Beth and Mark's Gap Year 2014: Sweeping down the coast - 6th

We arrive in Broome about a week earlier than we had scheduled way back in January and are a little fearful that we may not get a caravan park site because of the stories we had heard of Broome being oversubscribed by tourists. The explosion we had seen in tourist numbers over the past week did little to allay those fears, however, after what seems to be the obligatory caravan park proprietor frown after ascertaining that we have not pre booked a site and then being told that it will be a struggle to fit us in (a claim which never seems to be backed up by the number of vacant sites), we secure a site and set ourselves up for a 5 day stay. A stay of more than 3 days means that as well as the standard setup we feel we can invest the time in also erecting our annexe and putting down mats to provide a little more comfort and living space. The only problem with doing this at Broome is that our allotted site is so small that fine engineering is required to fit trailer, annexe and car into the space but somehow we manage to squeeze it all in without encroaching on the neighbours.

After setting up and spending the night at Broome, we head to Cape Leveque the next day (about 200km of diabolical road north of Broome) where we do a bit of snorkelling and marvel at the beatiful contrasts of red rock, white sand and turquoise sea (don't look too hard for a reflection of this beauty in my photos, remember I still only have my iPhone). Rather than make this a rushed day trip we spent the night camping in the traditional manner in our 2 man tent. I expected to endure an uncomfortable night and to wake up with multiple aches and pains, but to my surprise I slept and woke up hale and hearty. I suspect however that night after night of this would test me, so I am not planning to sell the trailer and its super comfy bed just yet.

I expected that our stay in Broome would focus on lazy relaxation, but I had not properly anticipated the impact of a little dynamo called Maria. Maria is a friend and ex colleague of Beth's who has recently moved to Broome to live. Beth had arranged some time ago to catch up with Maria when we got to Broome, which I understood would involve dinner, reminiscing, catching up on gossip and Bon voyage. I anticipated correctly except for the Bon voyage bit. Despite busily preparing to fly to Darwin in a couple of days to meet up with her husband who was slowly working his way up from Melbourne to Broome, Maria generously spent a lot of time with us during our stay acting as tour guide. We visited Point Gantheume, walked and swam on Cable Beach, visited the markets, attended the crab races, enjoyed the best eateries, window shopped at soooo many pearl boutiques, and much, much more. Being busy like this was actually wonderfully relaxing and just what we needed. We really appreciated Maria giving up her precious time to spend with us. Once again our holiday has been made more special through sharing it with friends.

Our next destination is Port Hedland, which is a six hour drive from Broome. Pt. Hedland has never really been on our list of must see places, but Beth's brother Lyle who is based in Perth works for the Pt. Hedland Authority and Beth managed to coincide our visit with a visit by Lyle to attend meetings, so that we could spend some time together in the afternoon. We had a brief tour of the town, which is trying very hard to jazz itself up a bit with new parks and housing developments and refurbishments, but at its heart this is an iron ore port, shipping something like a million tons of ore each day, and while that is impressive, it is certainly not my idea of pretty. If I were cruel I would say that these improvements are akin to applying lipstick to a pig. Despite its cosmetic flaws though, we enjoyed Pt. Hedland and catching up briefly with family.

From Pt. Hedland we travel to Karijini NP (formerly Hammersley Range NP). We have heard so much about this National Park and have been very much looking forward to the visit. Karijini has two main claims to fame, the rolling spinifex covered hills that just seem to go on forever, and a series of seven gorges concentrated in the southern end of the park. Yes, more gorges!!! You would think that we had seen enough gorges on the Gibb River Rd to last a lifetime. Not so, I suspect that Beth could spend a lifetime just visiting gorges around the world - she is quite taken by them. In the course of our 3 days at Karijini we managed to visit (and climb down into) every accessible gorge in the park, each of which had quite distinct characteristics despite their close proximity to one another.

Walks in Karijini are graded as class 2 through 5 with 2 being easiest and 5 being the toughest. We are very pleased with ourselves for managing to negotiate two of these class 5 walks which included relatively long vertical sections and narrow, high ledges. The official blurb suggests that "These trails are difficult and a high level of fitness is required". I would like to claim super fitness as a result, but what my body tells me after these walks by way of aches and pains would suggest otherwise. In my case I think I have substituted perseverance and steady effort for high level of fitness, and this seems to have worked ok. You would think that being able to put Class 5 walking trails on our resumė would be enough for Beth, but no, she is already making plans to come back here some time and do some of the permit only class 6 trails which involve dangling off ropes and the like to make your way deep down into canyons. I doubt that perseverance and steady effort will get me through those ones, so I guess I better start working on high level of fitness..

Karijini was really amazing and for us more than lived up to expectations. We had spectacular views, brilliant layered and twisted rock formations in many hues of red, green, blue, yellow and grey, gorgeous pools, cascades and waterfalls, and to top it all off magnificent cool clear days to enjoy it all in. Beth may disagree with this last bit and suggest that it was cold, but I really enjoyed some relief from the constant 30+ days which seem to have been our staple for a long time. I guess the cooler weather dissuaded us from getting wet, which did mean that we missed the many opportunities for a swim or to wade along creeks. Oh well, next time we may need to do this to cool off from our Class 6 efforts.

The mining town of Tom Price is our next stop. My father worked up here for a few months about 40 years ago when work was hard to come by in Victoria. It was interesting to see the single mans quarters in town, which I suspect is where he lived when he was up here, and to tour the iron ore mine just around the corner which is gradually dismantling Mt Tom Price at the rate of about 250,000 tons a day. We also took the opportunity to climb Mt Nameless, which overlooks both the town and the mine pit. The tourist blurb suggests that this is the tallest peak in Western Australia, which is interesting, because back in Karijini we climbed Mt Bruce, which claimed to be taller but still only the second highest peak in WA (behind Mt Meharry). Never let the truth get in the way of a little marketing I suppose. Regardless of its ranking, I can confirm that it is hard work walking to the top of Mt Nameless, which I presume was named such (or is that not named) because what is the point in naming a mountain which will probably be dug up anyway. As it turns out Mt Nameless ore does not appear to be worth digging up, so it is likely to remain standing tall without a Name for the foreseeable future. I was a little surprised by the town of Tom Price. I had expected a dusty, dirty mining town, but in fact it was quite a pretty, well established and generally pleasant town. Which is possibly why we left later than we had hoped for the long trip to Dampier on the coast.

Our trip to Dampier involved travelling on a permit only mining road which ran alongside the railway line on which the 2.5 kilometre ore trains travel. It was quite something to watch these monsters snaking along the tracks. In all we encountered 7 empty "up" trains and 4 laden "down" trains. I deliberately said encountered rather than saw, because late departure plus westerly travel (sun in the eyes), plus dusty dirt roads, plus more traffic than you might imagine meant we didn't actually see much at all and were largely driving by Braille. Nice even corrugations were comforting because it was a good indication that we were actually on the road. Despite these challenges we did make steady progress, but it become obvious to us that we would not reach our intended destination of Dampier by nightfall, so we chose instead to stay at the larger town of Karratha which we hit just as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. Karratha was another surprise. Again a mining town (this time gas), but nicely laid out and quite pleasant.

Karratha is our base for a couple of days to explore Dampier and the Burrup Peninsula which is home to an extraordinary collection of ancient aboriginal petroglyphs (images etched into rocks) on thousands of red rocks scattered across the peninsula. Beth decided that we should take an advertised, but fairly remote walk (albeit in the shadow of a gigantic gas plant - not me by the way) to discover some of these artworks. But rather than take the path in the suggested direction, we decided (of course) that we would do it backwards. The walk was meant to be about a kilometre, so after 40 minutes of walking we figured that maybe we had missed a branch in the track, but do we turn back, of course not, instead we headed down what I am sure was an animal track and in no time at all we were in the middle of nowhere, but we were reasonably confident that we were heading in the right direction, all we had to do was climb up the wall of the gorge that we were now in and down the other side to where the car was parked. Getting to the top was ok, but I think that we may have blazed a new Class 5 trail getting down the other side. Eventually after about eight kilometres we got back to the car (a little weary) only to realize that we had not actually seen a single petroglyph, so off we went and did the trail in the right direction. By doing this not only did we see some amazing artwork, we also saw the very indistict point where the trail branched and our adventure began. All good fun.

Dampier helped to restore my image of mining towns which was shattered by Tom Price and Karratha. There was the statue of Red Dog, which was a must see, but apart from that not much that we found endearing. Pretty much in the same mould as Port Hedland. Maybe it is not mining towns which are unattractive, only the railheads and ports. Whilst in the vicinity, we also called into the Woodside North West Shelf Gas Facility visitors centre. The facility is a hulking monstrosity, but you could not help but be intrigued by the scale and complexity of the operation, and to marvel at the engineering and project management skills required to build the gas platforms this plant is fed by. They can do this and we cannot build a simple rail ticketing system - go figure....

I think I must be feeble minded because I struggle to have a strong opinion on mining. On one hand I see an industry that without doubt employs a large number of Australians and helps to keep this country relatively affluent, on the other hand I see a giant scar where once was Mt Tom Price, I see habitats destroyed, culturally significant aboriginal sites damaged, water tables polluted etc... I guess mining is a destructive and ugly thing, but in the whole grand scheme of things, this destruction and ugliness is pretty small scale and it does keep the wolves from the door.

From Karratha we have another long road trip to Cape Range NP and the Ningaloo reef. You really have to travel long distances to get anywhere over here. Ningaloo is quite amazing. It is a coral reef which basically runs for about 250 kilometres along the North West Cape and is never more than about 500 metres from shore. Which means that from the beach you see massive waves crashing in from the Indian Ocean over the reef, but almost still water on the beach, which is quite weird. It also means that the weeds and coral outcrops in this still water are a haven for some wonderful sea life. This of course in tun means tha we need to see them. A glass bottom boat seems to me to be the best and safest way to see these beasties, but I am led to believe that snorkelling is a much more engaging, and it turns out cheaper way to go.

I have mentioned earlier in this blog that we went snorkelling at Cape Leveque, and whilst this was certainly true, I may have neglected to mention that proficient or even capable are not words which would describe my mastery of this art. I was literally all at sea, and here I now was with a snorkeller's paradise in front of me, but a dread fear of trying to work this apparatus for any length of time. Although I somehow summoned the courage to have a go, it was not a pretty sight. Me putting my flippers on must have been particularly amusing for those watching. Putting them on onshore means that you get them filled with scratchy sand and also risk stumbling as you make your way to the water (and certain guffaws from onlookers), so I choose to put them on in the water, which only serves to make a more comical spectacle. I still get scratchy sand, and falling over in the water is much more hilarious than falling over on the beach. Once I am on my flippers, I then need to get my mask and snorkel organised, which seems simple enough, but when I launch myself into the water I find that my current dishevelled look which involves long hair on my head and a little bit under my nose is not useful for keeping water out and in no time I see a rising waterline inside my goggles. A few hair adjustments remedies this situation somewhat, but then I find that if you actually want to breathe, the snorkel must remain above the waterline, and by the way you can only breathe through your mouth, not your nose. And while you are trying to get this breathing thing right, you need also to move about and keep mindful of where you are in the water. And last of all you need to enjoy the spectacle. For my first few forays I have to admit much nervous energy was spent on technique, and enjoying the spectacle did not really happen. By the end of our stay at Cape Range NP my technique had improved and our last snorkel at Osprey Bay was actually quite enjoyable, although it is safe to say that water is clearly not my natural element. While we were on the beach we saw a pod of dolphins and some turtles bobbing up and down, unfortunately once we got in the water they were gone, but there were plenty of tropical fish, giant clams and coral to marvel over.

We are now in Coral Bay, still on Ningaloo Reef but about 100 kilometres south of Cape Range NP. We are here for three nights, so I fear that more snorkelling is inevitable so I am bracing myself for that. Coral Bay is a small town with a distinct focus on tourism. It is amazing how many things can be dreamt up to take money out of tourists pockets. It is unlikely that we will be contributing to the Coral Bay coffers in a big way, and hopefully we can enjoy this place (which is quite beautiful) without doing so.

From here we will make our way fairly quickly down to Perth to catch up with family, then to catch a plane home to celebrate Beth's father's 80th birthday, check that our house is still intact, catch up with more family and friends, and then finally head off on the European leg of our adventure. Our blog will now take a little vacation as well and I am anticipating that my next post will be the first week in July when we arrive in Germany. Our son will be travelling with us to Munich where we will meet up with our daughter who is working there, and we will then take a whirlwind 3 week tour of Munich, Paris, Barcelona, Rome and Verona. We are really looking forward to a family holiday, something we have not had for quite a while.