My guide book advised that it was a long journey from Denham to Carnarvon. That didn’t make a lot of sense at the time, as it’s only 3.5 hours which isn’t a long drive out here. However, as soon as I exited the national park I got what he meant. Miles of nothing. The only respite on the first day were herds of wild goats roaming around. Carnarvon to Exmouth was the same except we got some termite mounds to look at as well.
Carnarvon is the home of orchards and nurseries growing a lot of the fresh produce for the west coast. I was finding that hard to believe driving through the desert into town, however it is on the mouth of the Gascoyne river which they use to irrigate the crops. No water is wasted around town or at the caravan park though, where there’s not a blade of grass to be seen. There’s a lovely walkway along the waterfront, which has plaques for each of the service personnel lost in the sinking of HMAS Sydney – it goes for a couple of km’s which some nice seats on artificial grass
Carnarvon is also the major commercial Centre in this neighborhood, so I was able to get my new wipers and replace some other essential supplies at BWS. I’m now at Exmouth – the eclipse capital. The first thing that happened here was my back of van air con died (is demanding coolant). Now, after talking to Val yesterday who was sitting at home with the heater running, I understand that you might not think a broken air con is a big deal. However it was 35 degrees and humid when I arrived. I spent the first day hanging around the pool and I’ve upgraded to a cabin for my last couple of days here. I’m in Broome in a weeks time for 10 days, so I’ll have a go at getting it repaired there.
Yesterday I went snorkeling out at Ningaloo reef ( happily I didn’t hear about the kid being bitten by a shark in same area until l got home). There were 7 of us on a glass bottomed boat which pottered around the lagoon checking out sea life and reef before 3 of us went snorkeling. I was a bit worried because the other 2 were making themselves out as experts. They’d been swimming with whale sharks a couple of days earlier and brought along their own snorkeling gear. Anyway I grabbed some snorkeling gear, a noodle and my go pro and noodled around having a great time. I’m taking advantage of the decent Wi-Fi in my cabin to include a clip from my first underwater video.
Btw – the other pair were hopeless. Ended up hanging onto a floaty and being towed around by the guide. Tomorrow I’m,on the road again. One detour to Onslow before getting serious about getting to Broome. I’ve been on the road for 5 weeks now, and I’m still over 13 hours away. I’m not sure why I decided to detour to Onslow. I see my caravan park is on the beach and has a pub next door, so I’m guessing that was it. All the best to everyone.
Round about 