Tuesday 11th August
After a nice quiet night in the gravel pit we headed north again, stopping at Fortescue Roadhouse for morning tea! This place is disgusting, one toilet (not very clean) the whole place looks terrible, much of it boarded up. Why? This particular roadhouse should be a goldmine.
Anyway, we moved just down the road and had morning tea overlooking the Fortescue R. A few more ks and we’re at the turn off for 40 Mile Beach where we will stay for a couple of days. There are lots of oil / gas wells in this area and the Devil’s Creek plant is on our right as we turn into the beach road. This place also has a couple of taps where you can fill up with water from their bore, for a donation to the RFDS. This facility was closed for a while, would you believe it several people were washing their cars and caravans with this precious resource!!!
This is a nice spot with plenty of camp sites available. Places like this often have (as this one does) a camp host, usually a couple who allocate camp sites, clean the toilets (long drop) and general look after the place. Most of the other campers are fishermen (amateur) who will come here for a while (the limit is 28 days). There is no water or power but that doesn’t bother us, although sometimes other people’s generators can be a problem, generally people are pretty considerate.
The afternoon is spent lounging around, I’m still working finding a better way of blogging and there is a good internet signal here so I can do a bit of searching.
Then it’s wine o’clock and satellite spotting before dinner.
Wednesday 12th August
Pat and I went for a walk along the rocks and the beach and spotted this little fellow, he didn’t seem to be bothered by us, or perhaps he’s a bit of poser!
Tonight, while he was cooking on the BBQ, Brad spotted Mr Musk’s string of seven satellites but by the time Denise could get to us, they had gone out of vision.
Thursday 13th August
We all decided that we would go shopping etc in Karratha today rather than take the vans into town tomorrow. As we were driving the 60 or so ks to town Pat recalled that the last time we were in Karratha we had bumped into the wife of a guy, who used to work for me, in Woolworths (a supermarket in Australia). Having tracked down a few articles we needed and had some lunch, we went to Woolies I when caught up with Pat (after going for the milk) there she was talking to a ringing friend of ours who is living up here at the moment! He invited us back to his place for a cuppa. We enjoyed an hour or so catching up with him and his wife Debbie.
On getting back to 40 Mile it was nearly wine o’clock and by the time Pat had unpacked and I had repaired the wine cellar door it was time to open it and get out something suitable.
We looked for the ‘seven’ tonight but didn’t see them, however, it was a very good night but we lost count!
Friday 14th August
A very leisurely start this morning and we filled the water tanks courtesy of Devil’s Creek gas plant before finally getting back on the road. We actually don’t have very far to go today and we stop for morning tea at Miaree Pool, a lovely spot on the Nullagine R, though sadly very close to the road which is pretty busy with trucks. There are some sites on the other side which are further away from the road, which we have plotted on the map for next time!
After another half an hour or so we can turn off the main drag for Cleaverville, our camp spot for a couple of days. Pat and I have been here before about ten years ago and remember it as being fairly empty. It’s not so empty this time but the camp host directs to a spot along the bay where we can get up on to the sand dunes as we need the sea breeze to keep the temperature down.
We didn’t get that far along the track before we spotted what we thought might be a good spot and walked up the dunes to check it out. Just the job, so we get ourselves up the dune and tucked into our nice little spot with Brad and Denise about 30 m away.
We’re overlooking the bay with the Burrup Peninsula to the left and Cape Lambert to the right.
Its easy to settle in here, get out the chairs put the kettle on and sit and watch the ocean. I struggle with the WordPress app – I’ll get there!
Its time I got off my bum and so we go for a walk up the beach and meet a lady who has some very expensive camera equipment who is taking pictures of rocks! Admittedly some of them are very pretty, smaller versions of those that we saw at Marble Bar. Returning to the caravan its time for a cup of tea and a rest! Then its time to decide what to drink tonight. We’re having fish for dinner so a nice SSB seems appropriate.
We thought we might see the Musk ‘seven’ tonight but no go but we did see lots of others, sadly we forgot to count them again!
Saturday 15th August
Its an absolutely glorious morning, so breakfast outside is the order of the day.
So a really lazy day, apart from walking to B&D’s space for morning tea and a walk on the beach this afternoon, there’s really nothing to report. Satellite viewing produced a better score, I think 14, I was counting last night!
So far a ditto day although there is not so much breeze today and the see is mirror calm. We would like to think that the breeze may pick up later.
Sunday 15th August
I went for a walk on the beach, had a look round the rocks and discovered that there were lots of rock oysters around. So I went back up to van and collected my bucket, hammer and chisel and collected a dozen, hope fully a nice starter before the steak! Whilst, collecting them i noticed that the dropping tide was leaving some clams still open in the pools. So I went back with the camera and took a few shots.
The rock oysters were quite small but very sweet!
Alloveroz 