Exmouth - Friday November 6

We finally made it - beaches and reef here we come. Here's the blog for the last few days:

Auski Roadhouse 22 23 S, 118 41E , Tuesday 3.11, 890 km

We’re now just outside the entrance to the next big attraction – Karijini National Park in the Hammersley Range, with its world-famous Precambrian banded ironstone formations. The whole region seems to be made up of iron ore, all being mined furiously – we passed through Port Hedland today, a very red and dusty town – a third of the world’s seaborne iron ore is shipped from there!

On the way from Broome – a 600 km long trek along a dry coastal plain, the main road running 10 km inland from the sea the whole way, so you can’t see it. We stopped for the night at 80 Mile Beach, a vast and deserted stretch of beach that is actually 220 km long...... At full moon and 2 am watched for the turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs, but didn’t see them, we’d missed high tide when they come ashore, but we saw their tracks over the beach up into the dunes this morning.

We’re now over 200 km in from the coast. It’s very hot – over 40 degrees, but not the humidity that we’ve had on the coast, much more desert-like conditions. Ate supper tonight at the roadhouse diner – a delicious “special” with braised lamb shanks piled high as the mountain range we see ahead of us – they sure have big lambs in this country. The road train truckies around us all tucked in, while we could easily have shared one serving between us.

Tom Price 22 42 S, 117 47 E, Wednesday 4.11, 1108 km

A pleasant little company mining town nestled in the Hammersley Range – at 747 m or 454 m (the guidebooks disagree), the highest town in Western Australia. Iron ore mines all around here – it seems the entire area – even including the National Park – is firmly in the grip of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. A park ranger we talked to today clearly hated both companies for the liberties they take around here, but recommended Tom Price (established in 1962, named after a company executive). We saw a corner of the Karijini National Park today, walked down one gorge and Ros swam in a palm, banyan and fern shaded pool filled from a waterfall and springs in the gorge walls, all in the 2500 million year old spectacular banded ironstone formation. Very hot though and lots of flies, so we decided to travel on, passing spectacular Mount Bruce, at 1246 m the highest “mountain” in western Australia – David overawed as these are the first real hills/almost mountains he’s seen since northern Queensland, 5,500 km back down the road.

Giralia Station, 22 40 S, 114 22 E, Thursday 5.11, 1785 km

And although that’s 777 km driven today, it’s only 617 km onwards – David got his come-uppance today, he forgot Mandie’s advice (way back there in Queensland) – “Top up your fuel at EVERY opportunity” and we found out that “there and back is twice as far”. So wot happened? In Tom Price early this morning, D didn’t bother to stop and fill up because it was only 80 km to Paraburdoo, the next mining town, so we could fill up there before the 280 km haul to Nanutarra. Pleasant drive to Paraburdoo through rolling hill country, only to find that the Shell station’s diesel pumps weren’t working, and hadn’t been since 20 September – this is a Rio Tinto town and the company clearly runs on diesel – but none to offer to innocent tourists. We might have had enough to make it to Nanutarra, but it was knife-edge, so swallowing all the swear words (and failing to tell the Shell station they could have made a bomb selling 20 litre cans of diesels at even more ridiculous prices than usual) it was back 80 km to Tom Price, filled up, then back again, the rolling hill country losing some of its appeal. Still, we made it on through Paraburdoo (not stopping this time – a miserable town, poorly signed and with the only supermarket ridiculously overpriced) and 280 km onwards along a very isolated road stretch, meeting only 24 vehicles on the way, and in the 45 degrees heat glad we hadn’t chanced it.

Filled again at Nanutarra (a gas station with a wind-blown caravan site, looking dirty, down-trodden and grim) and decided to press on to Giralia Station (an incredibly isolated sheep station way out on the coastal plain on one of the sand-dune ridges). Of course it’s no longer used as a sheep station, but as a camping spot, caravan site, overnight stay, eco-experience. So here we are, on the red dusty plain at sunset among the whispering pines, the only visitors, looking forward to a genuine porterhouse steak dinner....