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.