Where to start as for some reason Monday felt like such a long day. As usual we were on the road quite early completing the drive through rather hot and dry countryside to Roebourne – first stop the visitor centre. Now we do have to say that this is the best visitor centre that we have come across so far. It is housed in the old town Gaol and includes a museum section with the old cells and history of the area and the like. In addition there was an audio visual display covering the Pilbara and Kimberly areas of WA, a book exchange (yahoo) and free tea and coffee. We were also able to fill all our water containers with some very nice tasting water (not the bore variety). A very worthwhile stop indeed.
The resultant plan was that we would go out to the beach camping area at Cleaverville. There is a basic camp area by the beach and formally opens beginning of May, at which time fees must be paid. It is however possible to stay there any other time for no charge and the area is supposedly quite scenic. As it was only 20km to the turnoff we were there in no time at all only to find the gravel road had corrugations bigger than any we had ever come across before and after 100m we just had to give up else we would have arrived at the beach with just the caravan chassis in tow…
Oh well, back to plan B – we would go for a drive through Karratha which is a modern town in the midst of a huge area of various forms of industry, predominantly mining and then past the town of Dampier and up the Burrup Peninsula to Hearsons Cove which was apparently quite special. It was only about 30km with a couple of km of gravel at the end but it seemed to take an age to get there through quite heavy traffic – most of it related to the industry in the area with gazillions of white Utes and 4WD vehicles driving with their lights on flying little red flags on orange poles. The volume of vehicles gave the impression we were driving with an actual mine.
The cove was not at all what we were expecting with it surrounded by hills of red rock and heavy industry of some sort directly behind it. We went for a dip in the sea but it was not deep as the tide was running out resulting in shallow water that extends a long way out. On the access road we unfortunately encountered road works on the gravel section where large amounts of water had been sprayed so between our wheels and those of other vehicles, the van and Beast got covered in red mud.
Continuing on with plan B we drove back to the main road and headed further west to a place called Miaree Pool to see if we could stop the night there. Well the pool was fantastic but the parking area around it was sadly lacking with no shade and on the side of a hill. Ok, next option was 40 Mile Beach, another 22km down the road and then 13km of Gravel.
The gravel was not too bad and in reasonable time we arrived at the beach camp area and in the process of getting the van into a suitable spot Ross managed to get stuck in deep soft sand and stuck fast. Lucky for us the guy (Phil) next to where we were aiming for gave us a tow out with his little 4WD Suzuki to save us having to unhitch and drag the van out separately. We have been so careful when driving on sand but with it so late and having been such a long day the mistake was made.
While there we got in a great walk along the beach and found a bit of treasure in the form of a big yellow blow up crocodile which we have decided to take home. The beach is interesting in that a rock shelf runs along it that was a beach from some ancient time in the past with stone and shells embedded in it. It was great talking to Phil and his parents who turned up on Tuesday as they gave us some tips on the road south and were generally very good company.
