Coal to Coral - winter 2022

 On a cold and miserable day we left Collie behind for the winter and headed north to our first extend stay at Coral Bay. Its only 1300km to Coral Bay but in our usual fashion we took our time planning six overnight stays before we got to Coral Bay.

Hardly lady like!

Day one saw us travelling inland thru the sheep and wheatbelt areas to a free camp on the Avon River just south of York called Gwambygine Park (Ascent). It’s nice to head this way as you avoid going through the hustle and bustle of Perth and instead meander thru the wheatbelt towns of Williams, Narrogin, Pingelly, Brookton and Beverly. The Gwambygine Park (Avon Ascent) camping area is primarily set up for picnickers but there are a few level spots where a caravan can park up for the night. It’s a pretty campsite area but unfortunately lacking a little maintenance/TLC – and could easily be a great campsite for grey nomads if there were more dedicated caravan size overnight sites. But in saying that I would come here again.

Day two saw us continuing north thru more wheat belt towns like York, Northam, Dalwallinu, Wubin to a great little stopover at the Recreation Center at Latham. Spotless facilities with hot showers, room for a hundred vans, wood delivered most nights and internet faster than the NBN at home – all for a voluntary donation – these little country towns go out of there way to attract the Grey Nomad brigade. Only three vans parked up when we were there so nice and quiet. Its next to a main road but not many trucks during the night – and there are some advantages of getting old and a little deaf.

Just flogged  me at Yahtzee :(

Day three was a fair hike to Galina Bridge – skirting around Geraldton and stopping to top up with water, bread and beer at Northampton. We have stopped at Galena Bridge many times and included this stopover in many blogs so only comment this time round was that it hasn’t changed and is still a popular, well organized and serviced spot. 

As we had friends staying at Gladstone Bay we decided to stay a couple of nights to catch up and check the spot out (we had driven past the turn-off many times but never ventured in) - so nights 4/5 were spent at Gladstone. Gladstone Bay campground is about 70km north of the Shark Bay turn-off and is located on the ocean edge of the eastern gulf of Shark Bay. Lots of waterside level parking spots, flushing toilets, bins, dump point, and primitive showers that are heated by the sun on the pipe that runs from the bore some kilometers away. At $10/night/person it’s probably priced toward the top end of what you would expect to pay up this way. Unfortunately for the shore bound angler there didn’t seem to be much happening in the shallows around the camp area and after a couple hours of flick my favourite whiting popper I gave up. 

After we left Gladstone we stopped at Carnarvon for water, food top up (Coral Bay is rather expensive), fuel and then headed out the 130km north to Minilya River free camp for the last camp before getting into Coral Bay.  Like Galena Bridge we have stayed here many times and included in previous blogs. A sign of the unseasonal heavy rain up north was that when we arrived the river was running hard and fast – we have only ever seen it as a dry riverbed.

Fuel prices have been steadily increasing as we get further north with prices per litre (diesel) around:

$2.00 at Dalwallinu

$2.18 at Carnarvon

$2.28 Minilya, and 

$2.33 at Coral Bay

Not much you can do about it – its hard to tow a 21ft caravan with a push bike.

a short video is HERE