We set of from Perth on 15th July 2008. The weather is wet cold and windy and we are eager to get to some warmer weather. A lot of the coast we have seen before so we decided the best thing is to get to Exmouth then start exploring. We had a wet and windy night in Seabird then a couple of night in Horrocks beach, an overnighter at a 24 hour roadside stop on the Coral bay road and arrived in Exmouth on the 19th July.

We struck 3 very windy days in Exmouth so we were not able to get out on the water or see any of the marine life but we did go to Cape Range national park. There are some lovely beaches down that stretch of coast line. Paj did some fishing in the Exmouth marina and caught some bream which were too small and also 3 other fish that we couldn't identify. It will be interesting to see what Exmouth is like in a couple of years, once the marina development is completed.

From Exmouth we moved on to the Pilbara Coast. Three towns all (Dampier, Karratha and Roebourne) are within 50kms. The area relies heavily on mining for their income. We came across the Northwest Shelf Gas Plant and popped into the visitors centre there. We watched a video on the history of the project and how it all works. It was really interesting. The place is massive. We found some aboriginal rock etchings in Deep Gorge. It was really difficult trying to decipher what some of them were. Apparently it is one of the largest collections in the country accessible by the public. Port Samson was a lovely little fishing/holiday village. we also went into Cossack which was the first Pearling base in Western Australia. It is now deserted but the remaining buildings have been converted into Art Galleries. Paj tried his hand at fishing again but yet again came back empty handed. The sandflies scared us off!

Our next stop was Cape Keraudren, just north of Port Headland. We passed some Salt Works outside Port Headland. Huge piles of salt with bulldozers on top spreading the salt out. We had a lovely camp site at Cape Keraudren, overlooking a tidal cove with mangroves on one side and the sea on the other. Everyone keeps asking us why we want to travel like this, well, look at the pictures of this campsite and you will understand why! We spent a couple of nights here then another couple of nights at Port Smith.

Along the Great Northern Highway between the Derby turnoff and Fitzroy Crossing we came across bush fires. The fires were along the roadside in some places and had jumped the road at some stage. It is the first time we have been that close to fire like that and hopefully we wont come across many more. We had another run of it the next day on the way through to Kununarra but it was not as bad. The fires attracted lots of Kites which hovered over the flames in flocks looking for anything trying to escape the heat.

Arrived in Kununarra on 31st July. Took a few days to explore repack for the next leg - camping on the Gibb River Road.

 

Paj and Heather's Big Adventure 2008

Part One - Perth to Kununarra