De Grey River - Free Camp - Jayne
After our lovely stay in Barn Hill we continued south
heading towards Exmouth and our 2 week stay at Ningaloo Station 148 kms further
down the road.
It was 40°C
Poor Bailey
De Grey camping by the river.
De Grey is a great free camping place, miles from nowhere and they provide free wi-fi, 4 toilets and2 dump points. Not bad for a free camp.
These days we’re awake before the sun rises, so it’s easy
to be on the road by 7:30 am. After leaving De Grey
River we had morning tea in Port Hedland while
we watched ships being loaded with iron ore then sail off to Asia. They
also process huge quantities of salt as well.
Our next night was Karratha, a booming mining
town which is home to the North West Gas Shelf and where new house and land
packages soared to $1 million a couple of years ago, but have levelled off to
around $600,000. It’s nowhere near
anywhere and incredible to see the city lights at night, and the traffic and
busyness of a mining town.
We had to stay in Exmouth for 2 nights as it’s the only
place to stock up on food and water before we camped at Ningaloo Station.
It’s a lovely town of around 3,000
people and the stop off point for the Ningaloo Reef.
It swells with tourists during Whale Shark season when you can snorkel
with these amazing giants.
Before getting to Exmouth we stayed a night at Bullara
cattle station which was a lovely place with horses, crazy looking sheep that
looked like goats, and of course lots of cows.
While we were in Karratha we’d heard about dogs being
poisoned in Exmouth. In 2 weeks, 7
dogs had died and 3 were seriously ill. This cruel killer was dropping baits
(Strychnine they think) in popular areas around town including footpaths at the
beach and yacht club. 2 of the dogs were
from our caravan park and died after eating bait near the yacht club.
Megan, the only vet in town had a huge job trying to save the dogs, and
she told us they needed to be put into a coma to try and bring them back to
life. The cost for treatment was
$2,500, and she said that if owners couldn’t pay, she’d try and save them
regardless.
When Alan took Bailey for a very careful walk to the Auto
One store, the staff welcomed both of them into the shop.
He spent the 2 nights in the van
with us, and we watched him like a hawk every minute of the day.
So far this sick bastard hasn't been caught, and the people
of Exmouth are really scared for their dogs and their children, who could easily
pick one of these baits up and eat it. We
were sorry we didn’t have a chance to get out and about much, but we breathed a
sigh of relief when we were in the car heading away from Exmouth.
Ningaloo Homestead - South Lefroy Bay - Alan
We left Exmouth with the car and van full of diesel (190 litres), water (550 litres) and petrol for the tinny (32 litres). We had 2 weeks on Ningaloo Station planned & they have nothing there, no power, no water. Just a fantastic place to camp on the beach with Ningaloo Reef just off the beach for lots of snorkelling and fishing.
This is definitely the most we've ever had our rig loaded to, and the LandCruiser was letting me know it was heavy. All up we were pulling an extra 350kgs just in fluids over the maximum we normally tow at, not to count the extra food and beer etc. When we pulled over at the last known point where there is phone service, I had to pull back onto the highway going up a hill. This really made the Cruiser work hard, but it took to the task and we arrived here ok. I'm very glad I didn't have to stop in a hurry!
The road into Ningaloo Station is 49 kms of rough corrugated dirt. There's even a warning sign at the start to let you know the road is very corrugated and definitely 4WD only.
They charge you $5 per night per person to camp here if you stay 7 nights or more, $35 per week. If you stay longer than a month this drops to $25 per week per person. A month was very tempting but we have to go home sometime, or do we?
The age old question of whether you can drive a fully loaded Kedron on very soft sandy beach was answered with an astounding yes. As we approached the sand dunes that we had to drive over there was yet another warning sign that there is very soft sand ahead and to let your tyres down to 20psi. If you got bogged there were high recovery fees.
At the start of the road into Ningaloo Station I let our tyres down to 30psi and I thought this would be ok for these dunes, which it was. We got through just in "drive", so a piece of cake really. When we stopped to work out which camp site we were going to take, we walked the track into our camp site and the sand was so soft we had trouble walking, even Bailey was sinking into the soft sand.
The spot we selected was behind a small sand dune for protection against the wind, with a clear view to the water. The only concern I had, besides getting bogged on the beach as we had to drive along the beach to get to our site, was that where we wanted to put the van was on top of a small soft sandy rise. After warning Jayne that we could get bogged here, we returned to the van and let the tyres down to the recommended 20psi. I even did the van tyres so they would also "float" on top of the sand.
This worked really well and there wasn't an issue getting the van close to where we wanted it, but as per normal, Jayne wanted it just 2 metres further back and a little to the left! Which meant I had to backup a sand hill and then do a backwards tight turn! So this is where I proved that a Kedron can be driven on the softest of sand, even up a hill and around a tight bend. The car dug into the sand a little bit, but this wasn't an issue and I got the van into the position that was "just right!" So there were smiles all round.
Our daily view. Shabby isn't it?
BBQ at Sunset
This is our view when we step out of our van.
As you can see, we ended up with a truly fantastic vista and we could enjoy the sunsets every night right from our van, just like being on Cable Beach except I didn't have to drive back to the van with wobbly boots on.
The night skies are crystal clear. This is a waxing new moon.
Our sand trailer is getting a good workout here.
Alan snorkelling the reef.
We've been fishing twice, but Jayne has caught the only fish so far - a tiny snapper, and well undersize. Bailey loves fishing in the tinny and kissed the fish before Jayne threw him back.
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Our "friends" guarding our van. We never get sick of looking at the turquoise water.
We're living on the sand, so our thongs have been discarded. We haven't worn them since we've been here. Worst of that is I have totally lost my thong tan!
Fishing but not catching anything at the Outer Reef. We're about 700m from shore here.
Bailey loves the boat and fishing, except he keeps snapping at the lures! So far, we haven't caught a dog! He's trying to spot fish.
This nice coral is just off from our beach, about 50m swim. Notice how clear the water is.
