Monday 17th August
We left Point Samson and The Cove Caravan Park in reasonable time as we knew we had to do a free camp on route to Exmouth. Helen has family in Karratha who she has never met, Catrina is Helen's 2nd cousin and they communicate through Facebook. Unfortunately Catrina and family were away in Geraldton so it wasn't to be! But, thank goodness for the dreaded internet we realised that Catrina and family were travelling north as we were travelling south on the same highway the North West Coastal Highway, and on the same day... Communication was done while travelling and lo and behold we arranged to stop at a large area at the turnoff to Onslow. We pulled in and made ourselves a coffee and waited, we were soon joined by another caravan that had pulled off from our Park before we did. The lady, immediately approached Helen and said "she was sorry that we had never spoken to each other at Point Samson" very strange but she was very upset about her little dog that wasn't very well. Helen was very sympathetic!!
Along came a vehicle and trailer that we recognised to be Catrina, Les, Chris and Matthew with their two little dogs...
It was quite surreal meeting this lovely lady and her family in the middle of nowhere. Catrina was a little confused as to our family relationship, Helen brought Catrina up to scratch and told her that she (Catrina) was a little girl when Helen's parents met her in 1976/77 out somewhere around Drummond Cove, when Helen's parents visited Australia. Catrina's grandfather is Helen's father's brother....work that one out folks!!! We spent about half an hour chatting before we waved them off and we travelled on to our overnight stop at a free camp called Barradale.
After leaving the meeting spot we need to fuel up again and of course we had to called in to the Nanutarra Roadhouse, that we visited in August 2007, well, there is another story I could tell, but no I won't. The roadhouse was under new management and I must say looked a lot cleaner than I remember from 2007. Our overnight stop was extremely good, with lots and lots of Grey Nomads parked up, as usual the next morning we awoke to find many had left.
We were excited and so looking forward to staying at the Ningaloo Lighthouse Caravan Park for a week. We had heard lots of stories about the area being out of action from the Cyclone which hit at the end of April this year. Our park is approximately 15km north of Exmouth and closer to Cape Range NP but, first, we needed to fill our water tanks in the caravan as the caravan parks water is highly saline and we would not put that through our caravan system. Although it will be fine to shower and wash clothes in. We had to locate the Information Centre in Exmouth where we could fill with water for free, then negotiate our big rig so it would be easy for us to fill. The town didn't look as though it had been damaged, even the big shrimp was still on its pedestal.
 |
| The big Shrimp at the Information Centre, next to the water taps. |
 |
| Richard filling up |
Arriving at our destination we both went into the office for checking in.. The lady was checking in some campers and proceeded to give the young lady a well rehearsed speech about the caravan park and its facilities. She was quite something! the next young lady another camper received the same speech even though she said she had overheard from the previous camper...but no, the lady insisted on doing her spiel.... Needless to say we got it too.. and just smiled and said thank you.
Our stay here is mainly for us to see the fabulous National Park and try and find the Park campgrounds, fishing from the beach and snorkel in the Turquoise Bay, yes, we had managed to buy some snorkelling equipment and a fishing rod for Helen in Kmart at Karratha that was very reasonable too. The Information centre in Exmouth were selling their snorkelling gear for $75 a rip off...
We were soon joined on the neighbouring spot by two motorhomes, they recognised us from the free camp last night! The lady in the office allowed them to share a spot, which made it less expensive for them. They were obviously together as a couple but had separate vehicles. We were having a chat with them our first evening when Richard suddenly made us aware of something in the sky... it definitely wasn't a shooting star but did look like a piece of debris from outer space that was burning up and travelling so fast, it was something all of us would remember. No photos though sorry.
 |
| The view from our caravan |
 |
| First catch with Helen's new rod |
Friday 21st August we had a trip out to see the SS Mildura wreck and check out the some other beaches. The beach where the wreck is had some amazing shells and beach coral lying around. Richard did a spot of fishing here and Helen did lots of reading... We didn't catch anything that we could take home to eat!! We did however, have the most amazing view of the migrating whales, breaching and generally having a good time out in the ocean, these massive creatures made us shout out with "Wow" and really gave us an amazing feeling making us smile and laugh, it was a performance that we had never experienced before. However, we did see many more whales over the next few days whilst we were fishing, relaxing from our nearby beach.
Tonight we decided to eat at the caravan parks café which had a special on of chicken parmy... Helen was OK with this but Richard decided on the T-bone. We could take our own wine so all good...but even better was the young waitress. Richard went inside and had a chat with the young man who was our chef... he was really a mechanic from Bunbury, this gave us something to talk about. Richard ordered our food and paid with cash, the waitress then gave him is change all in $1 coins all 7 of them. Richard is being Richard and said "Oh, just what I need" she replies in the most straight pan of face "Is that supposed to be sarcastic" he replied "It can be, if you like" she was not amused!! We were joined by another couple that made 4 of us!! the young waitress brought out two plates of food to our table and stood there, once again with a straight pan face and said "Who's having what"? Helen managed to keep a straight face until the young lady left, then we both had the best laughing fit for a long time.. much to the amusement of our fellow diners... The young lady had obviously gained an Honours Degree at some Australian Charm school!! a number of times while we were eating she walked past and we smiled but she continued to say "What, what" it was so funny. However, we did decide to book in again for the Sunday Roast, hoping she won't remember us.
Before leaving we had to take the Ute up to the Lighthouse and once again experience the magnificent sunset.
 |
| very nice sunsets here |
 |
| This anchor was taken from the wreck Mildura |
 |
| WW2 gun radar emplacement |
A number of times we had spoken about not seeing much wildlife, only, dead Kangaroos on the NP road.. but we were then treated to a beautiful sighting of magnificent Emus who where scratching around next the caravan.
Next stop Bruboodjoo!
No comments:
Post a Comment