The Coast

After waking up in Nanutarra after perhaps the best night sleep in a tent ever, I took what might go down as the best shower/shave in history.  Water pressure, hot water, plenty of it, no red dirt in the shower, clean feet. Getting out of the shower, we packed up our tents, and had a quick breakfast.  As we dine, wild parrots are bathing in a morning pool.

Today is an easy day.  A quick drive over to Warroora (pronounced Warra) for some relaxation on the beach.  This is one trip where we actually don't have any problems.  The road is good, straight, dry, no traffic.  We get to Warroora early.  In looking for accommodation on the West Coast of Australia there are not exactly a lot of options.  With hundreds of miles of pristine coastline, you would think that there would be tons of small towns dotting the coastline all offering decent accommodation.  Nope.  Wrong.  There is basically nothing out here.  Farms.  Farms that only end because the Indian Ocean is there.  From Carnavon to Exmouth (365km) there are no towns in between.  I'm sure you are thinking, "Oh, he's exaggerating."  No.  From Warroora where we were staying the owner drives to Carnavon to shop for groceries merely 182km away.  So, when I was looking for places to stay, I googled and googled and eventually found Warroora, a "station stay."  Basically, it is just a farm that has a house that you can rent .  After camping for a couple days, the house was luxury to us.

Can you see the house?

Somehow they had lost our reservation, but it was really the low season and they had no problem accomodating us.  We chose to stay in the "Old Homestead" which was a 5 bedroom, 3 bath house.  The cost was about $160 per night for all 5 of us.  This is a great deal for a time machine.  Living in Warroora is like being transported back to the US 1850s.  We kept calling it the dust bowl.  Life is hard here.  They have a well, which provides water for showering and dishes, but is unsuitable for drinking.  The water is brackish, and comes out of the earth hot (like 90F).  The only drinking water is collected from the rare rain and is purified.  The nearest town is Carnavon and I'd hate to think where the nearest hospital is.

Whale bone on our private beach

Despite the hard life it would be to live here and make a living, to vacation here is paradise.  We decided to take a "vacation day" and not undertake anything big today.  We napped, ate, had some drinks and drove down to the beach for a quick look.  Can you picture 100km of untouched coastline?  No malls, no soda cans, no trash, no manmade structures, no people.  Just beach...endless beach.

It's windy here and there are some waves, but we jump into the water anyway.  Heike is nervous about sharks and when she sees something big near her, she's quick to get out of the water.  We did find out later what she saw, it wasn't a shark, it was an enormous turtle.  Anyway, the water was cold and it was windy, so we took a jaunt along the beach.  The beach was crawling with ghost crabs.  Their little yellow and orange bodies contrasting nicely to the blue water and the white sand.



Back at the homestead, Monbill prepares us a killer spaghetti bolognese.  While we might be in the 1850s, this place has a stocked kitchen, including Global knives.  We make some dark&stormys with some ginger beer and bundaberg rum.  It's not like in Bermuda, but it's do-able.  After we eat, we play some cards and fall into deep sleep in a real (lumpy...but still) a bed.

Off to the Coast

Karijini 5:30am

Having asked which gorge we should by no means miss the helpful woman at the tourist information mention Hamersley Gorge.  At this point, you can imagine that we are sick of dirt roads and really just want to get back to civilization without blowing another tire.  Hamersley Gorge is, of course, out of the park, take a right, get back on another dirt road for another 25km.  Since we are on the other side of the planet, in the middle of no where, and with no conceivable probability of coming back, we decide to get up super early, break camp, and get up there.  We're lucky and it's a beautiful day, one of those mornings that makes it easy to get up at 5 throw everything into the car and get on the road.

Like from a geology textbook

Is Brent on the trail?

Quick hike, off to Tom Price and hopefully get on the road to Ningaloo by 11:00am.  The road to Hamersley is terrible.  Fook off Australian roads!  We do get there, but it is dicey and slow at times.  This gorge is beautiful, but it looks like it is the forgotten gorge of the park.  The signs are not great.  We head down to the floor of the gorge but can't really find a trail.  We are, not surprisingly, the only people out here.  We walk over the rocks for a while, looking for something that looks like the pictures we saw at Tourist Information.



Hamersley gorge has incredible rock formations, and the difference in colors is striking.The red rocks look to have been pushed up and thrown around; escaping form the sun, huge green trees shoot up from the floor, and beautiful water invites us for a swim.  It is only by swimming do we find the elusive "grotto."  The grotto is a small pool formed by the constant pounding of a waterfall.  Swimming here is incredible.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures as to get here you have to swim.

Annette, Dan and Brent outside the Grotto

Is this the trail?

But we don't stay long.  We have to get on the road.  We want to get to Ningaloo before it's too dark.  Back in the car we head off to Tom Price.  In Tom Price we decide to buy food for our time in Ningaloo.  We're not sure where the closest supermarket is in relation to our "Station" stay, so we stock up here. (Turns out this is a good call, and the closest supermarket would have been 2 hours).  It's still before noon, but we grab lunch in Tom Price.  I had an awesome lamb sandwich with beets on it.

Let's get on the road.  We go to fill up the cars and put air in the tires (we were trying the low and slow approach).  Brent mentions that one tire looks a little low, but we disregard this and like Americans assume that we'll just fill it up at the next gas station.  With the helpful advice from that lady at the tourist information we decide to take the shortcut on what is now a "great, newly paved road."  Away from civilization again.  This, we know, is going to be the most remote time of our trip.   An hour or so into the drive, the road, surprise surprise, turns into a dirt road.  Monbill is in front,and I'm driving behind, going much slower.  The road is terrible, there are chunks of rock on the road and it is deep with sand and rock.  Driving on dirt is tough, it feels completely different, but right now it feels like the car is sliding.  Fook.  We get out.  Yup.  Blown tire.  We're pros now.  Off with the tire (it's much hotter today), on with the donut.  We do a quick calculation and realize we're only about 15k from what we know is a paved road.  We decide to split up.  Monbill and I take the tire back to Tom Price.  Brent and the girls go ahead (slowly).  Maybe we made a decision of where to meet, but I don't remember.  There is a gas station at Nanutarra, but we think that they will be going so slow that we'll be able to catch up to them along the way.

From here, you'll only get my perspective.  Monbill and I, probably not the wisest...but we book it back to Tom Price.  We are seriously flying over the road.  At one point we actually get a little air over one hump and decide to slow down a little.  This road isn't exactly well mapped and we miss a crucial turn.  Luckily we realize it and are able to retrace ourselves and get back onto the right road.  We get to Tom Price at around 2:45.  We pull up to our favorite tire guy and ask if he's got another tire.  Yes!  Luckily he does.  The day before he mentioned that it was his last one...so I don't know how he got one in so fast...  Great, can you put it on?
"Yeah, but not now....paperwork."
 "Sorry, what was that?"
 "Yeah, I can put it on at 4:00. Have to do paperwork now."
Ok, at this point, I'm going through the options.  Bribe him?  What if he's insulted? Fine.  We'll  come back at 4.
Man of his word, when we come back at 4, he puts on the tire.  $250 again.  We ask him about the best way to drive without busting tires and how to get to the coast the best.  He says stick to the paved roads.  It's only 50k more.  He also must be able to tell that we are nervous, so he tells us to be very careful between Paraburdoo and Nanutarra.  "This is where they run cattle. Go slow.  Less than 70kmph."

We fill up on gas and now it is pouring.  We have to fill the tires back up, so in the pouring rain, Monbill and I pump air into the tires, grab some snacks and are on our way.  Who says it doesn't fooking rain in the desert. Now we are wet and stressed.  The rain is off and on, but the road is fine and we get to Paraburdoo in no time.  Take a look at this on Google Maps.  At Paraburdoo we take a right onto a "road." that goes to Nanutarra.  The road is no wider than our driveway.

The "road".  Looks like someone had to swerve to miss something.

This road just cuts through cattle farms and as we turn onto this road we are greeted by a Steer and a Kangaroo.  Great.  This is going to be fun.  Now we are going slow and the sun is quickly sinking.  The passenger is not relaxing;  He is the look out...looking out for anything moving that we might crash into.

Right before sundown it gets really dangerous to drive.  We are going due West and the sun is in our faces and completely washes out the road.  Luckily there are no cars, but if there were, say a kangaroo in the road, we would most likely not see it.  So it was a relief, of sorts, when the sun finally set and casted us into darkness.  Now we are going really slow (50kmph), driving in the middle of the road with the high-beams on. Monbill and I haven't seen a car in over 4 hours.

Trying to make sense of all this, Monbill quips "Wait, don't cows sleep at night." And in that instant a huge black cow walks out onto the road.  I slam on the brakes, lean on the horn.  The cow is not bothered by my presence and just continues walking.  It's 7:00, pitch black, we're both so tense that we are staring out into the blackness, hunched forward going 50kmph.  Australia is a big country, and it takes a long time to go anywhere at 50kmph.  Around 8:00 we take a quick break (note no rest areas out here), take a look at the stars and have a quick talk about when we are going to call it a night.  No, we're going to make it to Nanutarra.  What if their car broke down on the dirt road and they are behind us.

Another hour later, we finally see signs of life.  We keep driving but don't see the gas station.  Is it possible to miss the one thing that is out here? Eventually after 9:00 we roll in, and are greeted by Heike, Brent and Annette.  We made it 16 hours after we left.  Quick dinner and straight into the tent for bed.  What a long day.  Maybe tomorrow we won't get a flat tire? That would be nice.

Adventures in the Outback

Circular Pool

Excited from our day in Hancock Gorge and Handrail Pool and still suffering from jet lag (note this is day 11 in Oz) we get up early.  It rained all night and is still gray and drizzling.  With all the warning about ways to die in the gorges with flash floods I wonder if we should leave this god forsaken place and go to the beach.  No, we drove a massive amount of time to get here, and we're going to see everything Karijini has.  Off to Dales Gorge. Dales Gorge is all the way back at the entrance to the park, where we came in...45km on the gravel road.  Fine, we load up the car with all of us and the food (to keep it cool) and drive the hour over to Dales.

Dicey but fun

Fern Pool

Dales is a lot more lush than what we saw yesterday.  I believe these pools are spring fed so they have water almost constantly.  The sign at this hike actually doesn't say anything about not hiking if it looks like it might rain; so like any naive tourist, we march right down.  It's raining a little but the walk is beautiful and it's not slippery.  At the bottom of the gorge are these massive Gum trees that shoot up.  In the picture above you can see the trees, but can't appreciate how large they actually are.  The hiking has some dicey parts, but mostly it's an easy walk along the bottom of the gorge.  There are a couple of things to see around here.  Circular pool, Fortescue Falls, and Fern Pool.  Fern Pool is the most idyllic, and is probably shown on every advertisement for Karijini.  Fern pool is sacred to the natives, so Brent was denied a cannonball.  But we did end up going for a swim.  Brent and I got to swim in under the waterfalls.  Gorgeous, placid, warm water.  After Fern pool we leave the canyon and proceed to the Visitors' Center. In the Visitors' Center we ask 3 dumb questions.
 1. Are there any snakes in Karijini (or something to this effect)?  The lady showed us an awesome picture of a python pulling up a kangaroo in...you guessed it Fern Pool.  Nice.
2. If there is anything that we shouldn't miss, what is it?  Hamersley Gorge.  Oh you mean the gorge that is all the way out of the park then another 25km up on another dirt road?  Great.
3. There is a "shortcut" on the map from Tom Price to Nanutarra.  Looks like a dirt road, how bad is it?  Oh it's great, she says.  They're doing construction near there and the road is now paved.  Will probably save you an hour.
Aren't the Australians so helpful.  Actually the Australians are nice...but the ones who work in the tourist industry are...less than ideal.

From there we head back to see some other gorge nicknamed 'Grandma's Gorge.'  A nice easy one.  On the drive there we take advantage of there being a little water on the road and get to grab this awesome picture.

Weeeeee!

Then we get this great picture.

Shit

Great.  Blown tire.  I've never blown a tire before.  Luckily Brent and Monbill were on top of it.  They are unloading everything out of the car.  Monbill's got the jack out and he's lifting up the car, like this is a normal thing.  We're driving an SUV from Broome to Perth, you would think it would come with a full size spare.  Nope.  Donut.  Great.  Monbill and Brent change the tire, and all of Australia gives us advice on how to not blow a tire.  In our time there we heard these theories, Slow and low (let air out), Fast and hard, Slow and Hard.  We load the blown tire back in the car, skip Grandma's gorge and head back to the campsite.  

Here Monbill, Brent and I get into Monbill's car and pray that we can get a replacement tire in Tom Price. I assumed they would have tires for us.  But what if they don't? What if they have to order one? Are we stuck in Karijini for a week?  How much does a tire cost anyway?  Monbill's tires for his car were about $300 for all 4.  Ok....60-80 bucks...we can handle that....maybe a little more cause we're out in the middle of no where?

Now the race against the sunlight starts.  In Monbills's car we book it to Tom Price.  About 45K takes over an hour, much of which is on dirt roads.  Tom Price, knowing the basics of supply and demand have a population of about 100 and 2 tire shops.  We pull up to the first one, after Monbill nearly got us run over by the biggest mining truck I have ever seen (for future reference, if you have a choice to suddenly pull out in front of a 200 ton truck...don't).  We get out of the car and this super friendly dog comes up to us.  He's a little red from the dirt, but so happy to see us.  I pet him, and he wants to get in the car..."No...get out of there...silly dog."  We go to get the tire out of the trunk and the dog is trying to get in the trunk, tail wagging, tongue out.  I gently push him away and say to the guy, "Wow, you've got a friendly dog."  "That's not my fucking dog!" he elegantly states.  "Aaah!"  I throw my hands up, now thinking that I really need to wash after touching this mangy, random wild dog.  The guy goes to change the tire and the dog doesn't stop.  Soon we hear, "Fuck off dog!" emanating from the garage.  But it doesn't sound like an American "Fuck", this guy is real outback Australian with a think accent, so it sounds like "Fook."  This "Fook off" becomes a mantra for the rest of our trip.  Done with the tire and presented with the bill.  Yup, just like we thought. They must have a price chart set up for where you are from and how "Fooked" you are.  Americans in Karijini? $240 for a tire.  Fine whatever.

On the way out of Tom Price we see this impressive train starting.  This train is like what you imagine from the Old West days...carting iron out of Tom Price...we're talking 2 mile long train.  Cool to see.  We find a turn off of a place to take pictures, pull in and take some.  There is a somber memorial to the dead up there and we hope that these are not all miners who have been lost.

Memorial to the dead outside Tom Price

As we drive back to the campsite we notice that we have to cross the train tracks.  Monbill quips, "Hey, look for the train."  I look left and nothing there, but when I look to the right, it is there.  As we cross the tracks the red lights start to flash and the gates come down.  If we had spent 5 more seconds taking pictures we would have had a great view of that train for probably an hour as it slowly chugged by.  Ecstatic that we got a tire, got ahead of the train, and are within a couple easy Ks of home, we stop again for some pictures.

Dan on anthill at Sunset, note the red on the pants that is still there today.

Lazy parkour at Sunset

When we get back we put the tire on in the dark.  Monbill and Brent are tire masters! Off with the donut, on with the new one.  Amazing!  We've never been so happy to be back, eat some stir fry, play some cards, and lay down in our tent (the boys are still sleeping in the cars).  You appreciate the little things when you are out here.

Tomorrow we drive to the coast...or so we think.

Karijini - Handrail Pool

After Hancock Gorge we grab a quick self made lunch at the top of the gorge.  The flies are incredible.  Monbill cannot eat.  He goes and sits in the car.  The rest of us suffer with our fly nets on.  You can't imagine how many times you forget you have a fly net on and you get a mouthful of sandwich and fly net. *sigh*

Ant Hero, bringing a giant chip home

The way narrows.

After lunch we push on to see Handrail Gorge.  Monbill is tired, so he sits this one out.  The format of the gorge is the pretty much like the last one...big scary sign stating that if it threatens rain, or you are not in shape, or you don't have good shoes etc etc don't attempt this hike.  A little overstated.  Brent takes a 5 second look at the sign then starts the decent.  Steep at first, but then it calms down.  At this point we're thinking, "I wonder why they call this 'Handrail' pool?"  Is it a long thin pool like a hand rail?  I don't know.

The way narrows to something similar to the Spider Walk.  The water that you see there is usually a rushing stream.  We, however, in the beginning of summer, have only a small stream to deal with.

Maybe you can see why it's called "Handrail"

Perfect pool

I started walking ahead.  On both sides are the smooth rocks and we start to have to spider walk again.  You can hear signing emanating from the pool in front of us.  The voices of the two girls signing reverberates with an echo through the small tunnel.  At the end of the spider walk there is literally a handrail bolted to the side of the canyon.  Holding on to this handrail allows you to make the absolutely vertical decent down a couple of man made ladder rungs (again bolted to the wall) to a flat landing and a perfect natural swimming pool.  It doesn't take long for us to jump in.  Brent takes this motivation to a new level where he climbs up on a 20' ledge, scopes out the landing, and performs one of the loudest cannonballs you have ever heard.  Whoooosh.  Monbill later tells us that he also heard it from the top of the gorge.

Dinner this night was much less of an adventure.  Monbill cooked up an incredible Massaman curry using potatoes, zucchini, carrots and kangaroo meet.  Ok, it's not your typical curry ingredients but it was delicious. It felt like a complete luxury to eat outside, dry, with a plate.  You start appreciating the little things out here.  We had extra curry and our choices were put it in the trash and carry it around for a couple more days, or put it in Tupperware and maybe eat it for breakfast tomorrow.  When you don't have trash, you start thinking curry for breakfast might be a good idea.

It's still early and the little store is open, so we go over and grab a couple beers and play some cards.  Monbill invests in $30 of Coke Zero for the next day.  While playing, a couple who had actually cooked some food with us in the Monsoon the night before came looking to buy food at the store.  The store had since closed.  They looked distressed.  It turns out that while they were hiking dingoes broke into their Ute (truck) opened their cooler and ate their food.  Yeah, did I mention that we're really out in the Outback?  Packs of dingoes roam Karijini and we will eventually see them (little cute ones) in our campground.  Anyway, they were more than happy to eat our left over curry so we don't have to have it for breakfast.  Win Win.  We play cards under the light until about 8 then go to bed.  We have a long day tomorrow...actually much longer than we had planned.

Karijini - Hancock Gorge

This may not be a national park that you have heard of.  I think there are probably a lot of Australians who have not heard of it, and definitely a lot of them that have never been there.  Karijini is a set of gorges that are cut out of the red rock.  The park itself is big and spread out (Australia's second biggest).  The idea is to drive to a gorge, descend into it, then hike along the floor.

Drying our towels on the tents

Up at 5am again.  The storm is gone and the sun is coming out.  The girls desperately try to boil water for coffee and the boys all pray that we don't have to deal with the women without their coffee.  The water does eventually warm enough to make some instant coffee.  Phew, crisis averted...off to the hike.

Monbill On the Ladder

First stop Hancock Gorge.  The trail markers at Karijini really try to emphasize how dangerous it could be.  This trail is rated 4 out of 6 where 6 requires helmets, rappelling gear etc.  It sounds a little daunting, but we decide to take a look.  After about 5 minutes we get to a ladder that we have to climb down.  OK this looks fine.  We continue on and the scenery is beautiful.  The red rocks go straight up to where we camped, but the floor is covered with greenery and even huge trees shooting up.  Everything out here is a "Gum" tree.  A Gum Tree is a Eucalyptus tree.  When we'd walk by a tree, I'd pick some leaves and smell them.  They all smell different; there is a lemon gum, a Tea Gum, Red,White,Blue Gums.  All together a whole set of foliage that I did not know existed.

Gum Trees on the Gorge Floor

Continuing on the trail, it dead ends at a river.  Huh.  I thought this would have been a longer trail.  Turns out that the river is the trail.  Brent, with his adventurous attitude and the best set of shoes for this trip, walks right into the river.  We hesitantly follow.  It's not deep and we can easily walk through it.  After the river we get to another impasse, where there is a deeper river but on the right are some rocks that it looks like we can climb over.  Brent goes ahead.  Annette and I cautiously follow.  Monbill and Heike wait to see if it is worth it.  Turns out it's worth it.  Brent and I go back to get the others.  Just around the corner from the rock wall the gorge opens up to the impressive Amphitheater.

Annette and Dan carefully navigating

Brent and Dan in the Amphitheater 

Again, it looks like the trail ends.  Again, Brent pushes on.  The gorge narrows so much (we're talking 3 feet wide) that you have to put your hands and feet on opposite sides of the gorge to keep yourself over the running water below you.  The rocks are worn smooth from the years of rushing water and it feel surprisingly safe on your bare feet.

The spider walk

A little further we find where the trail actually stops.  They don't have many signs out here.  When there is a sign, they mean it.

Annette can barely contain her excitement.

This hike is the best hike I have ever done and was the highlight of the entire trip for me (achem..besides the wedding).  Again, with the jet lag.  It's only lunch time.  But for the rest of the day, you'll have to check in to the next post.

Into the Bush

We have a long day ahead of us.    Quick breakfast, then on to Port Hedland.  Did I mention the flies?  I wasn't kidding.  That's right, breakfast with fly nets on.

Karijini, our destination, why we've driven 12 hours from Broome has no supermarket and no drinkable water.  So before our 3 nights in Karijini we need to stock up.  Before going to Karijini we did our homework.  It is the desert after all.  It's going to be hot, really hot.  Check out the averages here.  Low around 19 Celsius, Highs in the 40s.  At the supermarket we bought 80 Liters of water.  Port Hedland (look it up on the map) has a giant mine directly in the town!.  This image below is from the salt mountain that you can see from miles away.  Otherwise it is a shit-hole and should be avoided if possible.

We leave Port Hedland around 11 and should get to Karijini around 4pm.  Just enough time to set up our tents, put the lamb on the grill and enjoy a great dinner under the stars in Karijini.  On the drive to Karijini we meet the road trains.  You have to picture this.  The road is narrow.  The road has grooves where these road trains drive, so the car is jerking around on the road, there is no shoulder, you are driving on the left and your passenger thinks that you're going to drive off the road at any minute.  Then one of these, filled with gasoline comes at you at 70mph.

Road Train

Taken from Monbill's car.  Do you see us in front?

Just after this near death experience with the road train we get out of the car and stretch our legs.  It's 43C (109F).  The heat is incredible.  Feels like an oven.  You can see that the landscape has changed; greener more trees, and clouds.  Uh oh.  It doesn't rain in the desert does it?  Nah...this is going to pass.

Sign on the road.  That is a Kangaroo crossing sign.  420km is 260 miles.

We pull into Karijini right around 5 (one hour to sunset).  The campsite that we are staying at is 45K from the entrance...going 110kph we should be there in 30 minutes.  Oh, and it's pouring now.  I guess it does rain in the desert.  10 K into the park the paved road ends.  Brent acutely points out, "Well, this is going to change our time estimates."  Yeah.  About an hour and a bit later (right around sundown) we pull into the reception of the campsite.  Now there is massive lightening, wind, and rain.  At the reception I ask if it is safe to be out there.  The most unhelpful receptionist states, "Woah...I don't know...doesn't look good out there...don't know what to tell you."  Thanks!  We'll take 2 campsites.  So now it is getting dark and absolutely pouring rain.  Huge drops are falling hard.  We sit in the car (Monbill sits outside in a chair) and wait it out.  It finally subsides and we jump out and set up our tents.  Heike and I win, getting our tent set up the quickest.  Go HD.  Annette and Brent do eventually get theirs set up, but they get a little wet.  HD however could not get the stakes in the ground, so I put one 10L thing of water in it to hold it down and I start cooking with Monbill.  Now it is cold (18C , 64F).  It dropped 45F in a matter of hours.  It is raining sideways and is now officially dark.  Of course we couldn't get the BBQ hot and it took over an hour to cook the lamb steak and potatoes.

 Now the wind really picks up.  We're talking hurricane strength.  For example, I tried to pull out a piece of tin foil, and the wind caught it and I had a tin foil kite.  Shit.  You know, maybe I should go check on the tent. I get back to the tent to see the whole tent in the air being held down only by the 10L of water.   Shit.  I grab some heavy shit from the car and put it inside, I find some rocks and put them on the tent.  What are we going to do?

We do not have many happy campers.  The girls and Brent are hanging out in the car while Monbill and I complete the lamb.  Once I put some rain gear on, I feel better, but have no idea where to sleep.  The wind is still blowing everything around and the tents are absolutely whipping in the wind.

We eat in the car.  The lamb is beautiful.  Delicious.  Potatoes are great too.  Eating conditions in the car?  Suboptimal but OK.

Now where are we going to sleep?  We can't all sleep in the cars, and the wind and rain are still howling outside.  I venture into our tent.  We are not campers.  We are summer, nice weather campers and bought a cheap tent on Amazon, so I'm not expecting greatness.  The tent, however, is warm and dry, and wonderful.  The stone ground was radiating wonderful heat into the tent.  Beautiful.  Good night.  Tomorrow, maybe the storm will blow out.

Karijini eco retreat campsite, 3am

Moon over Karijini

On the road

The beauty of jet lag is that 1. It lasts for a long time (13 hour difference to Perth), 2. You wake up at 5:00 am rearing to go.  At low tide you can supposedly see dinosaur tracks in the stone at Gantheaum Point.  Low tide was set for 7:00am, so we were able to get there easily. At 7:00am it was 33 Celsius with blazing sun.  It was hot, but it was beautiful.  The red dirt, the blue ocean and the heat.  Although we wandered the grounds for 30 minutes we were unable to locate anything looking like dinosaur tracks.  Still the view was worth it.  And the feeling of getting back into the car with the AC was worth it too.  At this point, we are thinking, "What have we gotten ourselves into?" We're heading inland to Karijini and we hear that the coast is "a lot" cooler than inland.  Oh boy.

What is the first thing you want to do when you are in a beautiful spot on the Indian Ocean, miles away from civilization?  You guessed it, go to Target.  Yes, they have a Target in Broome.  We had to pick up supplies for the trip.  Bec's parents had recommended a fly net, and we found some for $2 at a cheap store next to Target.  We didn't think that we would really need this...but since they recommended it, and it was only $2 we thought we'd get them.  Otherwise, we picked up some cooking stuff, a cooler, some towels and other basic necessities that we would need on our trip.  I should mention that the cooler...obviously Broome has learned the basic concepts of supply and demand...was $65!  We also bought ice for our cooler. $7.

Now we have a 5 and a half hour drive to Pardoo ahead of us and the sun sets at 6:00pm.  We have been told by almost everyone, that we SHOULD NOT DRIVE IN THE DARK.  Skippy (a kangaroo) likes to come out when it's cooler and likes to bounce out onto the road.  Ok, let's get going.  The speed limit out there is 110kph (~70mph).  We get on the road, set the cruise and go straight.  It would be relaxing if the road weren't barely big enough to fit two cars, we weren't driving on the left, and if you didn't have to pass road trains (more on road trains in the next installment).

Rest Stop.  Seriously, see the trashcan?

Our front grill.  Seriously, where are we? Jurassic Park?

Peacock at the gas station

Monbill had gotten some good advice prior to our trip.  If there is a gas station, fill up.  Even if you are a quarter tank down, fill up.  Great Advice.

Just before the pitch black of night, we roll into Pardoo Roadhouse.  Where we get a room.  For the night.  A roadhouse is like a trailer park , on the road.  The "motel room" we slept in was a 7'x7' room, with a bed, and AC, a TV with one channel, and a fridge.  The bathroom was in a separate trailer.  Pardoo Roadhouse has a restaurant, so I had some dinner, Heike had a snack and a beer and we were off to bed.  Another long day tomorrow, Supermarket in Port Hedland and off to Karijini.

Just before going to sleep I was able to talk to they guys staying next to us in the "motel rooms."  They are all miners (Iron ore) who come from all over Australia to work for 2 weeks then get 2 weeks off.  Must be a rough life.  The next morning they left at 4:45am.

EWART - Broome

To get to Broome we had to first fly to Perth (4 hours), then fly up to Broome (3 hours).  It's a big country.  On the flight up, the plane took a sharp right turn two hours outside of Perth.  The captain later informs us that there is a large sandstorm that we are trying to avoid.  An hour of turbulence ensues.

Landing into Broome is quite a view.  You can see the Great Northern Highway, a single strip of asphalt cutting in an absolute straight line paralleling the ocean.  As far as you can see is red dirt, the one road, and the ocean.  Getting off the plane (this is one of those airports where you take the stairs down to the tarmac) you feel the full power of the outback.  It was 5pm, about 95 degrees and 80+% humidity.  Phew, let's get into the airport to get out of this heat.  The "airport" is a single room with a place to collect your bags, about 150 people, and no air conditioning.  Luckily our bags came out quickly and we were able to escape the sauna.

The car rental agency that we rented from was not allowed to pick people up in the airport for some reason, so the nice man told me to simply "Walk out of the front gate of the airport and meet him outside."  When he told me this, I was picturing Logan airport, and was wondering what the front gate would be (near the tunnel?).  "It's OK, the Broome airport is fairly small," he reassured me.  Sure enough, we were able to walk out and find the cars.  Two white, Mitsubishi Outbacks parked next to each other.  But...no keys.  No agent.  Crap.  Friends say, "Oh we should just call them."  I say, "That'd be great, but I brought no numbers/directions/anything useful with me."  Luckily they had their number at the airport and we were able to contact them.

The cars.  White cars are not the best choice for the outback...get a red car.  Monbill's car was pristine and had no scratches, but did not come with unlimited miles!  Um...you know we're driving to Perth.  My car however, had scratches on the doors, on the trunk, a small crack on the windshield, and a hole (!) on the underbody.  What are you going to say when you're out in the middle of no where, and there are probably no other SUVs in Broome anyway.  "Great! Car looks good.  I'm sure we'll drive it 3000km with no problems"

And we are off.  Monbill, living in Bermuda, has taught him to drive on the left.  Dan just tries to follow.  On the way to the Hotel I think I put my windshield wipers on 6 times.  The hotel, which was gorgeous, did not, however, have a sign.  No where on the Hotel Mercure, did it say so.  Brent happened to notice a sign for "Reception", where he cautiously walked in.

OK, car--check, place to sleep--check, Did I mention it is Thanksgiving Day?  Let's find some dinner.  Through the use of the Lonely Planet on a Kindle we found a place called Matso's (http://www.matsos.com.au/about-us) . Great place.  Make their own beer, have great food.  A real Broome dining experience.  Note : The further from civilization you are, the more expensive everything is.  Fish and Chips? A$35.

All right.  This has been a long day.  Let's get some sleep 'cause tomorrow we're driving to Pardoo.

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Epic Western Australia Road Trip (EWART)

After being back for about a month I have realized that there is no way that I'll be able to tell all my friends and family about all the details of our trip.  So, I'll try to write it all down as I remember it.  If you are not familiar with what we did; we drove from Broome to Perth in 14 days.  It's about 3000km and can be seen here: http://goo.gl/7JKcc .  Take a look.  Zoom in, you'll notice that there are not a whole lot of roads or cities on our journey.  We were literally off the grid.  It is a world that is hard to imagine.  Western Australia has 2.2 million people 1.9 of which live in the southwestern corner of the state.  That leaves a mere 300,000 for the rest of the state (which is about a third the size of the US).

So, Broome to Perth.  Why?  People say, "There's nothing on that side of the country."  Well that's kinda true.  And nothing is beautiful.  Really, if you live in a city, you should go out to nothingness.  It's incredible.  Kangaroos everywhere, cattle farms the size of states, 100s of miles without seeing any structures, highways the width of regular city roads, ants, 6' ant hills, flies, wild peacocks,emus and parrots at the gas station.  Just a world you cannot imagine still exists.