Tamala Station to Lighthouse Caravan Park Exmouth

Day 5 Tea Tree East camp Tamala Station to Wooramel Station (cont'd)

The drive back out to Shark Bay Road didn't seem as bad, or as long as when we had come in. Again I think down to the fact that we'd learnt a lot about driving on gravel on our drive out to Steep Point. Once back on the tarmac it was an air up of the tyres then a search for mobile reception so we could call Pioneer in Perth.

We decided to head towards Denham. That had been the original plan and as soon as we had phone coverage we stopped by the side of the road and called Linda and Jim at Pioneer. Jim confirmed the gas leak was probably the push on fitting. It has an “O” ring inside which was probably damaged allowing the gas to escape. They are a Pioneer fitting so our plan to visit a gas fitter wasn't an option but he said they could send us one. We decided to head for Exmouth so got him to send 2 up there express post. While we were stopped and had mobile coverage, we called the Lighthouse Caravan Park and booked a site for Sunday to Wednesday nights and also Exmouth Dive and changed our whale shark swim to the 24^th. We had to take a powered site at Lighthouse because the lady Carol spoke to said none of their unpowered sites were big enough to take the Mitchell. Seems odd but beggars can't be choosers I guess. We realised a bit further up the road that we'd booked for the following week so had to ring back and change the dates..................terrible when you don't need to remember what the date is! Denham seems a very nice town, a real relaxed seaside feel to it. 

 We had lunch on the foreshore, a pie each from the bakery, then fuelled up (40.17lt @$1.55/lt) and headed back to the North West Highway, stopping at shell beach for a look on the way. 

 We had 48lts of diesel in the tank when I fuelled up so we could have got away without filling the jerry cans at Overlander Roadhouse but better to be safe than sorry!

Wooramel station looked good for a night so we phoned ahead to make sure they had room, which they did, and we pulled in about 3. It's quite a relaxed place, pretty much set up where you like and we got a nice site backing on to the (dry) river bed. At $11/ person/night for an unpowered site it's good value for hot showers, toilets, communal fire pit with happy hour at 5 as well as artesian hot pools. It's very popular and was about ¾ full. We had a wander around after setting up and decided to have a soak in the hot pools which was very relaxing. Also got chatting to a nice couple from Boddington who were enjoying a dip as well. They’d been up to Cape Leveque and were on their way back home. With no stove to cook on we decided to try butter chicken on the Ziggy. Used the trivet and the wok sat well in it and cooked fine. Reasonably early night. 

382Km travelled.

Day 6 Wooramel Station to Lighthouse Caravan Park Exmouth

Up early for a cooked breakfast on the Ziggy. Used the trivet again and the half plate, managed most of it OK, although the water for the eggs just wouldn't get hot enough and when I tried to fry them they ran off the plate so egg wise a disaster but otherwise not too bad. Packed up and on the road about 9:30. Later than a lot of people, some of them were pulling out when we got out of bed about 6:30! Had one shower of rain on the way to Carnarvon where we eventually fuelled up in town after a detour to the airport............kinda a “right...oh no hang on should have been left” moment by the navigator. Carol did a u turn and got us back on course without any verbal abuse of said navigator.........but I could tell what she was thinking ! (54.25lt @ $1.599/lt) Stopped just north and changed drivers, also rang Exmouth Dive because we'd had a call earlier but it had dropped out before they could tell us what it was about. They wanted to move our dive with the whale sharks day from Tuesday to Wednesday because big seas were expected on Tuesday. That should be fine as we are booked in until Wednesday morning. Had some more heavy showers around lunchtime, at the turnoff to Worroora Station there was a sign saying “road closed so maybe it's just as well we're not heading for Ningaloo Station as planned. Eventually pulled over and had lunch around 2, chicken and tomato and lettuce wraps.

Pulled in to the info centre at Exmouth and filled the water tanks. Checked in around 4:30 at Lighthouse, the site they gave us was just inside the gate so a very busy roadway and not much privacy. I can see why we don't stay in caravan parks much!! Put what we'd learnt on the towing course into action, Carol backed the Mitchell onto the site while I guided her. Not a bad effort either considering we had not much room and a concrete pad to line up on. Set up and Carol wanted the quick awning put up which I finally did reluctantly. Just as well as it happens, not long had it up and the rain pelted down !! Put the wall up as well and that gave us a modicum of privacy from everyone walking and driving passed. We were both pretty tired and after a dinner of leftover spaghetti bolognaise cooked in the camp kitchen we hit the sack. 

523.6km travelled.

Day 7 Lighthouse Caravan Park

A veg day! We were both feeling the effects of our long day yesterday and apart from a walk across the road to see the beach,and a walk around the camp where we spotted another Mitchell, just stayed in the camp doing washing and writing some blog stuff. Used the camp kitchen to heat up leftover butter chicken for dinner. 0Km travelled.

Day 8 Lighthouse Caravan Park to Exmouth & Return

Fuelled up at the camp (54.25lt @1.688/lt) and drove into Exmouth. Spent the morning at the info centre catching up on the world! Sorted out an issue with the transfer of money into my Super account from one of our bank accounts. Being on hold is such joy......................not!! Also managed to do some blog stuff but the mobile service is not great. Carol is with Telstra and is getting service along the highway and 4G in most towns. I'm with Woolworths mobile which uses Telstra but I'm only getting half the service Carol is and in the towns only getting 3G or H+ so it can be a struggle to load pics. Bear with me, we bought a Telstra sim the other day so I will be changing in the near future, not much point paying for a service that you can't use fully. Not sure if the info centre had had enough of us but about lunchtime the evacuation alarm went off so we decided to get some lunch in town and call into the post office to check if the gas line parts were in. The bakery in the shopping centre was very busy and their food was excellent! We both had a pie and shared a blueberry muffin! No luck with the gas part so after some more blog catch-up in a lovely park across from the shopping centre, it was back to the caravan park where we had delicious rissoles cooked on the camp Bar-b-Que, conveniently located next door, for dinner. 53.2km travelled

Day 9 Lighthouse Caravan Park to Swim with the Whale sharks

What an awesome day!! Up early for breakfast, then picked up and taken to Tantabiddi Creek where we were ferried out to the waiting boat. We all got given wetsuits and snorkels and flippers and shown how to use them. We were put into 2 groups of 10, each group had a spotter. Apparently 10 is the maximum that are allowed to swim at any one time with the whale shark. We had a practise before we went out through the reef, then it was a waiting game until the planes spotted the whale sharks. Our luck was in, the call came through and it was time to get ready, then in we went. It was amazing to be so close to the biggest fish in the sea! We got to go in another 3 times as well so had a great go swimming with them. On the way back in we saw hump backs and dolphins, ten once back inside the reef we had a drift snorkel over the inner reef. The crew said we wouldn't need our wet suits but it was too cold for Carol and she swam back to the boat. I thought she had stayed on there but when the boat picked us up again there she was climbing out of the water. One of the crew had helped her put her suit on and she jumped in and joined us. Some amazing things down there with fish every colour of the rainbow. We got back to camp about 3:30, very tired but very happy. If you ever get the chance do it, we were told that only 1 in 3,000,000 people get to do it so it's pretty special. We were checking out and heading to Ningaloo Station the next morning so we packed up the awning so we didn't have to pack it up wet. Just as well because there was a shower of rain during the night. Left over Malay beef curry for dinner from the freezer. 0 km travelled.

On The Road: Rockingham to Tamala Station

Day 1 Rockingham to Caron Dam Reserve.

Finally we are on the road!  We got up early on Tuesday 17th and completed packing the car and the last cleaning inside the house.We expected to be gone not long after the real estate opened at 9 but it was 11 by the time we climbed on board and drove out of the drive way.  Goodbye 27 Jecks Street and goodbye Rockingham.  we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here, a great place to live!

Our planned camp for the night was Caron Dam reserve a free camp just south of Perenjori.  First stop was New Norcia, a Benedictine Monastery that was established around 1846.  The buildings are quite different to anything we've seen in WA.  There were some very nice silver wine goblets in the gift shop that we thought seriously about buying but in the end didn't.  Should have !!

Because of the later than planned start we didn't stay long, just long enough for a bite to eat and a quick look around and we were on the road again.

The trek route in the Exploreoz app that I'd spent hours doing, more than once as I tried to work out the workings of the program, had been giving us a bit of grief.  The GPS seemed to be stuck way back and not going anywhere.  Turned out it was a setting in the new Samsung S2 tablet that we had bought.  The location setting was on "power saving" or  some such which meant it was looking for a wifi signal to operate.  Bit hard when there's no mobile coverage.  Got that sorted while we had lunch and it picked up Caron Dam reserve no worries when we got there about 5.20.  There's a few camp sites, a couple with fire pits, pretty well set up really although no toilets.

We had the place to ourselves and  after heating up Red Beef curry and couscous we had an early night.

403km travelled.

Day 2 Caron Dam Reserve to Principality of Hutt River.

A cool morning and not a particularly early start. Had a wander around the dam after breakfast and got on the road by 9:30. Continued north through Morawa and fuelled up in Mullewa (73lt @ 1.589/lt). Stopped for lunch along the Balla Whellarra Road, I think we were in a farmers paddock but it was a good spot to pull over and no one came with a big stick to chase us away. The wheat crop is about 100 – 150mm out of the ground and looking very healthy. Speaking of sticks, there were a few lying around that we decided to add to our firewood collection and we stopped further up the road and collected some more. Got to Hutt River about 2:15 and after setting up we had our passports stamped and were given a bit of a talk by Prince Graham about the place. Had a wander around some of the buildings on site, quite an interesting story behind it all. www.principality-hutt-river.com We thought there might have been gravel on the last bit of road back to the North West Coastal Highway but the only gravel road for the day was the last 6km to Hutt River.

Camping was $5 per person per night, excellent value for money. There are flush loos and one hot shower, albeit in need of a new shower head. The camping area is nicely set out, nice flat, good sized sites and some with fire pits. Ours was one with a fire pit so we had our dinner of spaghetti bolognaise around a nice fire before an early night. 

349Km travelled,

Day 3 Principality of Hutt River to Tea Tree East camp Tamala Station.

Very cool morning, it felt like it was close to a frost. Another 9:30 start after breakfast, we seem to be getting used to these lazy starts! Back the 30km or so to the North West Coastal Highway and lots of long straight roads heading north. Carol drove first and about an hour into the trip her phone rang, her son Tom calling from Canada. We put him on speaker then pulled over at Nerren Nerren rest stop so Carol could have a good talk. Quite an impressive stopping area, a large sealed area and long drop toilets and a few good sites to set up for the night, some with fire pits. Stopped for fuel at Overlander Roadhouse just before the Shark Bay Road turn off. The place was a mad house!!! Just the one line of pumps and they were extremely busy, cars stopped facing each other because their fuel filling was on opposite sides. It seemed to sort itself though without too many heated words, most expensive fuel so far at $1.639/lt. Of course we needed to take some spare as well and put 60lt in the Pajero as well as 30 lt between the 2 Jerry cans. Not a cheap exercise that's for sure. Stopped for lunch just before the Useless Loop Road turn off and Carol's phone had service so rang the Ranger at Steep Point to let them know we would be out there tomorrow. The info I'd read indicated that everyone was required to do it but it seemed extremely casual. We supposed it was just so they had some idea of the numbers that would be out there on any given day.

The first part of Useless Loop Road is sealed, then it's 20 km or so to the Tamala Station Homestead where you need to check in. We stopped and aired down when the gravel began but it soon became obvious that we needed to go lower. I stopped and went down to 25psi and the ride was much better on the corrugations. It was a relief to get to the homestead and check in, they gave us directions, the gate key and some fire wood and said the tyres needed to be 20psi for the track into Tea Tree East. Aired down some more but left the rears at 25 due to the weight we were carrying. The track in was also pretty corrugated with a couple of wet patches but no real problems. On reaching the camping area we found there was a group at the far end and no one else which was nice. We set up at the opposite end to them and after topping up the fuel tank with 15lts from one of the jerry cans, relaxed with a beer and as walk along the gorgeous almost deserted beach before heating up chow mien from the freezer for dinner.

We'd booked before we left Rockingham, planned to stay 3 nights but only booked for 2 by mistake but this turned out to be fortuitous. The weather forecast was for showers on Saturday so we stayed with the 2 nights when we checked in. We didn't want to have the road closed and be stuck in there, as lovely as it was. The cost is $17/person /night details at website. 

349.9km travelled

Day 4 Tea Tree East camp Tamala Station to Steep Point & return.

Set the alarm and got up early, ready for our trip out to Steep Point. The birds were up but the sun was yet to make an appearance. As we were having breakfast we noticed the group at the other end was packing up ready to leave. I was hoping we'd be ready in time to beat them out but it wasn't to be and they pulled out past us with us still having a bit to do before we were ready. One of them was towing a fairly big caravan, one a boat and the third a camper trailer, so we didn't hurry to complete our preparation, to give them time to get well ahead of us on the track out. We unpacked most of the stuff from the back of the car to reduce our weight as much as possible. From the reading I'd been doing I was expecting a fairly rough ride and we were well loaded up. I left the kayak, spare tyre and max trax up on the roof rack. We finally left camp at about 9, the trip to the Useless Loop road was uneventful and the group ahead of us had made good time and weren't to be seen.

Our tyres were still down at 20, I'd checked them before we left and dropped the rear ones as well seeing as how we'd got a lot of weight out. The road was in excellent condition and it was like driving on a highway. I kept thinking I should air back up but was sure that as soon as I stopped and did that the road would change so I just had to try and keep my speed down around the 70kph mark. About 40km in there's a Parks pay station (we've bought a WA parks pass so didn't have to pay) and the condition of the road deteriorated. It wasn't too bad, about the same as the road into Tamala Homestead from Shark Bay Road. We were a lot lighter though and with the tyres down lower it wasn't too uncomfortable. That changed at the False entrance intersection, we'd stopped for the car approaching and as they turned left, the driver wound down his window for a chat. “It's a bit corrugated, not too bad in the sand bits though”. “Great thanks........” A BIT corrugated was an understatement, the next few kms were terrible and probably the worst bit of the road, in both directions. They were right about the sandy bits though, the problem was there weren't anywhere near enough of them!! As well as being corrugated, the road was very narrow in parts, which meant that it was hard to get up to any decent speed to combat the corrugations because of the fact you had to be mindful of meeting someone coming the other way on a blind corner. Luckily the ones we did come across there was plenty of road to allow passing or else we saw them in plenty of time for one of us to pull over.

When we got there it was definitely worth the trip! As a bonus there were whales making their way past on their trip north. Perhaps we'll see them again sometime. We stopped after a few kms on the way back for some lunch overlooking Peaceful Bay, then reversed our journey from the morning. When we'd stopped at the Rangers station, we'd been told there were a few campers coming in during the day and although we were a bit concerned about meeting them coming the other way, our fears were unfounded and the cars we did meet again had lots of room to pass. We haven't done a lot of off road driving in the Pajero and certainly nothing like this road. The Pajero performed faultlessly and even seemed to be enjoying it! It certainly gives us a lot of confidence in what lays ahead in our travels.

The tracks back in to the camp almost seemed smoother on the way back, isn't perception a strange thing? We repacked all the gear into the car, taking the opportunity to rearrange how we had everything. There was a decided sag in the rear end (the Pajero we're talking here) so we'd decided to move most of the weightier stuff onto the back seats and put the lighter stuff in the back. We also put diesel from the second jerry can into the tank. I was just getting the fire going and Carol was preparing dinner when she gave out an anguished cry! I looked up to see flames near the stove where there shouldn't be flames............my first thought was the silicon pot that she was cooking the veges in had caught fire and I rushed over and turned off the gas. Turns out the flames were from tree rubber mat we had on the bench top to protect it and from the seal around the door where our kitchen slides out. The cause? The quick connect fitting for the gas was leaking. I tried to see if it had dirt in it, washed it, blew it out with the compressor but no matter how many times I tried it, it just kept leaking. We were getting hungry by now, it had been a big day !! 

 No more cooking on our gas stove though, at least for the foreseeable future. The veges weren't cooked but the sausages had been boiled ready for browning so we got the fire, which had been neglected and gone out, going again and put the grill plate on it to cook them and the onions. Lamb and garlic sausages from our Rockingham butcher so although there wasn't a lot it was a very tasty dinner! Not quite the end to a great day that we wanted, but not the disaster it could have been. As mentioned, we'd decided to leave tomorrow morning anyway because of the weather so it didn't effect our travel plans at all. We just had to change how we were going to cook things until we could get a new coupling and we still had the Ziggy of course!!! 

 214 very bumpy kms travelled.

Day 5 Tea Tree East camp Tamala Station to Wooramel Station

Up before the sun again, no toast for breakfast and we had to rely on the Mitchell hot water system for our coffee........nearly hot enough! We had to hand the gate key back in at the homestead which opened at nine so there wasn't a great rush. We left this great spot about 8:30, timing wise about right to get to the homestead by 9. It would have been nice to stay longer but our decision to stay only the 2 nights because of the weather coming in and then needing to get the gas fitting fixed or replaced meant our time was up. The track out seemed much less of an issue than when we had driven in only 2 days earlier. The trip to Steep point had been a big learning curve with regards to driving on corrugations and the fact that the car was shaking didn't mean it was going to fall to bits!! We were a few minutes early to the homestead gate but decided to wait to hand the key back and get our $50 back, rather than leave the key in the return box with our bank details. The owner has obviously been doing the job for a while, when she came to open the gate she also came armed with her money bag and refunded the key money to save us the drive in.