Carnarvon (three times) and all the places in between…

We have spent much of the time since our last update out of Internet range and over the last month we have seen amazing places, done exciting things and made some great friends.  We used Carnarvon as a base for a couple of side trips and also as a stop to get some things done on the car.

Our first 2 days in Carnarvon were spent on car maintenance.  Some really poor advice from the guy who did all our 4WD setup in Melbourne ended up resulting in a $275 labour bill from AutoPro for removing our long range fuel tank to fix something that turned out to be working normally.  GRRR!  

The highlight of our first day here was Ben making friends with the little girl in the caravan across from our site.  Her name is Jamie and it was a case of love at first sight.  Jamie’s 8yo sister joined in and we met her parents and older brother too.  They are also from Melbourne and are doing a round trip with their van like us.  They have a badass 4WD truck to pull their van though, which means they can take heaps of stuff (necessary with 3 kids!), carry their boat on the roof and pull the van places that even a 4WD car might not.

  

Carnarvon has a ‘One Mile Jetty’ with a small tourist train which sounded similar to the one we saw in Busselton so we went to visit it late in the afternoon after we had pried Ben and Jamie apart.  I’d bought a new fishing rod that day and the guy in the shop said that there is great fishing from the end of the jetty so we wanted to check it out to see if I would venture down there later in the week.  Wow – chalk and cheese.  The Carnarvon jetty is in serious need of a makeover and is nothing at all like the one in Busselton.   It should be called the ‘One Mile Jetty of Death’.  We are actually amazed that they let people walk on it, let alone run a train down there.  There are missing boards, lifted boards that try to trip you every second step and a handrail only down one side.  When we went the wind was crazy and it was getting dark quickly so Ben and Jenny only walked the first 100m or so before turning back.  I really wanted to see this mythical fishing spot at the end so I held my shirt down, ducked my head against the gale and walked carefully the length of the jetty.  I made it almost to the end but was stopped by a large fence which sectioned off the burnt out pavilion that was once the end of the jetty.  I saw three or four groups of people fishing and nobody had caught anything so I was kind of relieved to mentally cross that place off my ‘great places to fish’ list.  It was almost full dark by the time I turned back and of course, there was no lighting so I had to carefully place every step so as not to trip and tumble over the side into the surging swell.

That evening we went to a Hot Rock Restaurant recommended by Jamie’s Mum, Rachel.  It was an early birthday dinner as we are trying not to eat out too much as it gets really expensive.  The next few days were spent fixing the car’s dual battery system (we have had to tweak it or change out components several times now and it’s still got issues) and preparing for some time in the tent in nearby National Parks.  Ben and Jamie played whenever they could and we were really pleased to get along so well with her folks Rachel and Simon.

 

Kennedy Range National Park

My birthday was supposed to involve a lovely drive to the Kennedy Range National Park and two nights of blissful camping in the great outdoors.  We planned to walk beautiful gorges and see spectacular starry skies away from the lights of the city.  We left the van at the caravan park (Outback Oasis – the owner Denis is a great guy and offered to look after it for free) and set of for Gascoyne Junction and then onto the road into Kennedy Range NP.  It was a HOT day.  By the time we got to Gascoyne Junction for a rest stop and cool drink it was 39 degrees outside and we were seriously considering pitching the tent in the tourist park at Gascoyne Junction because it had a pool.  When we arrived though, we saw the campground had no shade at all, it was essentially an empty carpark with a toilet block in the middle and it was uninviting.  At least in the NP we would probably be able to find some shade.  We continued on and drove through the lovely NP to the campsite.  We were surrounded by beautiful red rock gorges and there were dirt roads with random cows wandering across the road in front of us.

Mooooooove along cows!

We arrived at the Temple Gorge campsite and got out of the car to pitch the tent.  Two things instantly overwhelmed us.  The heat – still 40ish degrees and the flies. My God, the flies!  We have both been to Kings Canyon, where the flies are horrendous and you definitely need fly nets to be able to do anything so our fly tolerance bars are set pretty high.  But these Kennedy Range flies make the Kings Canyon flies seem disinterested and neglectful.  They are relentless, unmoved by arm waving and are masters of infiltration.  Despite fly nets covering our heads, they managed to work their way in and buzz around our faces, in our ears and all over our bodies.  Pitching the tent was a nightmare and as dusk fell the buzzing flies seemed to start biting.  Then we realised that the mozzies had come out to play as well and being outside became impossible.   As a result, our planned birthday BBQ dinner ended up being birthday vegemite and cheese sandwiches sitting on the floor in the tent.  Ben went to sleep and it was about 9pm before all the insects finally left and we were able to sit outside for a short time enjoying the view of the milky way and all the bright stars.  The temperature dropped to an uncomfortable 30ish overnight and nobody slept very well.  (I bought my sleeping bag many years ago prior to camping in the south of Chile and it is rated for Everest temperatures.  Needless to say, it was an inappropriate choice for this trip!)  

Nice campsite, horrible insects.

We woke the next morning to find that the flies also start early and very little conversation was needed to decide that we were not staying there a second night.  We packed up and went walking through Draper and Honeycomb Gorges before heading back to Carnarvon again. We should say that we enjoyed the views at Kennedy Ranges National Park, but would recommend others to only do a day trip; or at least be very prepared for horrendous insect activity if they do want to camp there.

Carnarvon (again)

We spent the next few days sorting out more dual battery issues (we decided to order a solar panel to help keep the battery charged) and getting ready for a week of tent camping at Red Bluff (Quobba Station) and 3 Mile (Gnaraloo Station), which are part of working stations just north of Carnarvon.  They have beachfront campsites that you can stay in and are right next to the Ningaloo Reef.  Simon, Rachel and the kids were also heading to Red Bluff so Ben and Jamie were ecstatic that they wouldn’t have to be separated for long. 

Our brief tent experience at Kennedy Range had shown us that we needed to pack much better (or take less) so we experimented with various configurations and settled on a much better setup with more gear on the roof racks.  

Red Bluff and 3 Mile

 

We drove out to Quobba Station and stayed at their campground at Red Bluff.  It is awesome.  It has beachfront campsites and really nice drop toilets.  We’ve been to enough hideous loos to appreciate great ones when we see them, and these deserve a mention.   

When we arrived we immediately saw Simon and Rachel’s truck and van parked in prime position on top of a cliff overlooking the beach.  It is all dirt road and corrugations coming into Red Bluff and we had to bounce our way to them up and down over rocks.  God knows how they got their van up there in one piece.  We looked for a camp spot near them but the ground was rocky and uneven so we did a lap of the whole place and found a nice flat campsite right next to the beach with only one caravan between us and the water.  The only drawback of the site, and perhaps why it was vacant, was the insanely hard ground.   It was hellishly windy and getting the tent up was hard enough without our tent pegs being unable to penetrate more than a couple of centimetres into the earth.  Perhaps we should have taken the hint from the fireplace full of bent metal pegs.  It was like a tent peg shrine. 

Luckily we have some pretty heavy duty pegs and a big hammer and with much pain and one badly bruised thumb Jenny was eventually able to secure the critical points of the tent.  We ended up having to move some heavy rocks around and tie guy ropes to them and even used the car as an anchor point.

Thankfully, Rachel had said Ben could hang out with them while we got set up and it was a good 2 hours until we got back there to pick him up.

Our Red Bluff campsite

We spent four nights at Red Bluff and loved every second of it.  We met the people camped in front of us in their caravan – Ross, Barbara and their 10yo son Daniel.  They are great and also from Melbourne.  Like us (and Simon and Rachel), they are on a big lap in their van and we would no doubt continue to bump each other.

Red Bluff sunset

We spent a lot of time with Simon, Rachel and the kids.  Simon and their son Logan are keen fishermen so we fished together a bit off the rocks (without much success) and they were kind enough to take me out with them in their boat.  That was an experience!  I got to be captain for an exciting and fairly nerve wracking hour.  We’d backed the boat down onto the beach with their truck and then with the help of some kindly passers-by, pushed the trailer down to the water where Simon had jumped on board and zoomed out past the breaking waves while Logan and I waited on the beach.  He then waved at me indicating that I should swim out to the boat so in I went.  Thanks to lack of experience, slippery sunscreen on my hands and obviously very crappy upper body strength, my transition from the water up and into the boat was less than graceful and it is something I hope never to repeat.  Ever.

As I sat there in the boat with Simon, watching Logan on the beach I thought “Oh, how are the trailer and truck going to get off the beach?” Before I could take a breath to ask that question out loud Simon told me to take the tiller (the handle part of the outboard motor that you push to steer) and just drive around in circles while he swam back to move the truck.  I told him I’d never done that before, in fact never been in a boat that size before and had no idea what to do.  He gave me a quick “push this way to go right, this way to go left” lesson and said “you’ll be fine. I’ll be back soon” and promptly dove overboard.   It was a case of “learn to steer or hit those rocks” or  “learn to steer or end up half way to Africa”.  So, I learned quickly to do figure 8s in the boat.  I hoped it wouldn’t stall as I didn’t really know how to re-start it and didn’t think Simon would appreciate me abandoning ship and swimming back to shore to ask him.  I also hoped that he wouldn’t be long as the swell and wind was starting to pick up a bit.  I looked to shore, expecting to see some movement from the truck and that’s when I noticed that the truck was bogged.  

Simon and Logan were trying to dig it out and luckily someone with a 4WD was there to try to pull them up the beach.  Still, it took time.  It was a very long hour.  Eventually they got the truck out and while Simon drove it back to their campsite, Logan swam out to the boat.  We drove over to the rocks, managing not to crash into them and Simon swam out from there to take over.  We headed out fishing but aside from one small one, were again unsuccessful.

There is a beach hut café at Red Bluff that is renowned for its smoothies.  We tried them out and they are indeed worthy of their reputation.  We also saw a sign informing us that Saturday night is Pizza night and although we first thought that we would save the money and eat the food that we took with us, it became clear that everyone in the campground was attending and it would be lots of fun.  We all met up and placed our orders, hoping that it was going to be worth the $22 per pizza.  It absolutely was.  It ended up being one of the highlights of the trip so far, with great company, great food, amazingly clear skies full of brightly twinkling stars and the sound of waves crashing in the dark.  Ben and Jamie were exploring and pretending to find snakes.  After they squealed and yelled “Snake!” the first time, I explained that they shouldn’t do that in a place where there are actually quite a lot of snakes, so they cleverly changed the game and continued on, squealing and yelling “Pretend snake!” thereafter.

LONELY SHOE MIRACLE!

The first day we arrived, I noticed that Jamie’s sister Shayla only had one pink boat shoe.  She explained that the other one had come off and washed out to sea the day before.  She had looked everywhere and hadn’t been able to find it.  I told her about the Lonely Shoe Project and that I would try to find her Lonely Shoe a partner while we travelled.

Four days later, I was walking up the beach back to our campsite which was around 500m from theirs when I looked up onto the sand dune to see a single pink boat shoe!  It was the missing shoe, obviously washed back in on a high tide.  I took it back to her and we reunited the two Lonely Shoes – our first ever perfect match!

Two lonely shoes - reunited!

After 4 nights, we sadly left Red Bluff and headed further up the coast to Gnaraloo Station and their 3 Mile campsite.  We would have stayed at Red Bluff for a lot longer if we could have but we had a 2 night booking at 3 Mile that couldn’t be changed.  We expected big things of 3 Mile as it was twice the price of Red Bluff.  It supposedly had hot showers and when I booked it the lady said she had given us a prime spot.  3 Mile is nice, the views out over the ocean are awesome and although the showers were not working the day we arrived, they did work the second day.  The spot she put us in was super windy though and we had another nightmare hour or so putting the tent up and keeping it there.  It kept bending over in half and we had to climb inside and open all the windows so that the wind would pass through it and be less likely to flatten it.   There was also no shade and it was a bit of a hike to get down to the beach.  All that said, sunset and sunrise were pretty great.

3 Mile Sunset (and bathers!)

3 Mile Sunrise

We snorkelled and swam over a huge flathead looking fish that was about a metre long and had a massive wide head with a beard all around it.  It was well camouflaged and Jenny was about a foot above it before she noticed it and got a big surprise.  I went over for a look too and neither of us had a clue what it was.  We asked everyone we saw for the next 2 days until we saw a fish book in the café at 3 Mile and worked out that it was Wobbegong Shark.  Whilst at 3 Mile we also took a quick day trip further up the coast to Gnaraloo Bay where we met more Victorians – Mark and Fiona with their 2 girls. They too are doing a lap but are in a camper trailer not a van.  Overall, 3 Mile was ok but we wouldn’t stay there again.  We spent the 3 days wishing we were back at Red Bluff.

Ben and Jenny doing handstands at beautiful Gnaraloo Bay

On the way back to the van we stopped at the Quobba Blowholes which are natural holes in the rock that spurt great streams of water up into the air when the waves hit them.  They put on a good show for us and they were really impressive.

Thar she blows!

Carnarvon (again)

We headed back to Carnarvon again to find Simon, Rachel and the kids were also back at the original caravan park getting ready to leave on the next leg of their trip.  The kids nearly lost their minds with happiness and had a quick play before they set off.  We spent a couple of days washing, stocking up and fitting a solar panel to the roof of the car in order to boost the rear battery as we were still having issues with the dual battery system.  It was a real Frankenstein system by then as we had replaced, added and re-wired nearly all of the original components. Jenny had to fit the solar panel to the roof racks herself and it was much harder than she anticipated, she ended up spending three hours working in the sun in the carpark at the front of Carnarvon auto-electrics to get the thing attached.  Unfortunately as she was looking at the dual battery system, one of the main wires fell out of it's rather pathetic crimp - it turns out that TJM in Adelaide hadn't soldered the connection. She also noticed that an important wire that she suspected our car would need was not even connected; Jenny was furious! We asked Carnarvon auto-electrics to fix the connection (with solder) and to connect the solar panels to our regulator. They didn't have time to connect the last wire but they thought it may not matter. We hoped this last addition would do the trick as we can’t afford to have the fridge turning off overnight and spoiling all our food when we are camping without the van. We were keen to get going so packed up ready to head north.