So the thing with holidays is that they suck….. why? well it limits the amount of time you have to enjoy this great country of ours…… retirement would be a much better option!
So we are up early again, and on the road just after dawn, aiming for north of Port Hedland, the Stanley Rest area.
In the first few hours of the day, it’s cool. The light reflects back off the rocks, making them glow with rich reds, browns, and darker black shadows. The spinifex grass looks soft (it’s not), and the whole world is quiet and hushed. No wonder they refer to this as the golden hour, made for photography and our favorite time of the day. Alas, with so far to go, we don’t have time to stop that much, so we just appreciate it as we barrel along in Little Bus, sitting again on a speed keeping us in line with the road trains hauling ore down to Port Hedland, 260 km away.
We spend our time looking for objects on the sides of the road, always have a game or two going, usually the “today we have to find such and such…” so we are subconsciously looking for a lost hard hat, blue bucket, broken windmill.
We also reminisce about the times we had been here before, orevious adventures and what we are looking forward to when we get to where we are going. If all else fails then we sing… well sort of sing, imagine a strangled cat, underwater while dragging its claws down a blackboard and that just about sums up our howling.
ok so we have now reached Port Hedland, the biggest settlement this side of Broome, opportunity for a resupply, refuel and leg stretch. We have always gone into South Hedland to do this and again no exception this time, a quick stop in the shopping centre as I was hunting for old fashioned glass tube fuses for our DVD player as I had converted the lead to a 12V cigarette lighter plug so we could use our own DVD player instead of the one mounted in Little bus, but that’s another story. With a little bit of time up our sleeves we decided maybe a walk around the old Port Hedland foreshore, a drop into the tourist information centre and lunch on the foreshore. We thoroughly enjoyed the old town centre and the foreshore; had a picnic lunch inside Little Bus away from the flies. We had heard about the turtles on Cemetery Beach but didnt see any, ápparently we its better at high tide, maybe on the way back
Then refuel up at the fuel station near the airport, it was busy and the fact that they were having problems with the pumps didn’t help, but we lined up, to be told by an eastern states nomad couple that pump 14 diesel wasn’t working.
So we waited, it turned out the issue was how to operate the “pay before you fuel up terminal” (oh and it helps to have the nozzle actually in the bowser before you try to swipe your card, not with it in your vehicle) So we filled up at pump 14 and headed off ………. Numpties.
Out of Port Hedland and onto Stanley Rest area 400 km away.
A fairly uneventful trip, without the road trains and oversized loads. We were just relaxing back with the cruise control on, howling along to a fairly eclectic mix of music. We passed the remains of the destroyed roadhouse at Pardoo and made a quick stop at Sandfire Roadhouse to use their toilets and offset that by buying a drink there. We reached camp around 5 pm, just at dusk. We spent a few minutes watching the bronzewing pigeons chase each other around.
After driving 700 km we slept like the proverbial log, tomorrow was Broome, and then hoping to turn east where our adventure really begins.
Morning came and we were on the road early again, travelling north. The country started changing again, getting more “tropical” if you could call it that and now our game had become “first one to spot a Boab” or something like that.
It was just before we got to Roebuck plains that we spotted it, lurking in the scrub, then the plains opened up and we spotted our first Brolgas walking amongst the grass, Left turn at Roebuck plains and into Broome, shopping, fill up our water tanks for free at the tourist information centre and empty the grey water and toilet. Then we decided on a quick explore and lunch.
Broome is a happening place, and constantly developing, but seasonal, if you are there in peak season and you can barely breathe because of the amount of people, but it shuts down in the wet and you would be battling to find anywhere open on Christmas day ( I know, I tried once) but at this time of year it wasn’t too bad.
We shopped at Coles, then took a drive down to the new Jetty in Roebuck Bay, walked out and admired the turquoise water. We did wonder about the ramp going down into the water itself, thought “thats one hell of a wheel chair access ramp!” We did like the rod holder that they had put on the jetty rail so took a pic, thinking maybe we could make one for Rob’s Jetty back home.
Then we fueled up and finally got a glass fuse for the DVD player power cable. Cable Beach was a little side trip, mainly because we knew we could get a shower there, maybe just a cold one, but it was warming up quite a bit (35 degrees) and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Cable beach was still popular but not stupidly busy, we could have stayed, but it was only early in the afternoon, so we opted to head east out to our preferred camp for the night… Ellendale Lagoon, renowned for its birdlife, and it was still 300 km or so to go. Another reason to keep moving was that, as with most caravans/motorhomes, the aircon doesn’t work unless you are plugged into 240 volts, so it’s cooler to just keep driving.
The highway was good and the Boabs became more frequent, in fact they fenced one off to stop it wandering around, put up a brown sign with the really imaginative name of “Big Boab” just so people could stop and wonder in amazement at it. Which we did, and there were some tradies in a truck with an engine problem.
Further on, Ellendale Lagoon is a little-known spot on the Savannah Way, about 90 km west of Fitzroy Crossing. It’s not signposted and it often gets confused with the Ellendale Rest Area. You find it by plugging in a GPS location, and a tiny little track leads off the highway at 90 degrees (so you have to slow down or you may miss it).
You go through a station gate (note: the sign says no pets) and pull up a little patch of shady bush on the edge of the puddle. The lagoon is more like a station dam, but it is a bird refuge and probably one of the only permanent water sources in the area. There were plenty of birds (and flies too), so we sat in the bus with the binoculars out and spent some time watching the antics of the feathered flockers, then dinner and sleep time.
Next time we continue east reaching Kununurra, before entering the NT
That Campervan Life 