On the Monday, we drove to Carnarvon. It was about 350km from Exmouth. We had to spend a bit of time in Exmouth first, restocking with some groceries and refilling the van’s water tank. Then we were off and driving, with children doing schoolwork for a while. We drove straight through without stopping. We arrived at Carnarvon around 3.30pm, and checked in to the Coral Coast Caravan Park. We were able to choose our site, so chose one near the playground. We were also close to one of the amenities blocks, so that was good. One other thing about this caravan park which the kids liked was it had a new modern amenities block which had its own little room with a bath in it. It was funny how all of the kids (including Sam) got very excited about the idea of a bath. This is something they had been missing from home. We also all enjoyed washing our hair in a shower which didn’t have salty water:).

Our first full day in Canarvon we did the following:-
– Went to the historic precinct which was near the One Mile Jetty. This is one of the longest jetties in WA. It has train tracks running along one side of it and a little 2 carriage train, called the Coffee Pot, runs people out to the end of the jetty and back on an ‘as needs’ basis – no timetable. It was $7 for adults and $4 for children to ride on the train. Lauren and I decided to walk out to save some money (walking is $3 for adults, children free – I guess they are needing money for some restoration work). So Michael, Sam, Hannah and Beth rode on the train out there. We had packed morning tea and some fishing gear, so it was good they could take those on the train. Michael and Sam swapped with Lauren and I on the way back, so we all got a turn on the train.
– We did some fishing from the end of One Mile jetty. Sam had been interested in trying some fishing now that we were back on the coast. We had bought some hand reels at Exmouth, but this was the first time we had got around to using them. No luck catching anything though.
– We visited the Lighthouse keepers cottage museum just near the jetty. No cost for this.
– We drove to the end of Pelican’s Point and saw the stretches of sandy beach there.
– We drove to the small boat harbour and tried our luck fishing there while we had our lunch. There were definitely fish there, and they kept nibbling at the bait, but not taking a big bite on the hook. Sam and Hannah seemed to be the 2 die-hard fisher-people – they wanted to keep going, but eventually it was time to move on.
– We drove along North River Road and South River Road where most of the fruit and vegetable
plantations are located. Some have roadside stalls to sell produce, so we bought some. We found out about the plantation tours which are conducted at Bumbak’s plantation – they are conducted on a Mon, Wed and Fri at 10am and go for 1 hour. As today was Tuesday, we could do the tour tomorrow. We decided it was worth doing.
– We drove to the satellite dish which had been operational at Carnarvon for 20 yrs from about 1965 to 1985. It was part of Nasa’s program, particularly the Gemini and Apollo programs. There is a museum near the site of the dish which houses a lot of old equipment and has some display boards. It was updated a few years ago and they had Buzz Aldrin open the new updated building. We had read that it was open from 10-3 but when we arrived about 2pm, the managers were just leaving the building and said it actually closes at 1pm. So we decided we would come back tomorrow.
So then we headed back to the van park, and had some downtime.
Then late afternoon, Lauren and I went to the shops, while Michael took the other kids swimming at the van park pool. Lauren wanted to look at Target for some new swimmers, so we did that first, and then did some grocery shopping at Woolworths. We got back to the caravan park in time to do dinner and the usual night-time routine.

Our second full day at Carnarvon, we had a few things planned:
– I took the 2 keen fisher-people (Sam and Hannah) to do some early morning fishing at about 7.30. We planned on trying a new spot, but because it was low tide, these places were limited, so we ended up back at the same place as yesterday – and the same result – nibbling fish but nothing caught.
– I had rung the visitor centre to enquire about a 2nd hand bookshop and had thought they had told me it was open from 9-12. So we wanted to go there before going to the plantation tour at 10. But either I misheard or they gave me wrong information as they didn’t open until 10am. So the kids went to a playground for a while instead.
– We then did the plantation tour at Bumbak’s. We found it really quite interesting and learnt some things about fruit growing. Some of the things we learnt include:-
* There are about 80 plantations in Carnarvon, but they are much smaller than the large plantations in Qld. However, because Carnarvon has such perfect weather for growing, they can use more intensive horticultural techniques and produce more in less space.
* The temperature in Carnarvon is about 28 degrees all year around ( maybe getting down to 20 some days in winter and up to 35 some days in summer). And the soil is good for growing. So this is why there are lots of plantations here. Carnarvon produces 70% of the state’s winter fruit and vegetables.
* Water source – Carnarvon sits at the mouth of the Gascoyne River. This is an ‘upside-down river’ in that the water sits under the surface of the ground in the 80cm or so of sand. So it looks like the river is dry, but the water sits in the sand. Each plantation has an allocation of 72, 000 Kl of water per year, so they have to be water efficient. The last 2 years they have had to buy town water rather than use the local river water because a flood in 2010 brought excess clay into the river and now the river water is too salty.
* Bananas – those grown in Carnarvon are called ‘William’ bananas – they are smaller than the Cavendish (those grown in Qld) because they have adapted to needing less water. They have a 22 month life cycle (compared to 10 mths for Cavendish). Each banana tree only produces 1 bunch of bananas. Then the tree needs to be cut down and a sapling shoot can grow and start the cycle again. We saw the ‘flower’ of the tree before the banana fruit started growing. Then we saw the baby banana fruit growing inside the flower. We saw how the outer leaf of the flower rolls outwards and the bananas bend towards the light as the rolled up leaf exposes more light. This is why bananas bend.
* Mangoes – they get 1 crop per year. From when the tree flowers to when the fruit is ready to be picked is about 12 weeks. The flowers are pollinated by blow flies. About 100 flowers start to grow on each branch, but most of them fall off whilst still small buds. Only 5 flowers stay on per branch to grow to mature fruit. Most growers who sell to the large supermarkets pick the fruit in bulk whilst still green and then they are gas ripened (don’t have the nice smell and flavour). This plantation checks each of their 100 trees about 10 times over a 2 week period and only picks the fruit when it is tree ripened (the sugar levels have built up enough to promote ripening and so it is more sweet and flavoursome).
* Grapes – they only grow table grapes, not wine grapes, as the weather is too warm for wine grapes. They have 1 crop per year from the vines. The different stages of horticulture are :- the flowers bud, the lower leaves need to be removed to provide better visual access and prevent mildew, then bunch selection (removing the bunches that weren’t going to grow in the right shape), then bunch trimming (using small clippers to remove some of the grapes in a spiral fashion – otherwise the grapes squash each other as they grow), then they shape the bunches to the shape and size that the customer likes. Then they test them with a sugar level tester – if the sugar levels are right, they test them for correct acid levels before they harvest them. This is all very labour intensive, but produces a good result.
– After doing the tour we all chose an icecream from the shop – they had choc-coated bananas, choc-coated banana icecream, and choc-coated mango icecream amongst others – yum. We also bought some mango and apricot jam and some orange marmalade. The Bumbak’s make these ‘value-added’ products with what would otherwise be waste product (fruit that has nothing wrong with it except that it doesn’t look right for the market).
– We had then planned to go to the satellite dish museum, but I wasn’t sure whether the 2nd hand bookshop closed at 12noon or 1pm. So Dad dropped Lauren and I back into town to the book shop, and then went to the satellite dish museum with the others. They were gone for an hour, but Lauren and I made good use of that time to look in the book store and then browse some other shops.
– We then went back to the van and had a rest again.
– Then Michael took Sam and Hannah for another fishing expedition to a different spot. This time they had some luck – Sam caught a fish! – it was only quite small, so they threw it back. But it was the first fish Sam had caught, so was exciting for him.
– Meanwhile I got dinner ready and went and chose a DVD from the van park office – ‘Waterhorse’- one that none had watched before. So we had a movie night that night, which was fun.

So that was Carnarvon – next to Shark Bay.

We spent 2 days at Carnarvon. We rode in a little train on a long jetty. It was called the Coffee Pot train. It was fun. We also drove on a bridge that felt like riding on a very fast camel (Mum’s note – it was a causeway over the river and the concrete joins made smooth lopping bumps). We went to a fruit plantation. We saw what the bananas look like when they are babies – cute. I had a chocolate coated banana icecream. We climbed up to the halfway platform of the old satellite dish. It looks like a big cereal bowl. We went to a space technology museum there which had been opened by Buzz Aldrin (but I called him Buzz Lightyear). Today we are driving to Shark Bay. I hope we don’t see any sharks up close.

The Coral Coast in WA is beautiful. We went to Coral Bay for 1 day and then a lighthouse caravan park for 2 days. We went snorkelling at Coral Bay, at Turquoise Bay and at Oyster Stacks. When I wanted to have a close up look at some fish, I dove deep down into the water. We saw heaps of fish, all sorts of different colours and sizes. I saw lots of Zebra fish. At Turquoise Bay, the water was a beautiful blue colour and the sand was very white. We saw some big goannas walking across the road on our drive there. We also saw some humpback whales out at sea while we were looking at the ocean. We played tennis at the caravan park, which was fun.

It was only 152km to Exmouth, so there was no rush in the morning. I took Hannah and Beth for a swim at the van park’s pool while Michael and the others packed up. Also Lauren and I took another trip to the little shopping arcade to a shop called ‘The Mermaid’s Cave’ where Lauren wanted to get my opinion on choosing some souvenir gifts for her friends.

Then we drove to Exmouth. Because it is a peninsula which obviously is exposed to much salt water and air, the landscape was very low scrub, and particularly sparse scrub as we got further north. We passed the Learmonth RAAF Air Base about two thirds of the way along. Michael had had some dealings with this defence base in his work. We came into Exmouth, which was bigger than Coral Bay but still small enough to only have an IGA, not a Woolworths or Coles. We needed to fill up the van’s water tank at the visitor’s centre, because we had emptied the tank at the Coral Bay van park. All the van park’s in this region have very salty water, so they only supply drinking water at certain tap points around the park. This was the same at the van park we were about to go to, so we needed a full tank. We also needed to do some grocery shopping at the IGA in town. We hadn’t made sandwiches for today, so we needed some lunch. We went to Brumbys and got some pies and sausage rolls and ate them at the outdoor setting. We then did our grocery shopping. We also did a little bit of browsing through other shops and bought some little gifts for school friends. I also bought some new thongs. Then we piled back in the car and started driving the extra 17km north west of Exmouth to where we were going to stay at the Lighthouse Caravan Park. This van park was right near the northern tip of the peninsula (the north west cape) and was at the base of the hill on which the Vlamingh Lighthouse was perched. This lighthouse was not operational anymore, but still looked spectacular to see on the wind-blown, scrub-like landscape.

The kids had a swim that afternoon and then we had an early dinner. After dinner, it was still fairly light, so we decided to drive up to the lighthouse hill and lookout over the cape. It was very windy, but a great view.

We planned to have 2 full days in this region, as further around the west of the peninsula was the Cape Range National Park, which reportedly had some beautiful beaches with the Ningaloo Reef just off the shore. It was just as well we planned for 2 days, as Lauren felt quite unwell the first full day we were there and ended up staying at the van and resting while we had a visit to the national park. She then joined us the following day. The national park entrance was 23 km from our van park. We bought a 28day pass to cover all the NPs in WA as we thought we’d be visiting others.

Our first full day we made 3 stops in the NP. The first was at Mangrove Bay. As the name suggests it is a large mangrove area. They have made a bird hide here, so we took our binoculars and looked at the birds for a while. We then went to the visitor information centre. They had displays about the different marine life in the area. We talked to the staff about the snorkelling places and got some advice on doing the drift snorkel at Turquoise Bay. Our next stop was then Turquoise Bay itself. This was another place mentioned in the ‘Are We There Yet?’ book. The water really is a beautiful turquoise colour. The bay has 2 sections of beach, one on either side of a ‘point’. The ‘drift snorkel’ area is the side where there is always more of a current, flowing south to north. So you walk 100m down the beach, walk into the water and go out about 100m to where the reef is. Then you drift with the current as you snorkel along over the reef. We all had a turn doing this, even Hannah and Bethany as we had swimming noodles with us for them to float along on. It was a great experience and we saw lots of coral and colourful fish. Sam and Hannah liked to dive down amongst the fish at times or go closer to the coral. Even Michael came in – he had to to look after Beth – so that was great too. We spent some time just relaxing on the beach and had our sandwiches and then headed back to the van. We had a relaxing afternoon.

The second full day Lauren came with us. We headed to a place called Oyster Stacks which was a bay just south of Turquoise Bay. It also has good snorkelling, but you have to be there at high tide, which was 10.15 that day – we got there about that time and it was pretty busy. The difference with this bay is that it has a rocky edge, so you have to negotiate the rocks before you get in the water. Then there are a few larger rocks in the water with oysters growing on them and the fish swim all around. You only have to be 2-3 m from shore to see quite big fish under the water. The area where the reef lies is shallower than at Turquoise Bay, so you see the coral up close. Some of the kids opted just to have their usual swimming goggles and no snorkel so they could just dive down whenever they wanted to. We then went back to Turquoise Bay as Lauren wanted to see it. We decided to try snorkelling at the bay side this time, where there was no current – Lauren was fine with this. It was a prettier area to swim. The water was sooo clear – just like on the pictures of pacific islands.

There were some other areas we could have visited in the NP – more bays, as well as some gorges further south. But we felt a little bit over gorges at present and were happy to go back to the van and have another restful afternoon. We rested for a couple of hours and then all got in the car for a drive to see the surf beach down the road a bit. Then we drove to the tip of the cape where the wreck of the cattle ship ‘Mildura’ remains not far off the shore. It was wrecked here in a storm in 1908. While looking at the wreck, we also saw quite a few whales breaching out in the deep ocean.

We went back to the van park and hired some tennis racquets to play tennis at the park’s courts – it was 5pm by now so a cooler time to play. Hannah and Beth had some shots with Dad for the first 20mins or so, then I took them for showers while Dad, Lauren and Sam played, and then just Lauren and Sam. They all seemed to enjoy it.

We had our usual night time routine and prepared to move on tomorrow, down to Carnarvon.

We had such a lovely day today. Coral Bay is a lovely little seaside town with an absolutely beautiful bay area for swimming and snorkelling. And the weather was picture perfect all day.

We had a bit of a sleep in this morning as the sun rises a bit later now that we are further west and further south. The 3 younger children were awake around 6.30 but I didn’t get up until after 7.00. They had breakfast and got through their jobs quickly and went on the playground for a while, which I could see from the van. So I had my breakfast in peace and quiet, as Michael and Lauren were sleeping in more. Michael got up about 8.30 and took over keeping an eye on the kids while I went for a bit of a stroll over to the small shopping arcade across the road. Then we arranged to meet up with David and Janenne and we all headed down to the beach around 9.30. We took our snorkelling gear. David and Janenne have their own kayaks so they also brought them down to the beach. I was pleasantly stunned when I reached the beach to see how clear and aqua blue the water was and how calm and protected the bay was. We all got wet in the shallows first and then David and the kids started using the kayaks. They had a single and a double (which could take an adult and 2 children). Sam spent some time on the single for a while and David took Hannah and Bethany out on the double, which they really enjoyed.

The reef off Coral Bay and the whole peninsula, at which Coral Bay sits at the base, is a fringing reef. This means it is only just offshore from the beach. From the main swimming beach at Coral Bay, you can swim out and snorkel over the reef just 50m from shore. So snorkelling is what we did next. David took Bethany for a snorkel in the shallows and she saw some big fish there. Then David, myself, Lauren and Sam went snorkelling out deeper – Michael paddled the double kayak out there so we had a ‘platform’ to hold on to if we needed to rest or to adjust our goggles or something. We saw some great coral and fish out there. Then we swam back in and warmed up in the sun for a while (the water out deep was quite ‘fresh’). Then Hannah wanted to snorkel out deeper, so Michael took Sam and Hannah out in the kayak and both of them snorkelled around close to the kayak. Hannah thought this was great. The rest of us enjoyed time sitting and chatting back on the beach. It really was an idyllic morning. 2 and a half hours passed by very quickly. Then it was time to get out of the hottest part of the day and go back for lunch.

Us and the Hays went our separate ways for lunch and a ‘rest time’ for a couple of hours and then the Hays had offered to do something with the kids in the afternoon so Michael and I could have some time together on our own – very thoughtful of them. We didn’t say no to this opportunity. So around 3.00 the kids went back to the beach with David and Janenne (without the kayaks this time) and had another swim, took part in the fish feeding which occurs in the shallows at 3.30 each day ( the children can get right in among the fish and virtually touch them), took a walk to the shops for an ice- cream and generally had Alice time. Meanwhile Michael and I enjoyed some time together, including a trip to a cafe for an iced coffee. It was lovely.

Then between 5 and 6pm we had booked the tennis court at the van park. So Michael took the kids over there and Hannah and Beth had a hit for a while until it was time for them to come with me to the showers. David joined Michael, Lauren and Sam for a hit for a while.

After finishing the tennis at 6pm, we took a walk to the cafe/restaurant at the front of the van park and all had a meal together of pizza and desserts. Once again it was a lovely time spent with the Hays. After dessert, Bethany lay her head down on my lap and promptly fell asleep! It was good that she was able to do that, rather then getting too tired.

We wandered back to the van about 8.30 to put the kids to bed. We were planning to leave Coral Bay tomorrow and head up the peninsula to Exmouth, so said we would have a brief goodbye with the Hays before we left in the morning.

This was basically a day of travel. It was about 600km to Coral Bay, without any significant towns in between – only a couple of roadhouses. I drove for most of the way today and Michael sat with Hannah and Bethany in the middle row and did some schoolwork with them. It was a good break for me to not be working with them on their schoolwork, and Michael did a good job.

We reached Coral Bay about 5pm and checked in – we were in another good site near the playground and amenities. We had been in contact with some friends of ours from church – David and Janenne Hay. They have also been travelling around Australia at this time. They were ahead of us for the first couple of months, but they have been spending more time than us in areas such as the Kimberley and the Pilbara. So a few days ago we worked out we would probably be at Coral Bay around the same time. So we have booked in to the same caravan park (Bayview Caravan Park). We saw them briefly as we were driving in and arranged to catch up properly after dinner and once the younger girls were in bed. So we set up, had dinner (one of the frozen ones) and settled H &B to bed. David and Janenne came over to our site and we sat outside and chatted for a couple of hours. It was a lovely cool, but not to cold night. We decided we would both be visiting the beach tomorrow so we would get together again for that.

Today we went to Dampier and the Burrup Peninsula.

Dampier is only 20 km from Karratha, right on the coast. As the name suggests, it was named after William Dampier who first sighted this region of the Australian coast in 1688. Dampier is a small seaside town. It has a marina which houses all the boats that head towards the islands of the Dampier Archipelago. There are 42 islands in this conglomerate. There is also another iron ore processing plant here, and one on East Intercourse Island, just off Dampier coastline. A stone causeway has been built across to the island. There is also salt pans and a salt processing plant near Dampier. Besides all of that, Dampier is also the home of Red Dog ( as immortalized in the movie) – he is also known as the Pilbara Wanderer. There is a monument at the entrance of the town. We drove around Dampier and got out at the lookout.

The Burrup Peninsula stretches north from Dampier. About halfway up the peninsula is the huge North West Shelf Gas project. This was set up about 40 yrs ago (about the same time as the iron ore mining). At the time, it was one of the biggest resources projects undertaken by the Australian Government. Production from this facility accounts for about 1% of the country’s GDP. We went in to the visitor’s centre which overlooks the facility. It was a very informative visitor’s centre and they had a kid’s quiz for the kids to do ( an older kids one and a younger kids one) with a reward at the end for finishing it. All the kids did one which hopefully helped them understand the information. They found it interesting seeing the pictures and models of the offshore platforms and learning that people live on those for up to 2 weeks at a time. There are currently 3 offshore platforms and the underwater pipe bringing the gas back to shore is 324km long. After the gas is processed and liquified at the plant, it is piped out to the waiting ships and loaded on, or piped to the storage tanks for domestic use.

After the gas plant we drove onto the eastern side of the peninsula to visit deep gorge. This is the site of the most prolific aboriginal rock art in Australia. There are around 40,000 individual rock engravings (petroglyphs) and etchings in the 100m of the gorge. We only saw a few of them because we somehow ended up walking along the wrong track – once we realised this, the kids were too hot and tired to walk the correct track, but we had seen some of the etchings at least.

After this we had planned to drive to Hearsons Cove on the peninsula to have a swim. It was only about 2 km down the road from Deep Gorge. However, once again we were caught out by being there at the wrong time for the tide. It was low tide and the water was quite far out. We checked the map and decided to drive a bit further north up the peninsula to see what the bays up there were like. They wasn’t a sandy beach, but there was an area that had some water without rocks around it. The kids had a bit of a swim here to cool off.

Then we headed back to Karratha to the van park. We had a bit of down time while the younger girls played on the playground next to the van. Then Sam and I went to the shops. Sam needed new runner shoes which we were hoping to buy here. But there wasn’t anything suitable. So then he had to stay with me to help me do the grocery shopping (much to his dislike – but he was good hearted about it). Lauren was cooking dinner tonight all on her own – she did chicken schnitzel burgers and did a great job. I was really tired tonight, so asked to go to bed straight after dinner – this helped a lot.