Dust Buddies 2010: October 2010

Travels down the west Australian coast

After leaving Mataranka, we made a hurried trip to Perth via Katherine, Halls Creek, Broome, Port Hedland and Carnarvon. The trip was very rushed but we did manage to spend a day at a camp site called Barn Hill, 100 kms south of Broome. This was a well known spot amongst the Grey Nomads and we only found out about it through a lady we got chatting to in the hot springs at Mataranka. Lots of the nomads spend up to 3 months of the winter there and just love it.

Amazing scenery through the Kimberleys

Barn Hill Station beach at sunset and 9m low tide

Our trip as usual had car problems and this time the alternator was not charging the battery as we were travelling along. This meant a full battery charge every night from a powered site or motel. Our trip was therefore somewhat decided for us, by not being able to travel after dark (couldn’t afford to drain what was in the battery with headlights), no music and having to stop in populated spots when there were many beautiful free camp spots we would have loved to have stopped at. The worst being Port Hedland, when we got to the caravan park at 4:30 pm there were no camp spots left, just cabins. At $225 per night we were outraged but unfortunately desperate. No wonder WA is complaining about a two speed economy, with mining towns charging a fortune for services and not caring at all about tourists. Anyway, luckily for us our insurance company covered our accommodation costs until we got to Perth.

We saw some lovely spots on the way down the WA coast and we plan to go back north and visit Monkey Mia, Ningaloo Reef and Doug especially wants to get back up to Barn Hill and explore around Broome, and Sue wants to get to Karajini Gorge. So while our holiday has taken a different turn again we still plan to fill in the last 3 months as fully as we can.