoons fishing and relaxing with some great local seafood. Then one morning a guy named Fred turns up at our camp saying he heard Jeff was a mechanic and there might be some work for him at a nearby Station. We weren’t sure about work for Tab but thought it was worth a phone call anyway. The next night we had the pleasure of having the most unusual & relaxed job interview in history! We were out fishing on the rock wall when Station Manager Roy pulls up in his landcruiser, tells us a
bit about the place, tries to make sure we are not suss or drug-addicts, and then next day we drove out to the station! The rest, as they say is history, we started work the following day and have just finished our first week of work in nearly 3 months!
Jeff is in the “man cave”(shed) as workshop guy/right hand man to Roy, and Tab is in the “lady cave”(kitchen) as kitchen-hand to Roy’s wife Kath – both jobs we are absolutely suited to and are thoroughly enjoying. We have been offered about another 4-5 weeks of full on work, and then see what’s happening around the place then. Currently there are about 50 guys here, some contract carpenters fixing the homestead….will keep you posted on how things go xo
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