Wednesday 3 August
Yes, the washing all dried overnight.
It is pleasantly warm again as we are now on the coast so the singlet
has come off again.
Our sightseeing tour of Karratha took
us along to Burrup Point on the peninsular and past the salt
harvesting pans.
Next we travelled south through flat
lands stopping at Fortesque Roadhouse for morning tea. A couple of us
walked back to see the view of the Fortesque River from the bridge.
Our lunch stop was at Nanuytarra
Roadhouse on the Ashburton River. They had plates of delicious
sandwiches ready for our lunch.
After a 20 km stretch of slow roadworks
we eventually turned onto the Burkett Road travelling west. We
stopped at a pulloff for afternoon tea – no toilets and no trees
for the men either.
On then to Exmouth through flat
moorland with vegetation to knee height and thousands of termite
mounds to about head height. Scattered through the whole area since
lunch the flat lands were cut by longitudinal, well-vegetated sand
dunes.
Thursday 4 August
Before leaving Exmouth we took a brief
tour up to the end of the peninsular which was peppered with
Australian and USA defence installations.
Back south again our next stop being at
Coral Bay. The clouds were building as we progressed and apparently
they'd had rain during the night.
How marvellous that we were booked in
for a boat trip on the reef in a glass bottomed boat. It was so calm
and the coral, although not colourful, was beautiful and apparently
very healthy. We also saw some fish, a few clams and a turtle.
After our boat trip and our lunch to
follow I went for a swim in the clear blue bay. The sandy bottom was
pristine and a few of us even saw a small ray. Whilst Allan was
unloading the chairs for our lunch an occy strap ricocheted back on
him and pierced his hand between his thumb and first finger. Daylle
(a nurse) has him now strapped up so that is another accident to add
to our list so far.
As we left Coral Bay the clouds began
to build and we could even see rain to the east. There were swathes
of tiny white, yellow, pale mauve and deep purple ankle-high flowers,
some of which were probably daisies.
We saw our first feral goats between
Manilya and Carnarvon. Manilya is the northern most point I've
travelled with Surrey so now we are covering territory I've seen
before.
We stopped at the Gascoyne to look at
the bridge and river and found the tiny purple flower we'd been
seeing. The river was completely dry but no doubt will get a bit in
it if these clouds keep developing. Just a few drops at the bridge.
On into Carnarvon for a quick look at
the one Mile Pier then on to our motel for the night.
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