To Carnarvon

Friday 2^nd May 2008

We’ve been away a week but it seems more because we’ve packed so much in.

In a last attempt to see the Peron peninsula I checked out the road situation at the Discovery Centre but now they say it definitely won’t be opened until Monday. Instead I had to satisfy myself with a solid half hour in the Centre soaking up the facts and pictures about places I couldn’t visit while the girls and Paul had a coffee stop.

The area had a year’s worth of rainfall in one day this week and the cyclone six weeks ago also dumped a fair amount of water so everything looks incredibly green – the locals are all very happy. I can’t believe how much water is still sitting on the ground – it doesn’t seem to soak up very quickly. It was also quite amusing that there were a couple of random floods across the road but not where the Floodway signs were!

So, we left Denham and headed onwards to Carnarvon. Going past Shell Beach we decided to pop in to show the girls this amazing phenomenon. There was one group of people there but the rest of the beautiful bay with its pristine white beach, amazing blue sky and red land was empty. The water seemed freezing but was good for a paddle. The beach is made up almost totally of complete shells from the burrowing bivalve mollusc fragum erragatum. They haven’t broken down (much) because the water is twice as salty as the ocean (and we tasted it to check – it sure is salty!) and most bacteria cannot survive in it. There is also almost no wave action being so far into the bay. At one end of the beach is a quarry that digs out blocks of compacted shells that are used like bricks in buildings (such as the restaurant we went to last night).

Then on via the Overlander (where petrol was NOT cheaper than Denham) to the big road. We were organised with sandwiches so could go straight on through with no stops for dodgy, full of badness but yummy-tasting roadside fare!

Setting up the camper was quicker again and soon the girls and Paul were into the caravan park pool. Just as quickly, Holly was out again – a little TOO refreshing, apparently! Carnarvon was not as big as we’d imagined – a search for somewhere selling kid’s bathers revealed only Target Country who had last season’s mismatched remnants in the Specials corner. The Woolies (how do you spell that?) was well stocked tho’ and soon we had many bags of goodies to squeeze into the camper trailer.

We did a little drive around town and the ‘Fascine’ (waterside place) and two minutes later were back where we started! So we decided to check out the One Mile Jetty as the sun set around us. Katie was v keen and was off like a shot – even Holly struggled to keep up, but then she was balancing on the rail track and hanging out over the edges at every opportunity. Our sunset stroll was curtailed slightly by the rather large hole in the jetty where it was joined only by a couple of sagging and stretched rail tracks. In September last year vandals set fire to a section which meant we couldn’t do the full mile.

It being Friday, fish and chips had to be the way so while the girls settled down with Dumb and Dumber on the laptop, Paul refuelled the landcruiser and checked out the local chippie – another night without cooking!