Coral Bay

We have been to Coral Bay several times over the last 5-6 years – it’s expensive, crowded and often windy – and we love it.

yep - coats on

Pristine white beaches, cobalt blue water, warm weather, snorkeling, lots of 4WD tracks, swimming and fishing. Add two pubs, 3-4 dining places, IGA, newsagent, bakery, IGA and a hairdresser and massage parlor and you get the picture.

sunset with friends

Highlights of our visit this time round were:

·         A full day out fishing in a friend’s 7 meter fishing boat.  Fishing 45 kilometers out in 240 meters of water with electric reels was a new experience for me. First drop - a double hook-up, second drop -  a single hook-up and downhill from there. Lots of hook-ups but losing a lot of fish half way up. Lost one two a shark just meters from the boat (bugger). A brilliant day out with some great reef fish in our freezer and memories of whales cruising/jumping everywhere.

·        

the one and only spanglie

Caught a few spangled emperor from my little tinny inside the reef – unfortunately only one was legal size.

·         We snorkeled several times in the coral filled bay which is a quick walk from the park – lots of beautiful coloured and inquisitive fish and the coral is definitely on the way back with lots of new growth and colour.

·         We caught up with old friends from previous visits and made new friends and had many memorable nights feasting on fish, roasts and meals out at the pub with a great group of people.

·        

another visit to the bakery

Went for a 4WD drive up to Nine Mile/Bruboodjoo Point Campsite about 19 kilometers north of Coral Bay.  Nice spot in a sheltered bay – at $60/week we might give it a go for a week or two when we come north again.

Down sides

·         After 3 lovely quiet days at our caravan site we had a bunch of young campers with lots of preschool kids move into the 3 camps behind us. Must be getting old and cranky but the constant sound of yelling/screaming/crying kids for 8 nights nearly drove us crazy. We must be too old to understand the “new age” parenting methods where it’s OK for your child to yell loudly all day, scream at each other, whine most of the time and throw temper tantrums whenever they like and most importantly the word “no” is to never be used.

·         The wind blew for half the time we were their – so for a lot of days there was no fishing, swimming, snorkeling.

·         Towards the end of our stay Linda got really ill with a severe chest infection – not much fun for her lucky we got to Carnarvon quickly after Coral Bay else she may have had the pleasure of a Royal Flying Doctor Flight.

Linda and the "girls" at the roast cook-up night

We will defiantly be back but might spend a week or two at Nine Mile first.

3 Mile Pool - Onslow

busy but private along the river

Three Mile Pool is a free camp area on the banks of the Ashburton River some 37 Kilometers from Onslow. The camping area is quiet extensive with 3-5 kilometers of options along the river. There is a 19ish km gravel road to get to the camping area which is a little corrugated (at least when we visited) and bloody dusty – but after dropping the tire pressure on the car and caravan to 30lb (hot) is was a reasonably comfortable drive in.

chilling out time

A really nice spot on the river with lots of bird-life, friendly cows, and white gums. Due to the many years of campers – fire wood is a little hard to find but a bit of scouting around with the trusty chainsaw in hand kept us well stocked. The camping area is on the fresh water section of the river but it’s not far down to the salt water section where folk we launching small tinnies off the bank when the tide was right. Believe it or not we did NOT go fishing whilst we were camped here for 5 nights (waiting to fish at Coral Bay which is our next extended stop-over).

couple of escapees outside the lock-up

Old Onslow Town ruins are worth a few hours of touring around(and good time to visit the dunny and dump point 😀) .

my favourite jail-bird

We spent some time at the old police quarters and jail and the historic cemetery with gravesites dating back to the late 1800’s.

you can see the massive Wheatstone Plant in the distance

Everywhere you go there is always the massive Wheatstone LNG Plant in the distance. Our Son Corey spent almost 2 years FIFO here during the construction phase.

this inscription struck a chord

A few hints/info for perspective visitors:

• Follow the Old Onslow Town signs to the camp area (not your Satnav as ours tried to direct us 30 km out of the way). Think WikiCamps gives the right directions.
• When you come in drive all the way to the causeway across the river and then head back the way you came in along the river track rather than the road to find your camp spot. Mostly easily navigable with caravan in tow just one spot where it’s a little tight.
• Check out the weather before arriving as we had 3 out of 5 days of strong (30-40 km ) SE/SW winds and as tempting as it may be to have your awning facing the river view - much better to have it facing north so it is comfortable to sit outside. You can always sit by the river anyway.
• There is a dump point and good clean drop toilet (BYO paper) at Old Onslow Town only a few kilometers from the camp area.
• Good internet and phone coverage – no TV (SAT only)

40 Mile Beach

just above the boat ramp

40 Mile Beach (Gnoorea Point) is a popular camping and fishing spot 64km south of Karratha. It’s a 13km gravel road to the camping area and then you have a choice if individual camps along a 3km beach front or you can camp in the large open area (along with lots of other folk) near the boat ramp.

sunset drinks at club 40 mile

Talking to the locals apparently the campground used to be extremely popular with regulars (even from the east coast) coming for months on end during the cooler months. Recently the max stay was reduced to 28 days and the fees increased to $15/night (that’s progress for you) – so a lot of the regulars stopped coming.

I fished off the beach one high tide flicking out a chrome slice and hooked at least a dozen long toms (all pulled out) and one small trevally. The locals out in boats had been catching some good reef fish.

in the queue - filing up at the gas plant 

A tip for fellow travelers – at the junction of the main North West highway and 40 Mile Beach Road there is Devils Creek LNG Refinery which provides free (gold coin donation for RFDS) R/O water for travelers – everyone at 40 Mile fills up there when required and we topped up all our van tanks on the way out.

We weren’t all that impressed by 40 Mile Beach Camp area – nice spot but a little overpriced at $15/night for a short drop toilet, bins and dump point and open camping - but it was clear the regulars loved the place.

Pardoo will do

Nice grassy powered sites

When staying on the Degrey River we went for a drive a little further north to Pardoo Station just to check the place out.

rock hole in Pardoo Creek - OK at high tide

What an oasis in the bush – green lawns, hot showers, power, unlimited bore water, swimming pools, a general store, restaurant, movie stars (not really), big caravan sites, bowling green (only two rinks), and numerous fishing spots (on high tide) – and all for a reasonable $30/night if you stay 7 nights. 

the mud ramp at high tide

The station is a working cattle station with usually over 3000 head of beef cattle but due to the high prices they had recently mustered so only breeders around when we visited.

The whole place is well planned with over 150 powered sites and numerous amenity blocks well placed throughout the camp. Check out their website here

going to be a long cast!

Fishing required some planning – due to the 6-7 meter tides the only time to fish was an hour or two either side of high tide. Even then you can only beach fish when tides are over 6 meters else you have 200-300 meters to the water. Also it was a 3-8 kilometer drive to the fishing spots.

nice big estuary cod and master angler

We did OK with me catching a (just) legal threadfin salmon and a dozen or so of fat yellow in whiting, and Linda with the catch of the day (as usual 😢) a 3-4 kg Estuary Cod.

small threadfin salmon

There is a boat launching area off the mud-banks at Pardoo Creek only usable for 2-3 hours around high tide – too late back from fishing and your 20 meters away from the edge down a massive mud bank. When we first had a look I thought it was a bit dodgy so I didn’t bother putting the boat together – but after watching the locals I will certainly be putting the tinny in next time we visit.

There are folks at the station who stay for 3-6 months every year and it’s easy to see why. All the luxuries of a 5 star caravan park, good fishing, and $25/night (or less) if you stay a month or longer. When we stayed it was around 30C every day and a comfortable 14C at night – bloody lovely.

Degrey River

Our camp amongst the trees

Degrey River free camp is about 70 kilometers north of Port Hedland on the Northern Highway. Highly recommend by some close friends of ours we planned to spend a week or so there. The free camp is an extensive area but there are only limited sites away from the main road, under the trees and close to the river – the majority of the sites are more in the open and subject to dust and road noise. If you’re intending an extended stay at any free camp and are looking for some “prime” real estate you need to plan ahead – best to arrive at the site between 09:00 and 10:00 on a weekday and not in school holidays. As luck (and good planning) would have it as we drove in at 09:15 a van was just pulling out of a level site, as far away from the road as you can get, and under the trees near the river – and a bonus they left a big pile of wood!

De grey ones

When we were there the River was running and the water was cool and clear. After reading the “Crocodiles have been sighted here” sign and having a warning about bull sharks from our friends we carefully picked a spot to have a cooling dip for an hour each day. Found a spot where there was a 100 meters either side of very shallow gravelly water. We spent many an hour soaking and fossicking thru the gravel for pretty stones.

Upstream from railway bridge

The bird life on the river was brilliant and in particular large flocks of wild budgies were constantly nearby and this gave Wally our travelling budgie a chance to learn to speak “budgie” again.

Steak and chips tonight

Only downside to the area was that the long drop toilets we blocked most of the time we were there. Think this was caused by fellow grey nomads and back-packers not liking to “look down the chute” and ling the top of the long drop toilets with paper and thus blocking the whole system. Didn’t cause us any problems as there we are fully self contained and there were two working dump points at the site and lots of bins.





Great spot – we will definitely take a break here when we next travel this way.

Perth to Port Hedland

As we sat in our new house in Collie looking out over the frost covered lawn to our lonely caravan (and the weather forecast for the next day being a subzero morning and peaking at a 15 degree maximum) we decided, bugger this, lets head north for a few months. Plan was to get north of Port Hedland as quickly as possible (relatively speaking as we don’t travel too far on any set day) via the inland route.

 

Stuarts Desert Pea  - lots along a small section of the road

So after a week of packing and a few days in South Yunderup at our Park Van off we went to seek warmer weather.

First overnight stop was just north of Dalwallinu at a roadside stop called White Wells – nothing special, close to the main road (thus trucks passing thru all night), and still down to zero overnight. Lucky the diesel heater was charged and primed.

Night 2 was spent at Kirkalocka Roadside spot – the local shire has done a great job here with a large camp area back from the road a little and many fireplaces, tables and lean-to’s.  Toilets were spotless and a double dump point kept the place clean. Met a lovely travelling couple - Bruce and Anne who shared our campfire and forced us to drink wine till late.  Turned out Bruce was the brother of a regular at the Collie RSL.  Again temperatures overnight dropped to around zero – so once again we pointed north in search of the mystical 15 degree night.

Lots of room at Peace George

Night 3 was spent just a couple of kilometers outside Meekatharra at a free camp called Peace George (apparently called so due to a picnic being held there to celebrate peace at the end of WW1).

Couple of cold rockers at Peace George

Really pretty spot with many large granite outcrops and room for at least a hundred vans (only five spread out the night we were there).

Sunset and moonrise

Still bloody freezing early in the morning so early on the road heading north!

Nice along the Gascoyne River

Night 4 was spent at the Gascoyne River free camp (around 200 kilometers south of Newman). We had camped here in 2008 on our way to Karijini National Park and camped much too close to the road bridge (with the roar and clankity-clank of trucks to keep us amused all night!).  So with the wisdom of hindsight we drove further up to the river to a quieter treed camp next to a large waterhole.  Birdlife was brilliant even our pet budgie had some distant cousins flit past. It’s a small world we live in – about half an hour after setting up we get a shout – “what are you doing here Kerry?”  Friends of ours who live in Falcon were on the way home from a Cape Leveque trip and had decided stay for a one night at the Gascoyne. Great to catch up with these guys but still below one degree in the morning – start the car!

View of camp area from Mt. Robinson

After stopping in Newman to fill our water tanks we headed out a further 80K’s to Mt. Robinson rest area. 

Linda and friends at sunset Mt. Robinson

A great spot well off the road (no truck noise that night!) with clean sites, bins, toilets and a view to kill for. A credit to the local shire.

Only got down to 8 degrees that night so things were looking up – but warmer nights beckoned further north.

Georgous at the George

After leaving Mt. Robinson and travelling a huge 72 kilometers we reached our planned two night stop over at Albert Tognolini Gorge - look-out and rest area.

Table 1 at the Tognolini Diner

Pretty interesting guy was Albert – born in Armadale WA in 1927 and started working as a young engineer with the WA Main Roads.  Went on to become Commissioner of Main Roads - see Link for more info.  The camp areas are along a ridge with every site overlooking the gorge.

Holly Gravellia was in flower everywhere - nice

We were surprised to find an abundance of wild flowers in bloom – the most impressive being the Holly Gravellia. For the first time since leaving we were looking for shady spots during the heat of the day – now this was getting closer to what we were seeking! So after storing our dressing gowns, slippers and big coats under the bed (where the wine merchant lives), and saying “see ya later” to our diesel heater we set off to Port Hedland. 

Some massive dump trucks up in the Pilbra

Port Hedland today – 35C max and 16C min – MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.