2026 Western Australia

 Cyclone Narelle wreaked havoc in Queensland before it hit the west coast of Australia. It was a popular topic of conversation among fellow campers.  We ended back in Kalbarri. Our last night there a strong warm wind forced us to take the tent down at 0400am. The next day the caravan park was evacuated. Those campers hoping to park somewhere in town were told by the police to move on south. In the meantime the roads north were closed and the roads south were scheduled to close that evening. We headed off South to Geralton. It was a two hour drive with forty knot winds buffeting the car. We pulled into a Caravan park in Geralton and all the speculation began again. Weather simulations showed a category two cyclone hitting town tomorrow night. AI and the kind folks at the visitor center agreed that our safest bet was to continue south as early as possible. So that is what we did. As it turns out the cyclone pulled a surprise left turn after it destroyed Exmouth and a few other t...

 The main draw around Exmouth and Coral Bay is strangely, the coral reefs or what is left of them. The reefs are just off the shore. Unfortunately a couple of typhoons and other factors have killed off a lot of the coral. I am still recovering from four days of snorkelling. I am suffering from sun burn and damage to rarely used muscles. Unfortunately I have no pictures of fish or coral so I will throw these pics in. Today we are back in Carnarvon. Just hanging out. This morning there was a slight chill in the air and I was tempted to throw on something other the shorts and t shirt I have been wearing for the last five weeks. Turned out it was too difficult to find where my other items of clothing had gone to.

 The road from Broome to Port Hedland is about as straight and featureless as a highway could be. I used tooth picks to prop my eyelids open on the six hour drive. Everything is the same except the vegetation gradually gets browner and sparser. We stayed in a very crowded and expensive caravan park in Port Hedland. It seems like a lot of these young miners buy a brand new Toyota Landcruiser and a caravan. They park all this stuff and the wives and kids in the park and head off to work.  From Port Hedland  we drove to Roebourne and toured the old restored pearling community of Cossack. Ironically it is the aboriginal people that own and run the the place.   After that we drove to Karratha where they have salt mines, iron ore mines and natural gas plants and the most expensive caravan park yet.  Near Karratha is some of the oldest aboriginal rock art in Australia. Some of it is dated at 48000 years old. Within spitting distance is a massive natural gas plant....

 The town of Derby is a few hours drive from Broome. They have a dock onto a very stagnant muddy bay.   If you want to get twenty pounds of sticky mud on your sandals, you can tour their sculpture park.   Oh and I forgot the Baobab Prison tree.  They used to chain aboriginals to this tree as they were transporting them to the coast to work as slaves in the pearling industry.  We stayed in an empty but buggy caravan park.  The next day we drove to Fitzroy Crossing. We saw many fine baobab trees enroute.  Fitzroy Crossing is well known for it's bridge that was rebuilt in a matter of months after a cyclone destroyed the old one. Obviously they had a greater sense of urgency than the builders of the Teslin Bridge.   Everyone raved about the Kimberleys . Unfortunately most of the roads into the range are long and only suitable for well prepared four wheel drive vehicles. There is a sealed road into the park at Fitzroy Crossing but we wer...

Broome is a very fine place and the biggest town for many hundreds of miles. It has lots of beaches and lots to see and do. The local museum is fascinating. The early settlers enslaved the aboriginal people into the pearling industry. Their treatment was appalling. The Japanese also attacked this area during the second world War. I guess because of the wet heat there are not a lot of tourists around. At times it seems we are the only tourists in town. We pulled into an empty caravan park, minutes from Cable beach and discovered this amazing pool. And we have it to ourselves. Close to town you can go out to a wave swept point and see dinosaur prints. This is a sauropod print. It is 130 million years old. Imagine putting your hand into a print that was created even before there was a North American continent. This is an octopus shuttling around