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.