Newman to Karratha

We left Newman for a free camp about 140k north of Newman, an overnight stop before heading off to Karijini National Park. The Park is a bit of a detour off the Northern Highway, but as we had been there before, we couldn't be this close without revisiting the beautiful, rugged and unique landscape.
Camping is strictly controlled in the park, we decided on the "generator section" in case we needed to use the generator to recharge the batteries. This proved to be un-needed as the two solar panels on the roof easily kept the batteries charged and with judicious electrical use, we had a total of 14 nights off power without having to use the generator.The Dales Camp ground is next to the lovely Dales Gorge, there the climb down to the Fortescue Falls and the beautiful Fern Pool is not for the unfit, (you have to get back up again!), but we managed it. Vicki had a swim in the Fern Pool, quietly as to comply with the request of the local indigenous peoples so as not to disturb the ancient beasties that live there.

The Dales Gorge is one of several in the park, cut out of the rock by millennia of water; the gorges are around 50-80 metres deep, some places quite narrow and steep, all hard to climb out of but spectacular as the various sun angles change the colour and shadows of the rocky cliffs.
We spent two nights in Karijini, walking around the second night on the gorge rim, it wrenched my ankle on a loose rock, and this proved to be a problem for the next few weeks.

From Karijini, back to the Northern Highway and a brief stop at Munjina Gorge Lookout; the new highway had to cross through a series of ranges before getting to the northern plains. Munjina Pass is the route through the ranges and the lookout views the most spectacular scenery of where the road wends its way. We also discovered above the lookout, a lovely free camp for next time. After the range crossing, the highway finds us at the Auski Road House, here for a fuel stop; stretch our legs and a bit of lunch. Like Capricorn, the Auski Road House is a hive of industry, trucks caravans and motor homes, mining company vehicles and again, a mining camp of "dongas". There were very few cars on this highway, most small vehicles were utes or 4x4's with mine company signage, campers and rental 4x4's. At one roadside rest area, we pulled in for the usual hourly tyre check, there was a coach stopped just before us and out of it jumped about a dozen blokes who promptly set about relieving themselves, much to the amusement of Vicki following behind. No trees, no privacy and the single dunny just couldn't be waited for.

After one more night free camp, Peawah River on the highway between Port Hedland and Karratha, we neared our destination and arrived around midday on 13^th June, Josh came out to the highway to meet us and guide through the town of Karratha to his house.

The Landcruiser clocked 4090 kilometres towing the van from Napperby, used 961 litres of diesel, (yes, ouch!!!), and took a leisurely month to get here. Now we have parked at Josh and Kendehl's house driveway, we swapped to their spare room and second bathroom and are living in a house again. Young Arthur was very pleased to see "nanna" and especially pleased to be re-united with Elmo, his favourite doll he had left behind. Elmo has plenty to tell him about his wonderful trip across to WA and of all the places he visited along the way.

Plenty to see and do around Karratha-Dampier and we will probably be here a few weeks. Vicki will treasure some time with her son and family and a rest from driving the Hilux ute all the way from Adelaide.

Click the link below to view some photos

https://picasaweb.google.com/108879761974384702036/NewmanToKarratha?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCIPb49PimbmYSQ&feat=directlink.

Lake Nallan to Newman

Lake Nallan proved to be a haven from the strong winds blowing from the north, fuel consumption is bad enough in the Landcruiser without battling head winds. The Great Northern Highway, from Perth to Port Hedland has to be one of the busiest highways in outback Australia. The road is in good condition and a tribute to WA transport, noticeably better than many of the roads that we travelled over the east. Just look at the map of WA to see how remote the route of this highway is. Most of the vehicles travelling north were road trains carrying machinery to support the enormous mining industry. Most of the road trains heading south were empty, going back for more freight. Many vehicles were wide loads, the wider ones up to 8 metres wide. These had special escort vehicles and the UHF CB in our vehicles proved to be greatly beneficial, channel 40 being the communication to truckies, road workers and fellow caravanners who saw sense and ignored the recommended ch 18.

A free camp at Gascoyne River, Middle Branch gave us a couple of days respite again. The Gascoyne is a huge seasonal river system having three main branches where it crosses into inland WA. Runs all the way west to near Carnarvon on the coast, it had recently been in flood. Several nice billabongs, (water holes) remained and were home to myriads of birds, parrots, raptors, wrens and finches, a bird-watchers heaven. We even saw fish in the pools, amazing this Australia, no water for years but when it does come, the fish and shrimps and yabbies are there.
The camp at Gascoyne River, is at least 200k south of the next city of Newman, we were then amazed to find that we had a good Telstra phone signal and were able, here in the middle of the WA outback, able to use the Internet better than we could when we lived 20k from the city centre. This proved to be an example of the side effects of the spread of mining camps across the country.

From Gascoyne, still heading northwards, we arrived at the Tropic of Capricorn. It was starting to warm up and a complete change in the country side. At the Tropic Of Capricorn, some 20-odd k south of Newman is the Capricorn Road-House or Cappies as the truckies were calling it. This place has to be the busiest road-house in the country, dozens of road-trains were there, pulling in or heading out, an amazing insight as to how much freight is being carried by road to the resource hungry mining industry of the north-west. Next to the roadhouse was a large camp of typical "dongas" small two or four room accommodation for the fly-in-fly out (FIFO) mine workers. The comings and goings around Capricorn seemed quite extraordinary after all the kilometres of seemingly empty country that we had passed.

Newman
Newman is one of the oldest iron ore mining regions in Australia, indeed, Mt Newman was well know when I first arrived in Australia in 1964. Along with Mt Tom Price, the region has the richest deposits of iron-ore in the world. Newman ore lode has been assayed as up to 60% plus iron, many of Australia's big money men have been made their fortunes up here in the region called the Pilbara. Iron ore is transported by privately owned freight trains. These trains are over 2 kilometres long, thousands of tonnes of ore trained to Port Hedland for shipping to China and other overseas buyers. Tom Price ore is trained to Dampier, again to be shipped off around the world. One story that we heard was that the Queen owns substantial private shares in the Iron Ore mining industry in Australia.

At Newman, we drove up from the visitor information centre to the look-out above the town; it was easy to see the expansion since we were last here in 2006. And busy? Definitely not a quiet outback town is Newman but could be a good base to stop at to explore a fair bit of the outback.

At the visitor information centre, the town had considerately provided for caravanners, a toilet dump point and a tap to re-fill our water tanks, as we were going to be camping again for the next four nights, this was very handy.

Click on the link below to view some photos.

https://picasaweb.google.com/108879761974384702036/LakeNallanToNewman?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKagybrKm_bqVQ&feat=directlink

Leonora, Home of the Golden Gift

We had three days stop-over at Leonora, another old gold-mining service centre, the city stands today as a major supply base for several mines around the area, busy FIFO airport, busy cross roads where mining trucks and mine supply vehicles hold sway. What could have been average stay, we happened to have arrived at the weekend of the first Sunday in June, Western Australia Foundation Day, Leonora was about to be invaded by cyclists and athletes from all over Australia.
First, the Leonora Golden Gift, a foot race around the main street with several thousand dollars of prizes, apparently has a long history and attracts runners from all over. Just so happens that we were able to watch two of Australia's Olympic hopefuls, cross the line to take out both the male and female first places. Hopefully it was a fine lead up to London for both.

The other event is relatively new, only been going a few years, a cycling classic race. Originally a race from Kalgoorlie to Menzies, the race has been extended to take in a second day for the ride from Menzies to Leonora. Again, entrants from all over Australia cycled the 140-odd k for a prize and personal achievement. From the commentary as the peloton arrived in town, local riders didn't disappoint. The final sprint around town was quite exciting, to see that the athletes were able to find reserves of power for the final few hundred metres after the long climb from Menzies. A fun weekend, busy in town, we were camped at the town sports ground, a great view of the Saturday night fireworks and far enough away from the music to be able to hear in a more comfortable environment.

Leinster-Mt Magnet
Our next phase of our tandem drive north was first to Leinster, a purpose built modern small township that serves a local mineral mining community. Visit to the shop and top up fuel, a nice little place that seems quite welcoming to travellers. Fuel had to be obtained from a self serve, card in the slot servo. Bad luck if you needed fuel on a public holiday without a credit card, but handy for us, cheaper than we were likely to get for a while.

We next free camped west from Leinster at a nice stop-over, Peter Denny Lookout. This camp site has a lovely aspect over the break-a-ways, coloured craggy cliffs where weather and water has eroded the land creating a spectacular amphitheatre with view across the vast outback WA. Kangaroos grazed below as we watch again, a spectacular sunset to be followed by brilliant star-studded night, the "clouds" of the Milky Way clearly visible above. We observed a man-made satellite passing overhead, the third night running and we wondered if it was the International Space Station.

Next morning, further westwards to the small town of Sandstone, this proved to be a bit of a surprise place. Again, built around the gold rush days and early pastoral settlement, there was a good exhibition of historical photographs and paraphernalia of old. Included was an interesting article about a famous murder mystery which involved the author of the well known Detective Bonaparte novels. (Arthur Upfield). Not the author doing the deed, but someone who apparently heard him explaining how to get rid of dead bodies in one of his novels. The alleged murder was suspected of several killings, disposing of the bodies in a fire mixed with animal bones to cover up the deaths. The man was caught out, tried and eventually hanged in WA. This could well be a good example of the old adage of truth being stranger than fiction.

Further westwards, along a good sealed road, we arrived around mid afternoon at Mount Magnet, the junction of the Great Northern Highway. Had a quick visit to the information centre to suss out some of the mining and pastoral history and considered our next stop for the night.

Lake Nallan, about 40k north allowed for two days camping. We had stayed here before in 2006 and the lake had been full, not so today, a small lake at the camping end was all that remained. Inhabited by 5 black swans, several pelicans, numerous other water birds, we couldn't work out what they fed on as there was no sign of fish or shrimp. One unique resident was a single Australian Bustard; shy, he kept away from our side of the lake.

Click on the link below to view some more photos.

https://picasaweb.google.com/108879761974384702036/KalgoorlieToLeonora?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCML8_ab8qKCdfg&feat=directlink

 

Smoky Bay to Norseman

On a foggy morning, we agreed to get going to Ceduna and start our trip across the Nullarbor, taking advantage of a three day good weather forecast. A refuel stop at Ceduna and we were on our way across one of the worlds famous "drives". As this was our second trip from East to West, the road ahead didn't hold as much apprehension for us as before. Having done the trip both ways in 2006, it was now a bit hum-drum. The biggest worry was, and proved to be, the high cost of fuel.
We passed through Penong, famous for windmills; we didn't think that there were as many to be counted as last time. Looking at our 2006 photos, this seems to be the case. As many were dilapidated, they have either fallen down or been dismantled.

The start of the Nullarbor (no trees) is close to the Head of the Bight, a popular whale watching location but a bit early for them. However, along the way, talking to a truck driver on the CB, he could see a pair of whales from his cab; he was sitting a bit higher than us so we missed them.
We also found that several of the cliff top look-outs between Nullarbor Road House and the SA-WA Border have been closed since we last crossed, environment concerns for where the jagged 90 metre high cliffs plunge straight down to the Southern Ocean have led to restrictions of access.

After one night camp, we passed through the Border Village into Western Australia, a photo stop at the roadhouse, a final quarantine check; we reset the clocks to eastern WA time and set off for Mundrabilla, our next refuelling stop.

A near disaster, close to empty on one tank in the Landcruiser, pulled into the servo only to find out that the roadhouse had run out of diesel. Due to a major truck blitz by WA police and Road Transport Authority, Mundrabilla had a queue of road-trains that were having a "forced" rest period; they had caused a major run on the supplies. So our next refuelling stop, about 140-odd Kilometres away, Madura Pass. Just so happens, this was the dearest diesel on the route, $1:97 c/l, over $260 to refuel, ouch!

After another night camp, we travelled the "Longest Straight in Australia" (145.6K, 90 miles) to Balladonia, famous for its "Sky-Lab" exhibit, and then on to Norseman.

Norseman doesn't hold any attractions for us so after a fuel stop, a visit to the tourist centre, we headed north towards Kalgoorlie and another overnight free camp 12k away.

Click on the link below to view some photos.
https://picasaweb.google.com/108879761974384702036/SmokyBayToNorseman?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCNnasbmH3qzZGQ&feat=directlink