Into the Tropics! Cue – Karijini National Park

We got up at some ungodly hour to go to the Dawn Service in Cue starting at 6am! As always this is a very humble experience and although this service was quite small it was unique in itself. There were Roads Trains thundering along during the service, some of which were 53m long! Among the longest we’ve seen.

After the service it was across to the pub for an Anzac Breakfast BBQ of sausages, bacon and eggs. We mingled with the locals and tourists and were invited to the schools Anzac Service which was being held the next day, pity we were leaving Cue after breakfast. The caravan park at Cue was brand new and only opened 4 days before we arrived, it had fantastic toilet and shower facilities, but not a blade of grass as is to be expected.

Our plan was to drive to Meekatharra and have an Anzac lunch at the pub. We had heard that Meekatharra was a bit rough, due to the local indigenous people, but that warning didn’t prepare us for what it was like. It was actually worse than Wilcannia, if you can imagine that. So we got diesel and that was all, we didn’t stay for lunch and the two pubs were bolted up even though it was past midday when we went through there.

We ended up camping the night at the Gascoyne River – Middle Branch, which was a very nice free camp alongside the Gascoyne River. It was a picture perfect spot except for the thundering of the road trains going past. We were about 1km up the river away from the road and they were still quite audible. They stopped around 10pm and resumed again at 5 or 6am, except for one road runner at around 2am.

When we woke up it was again cold, around 6 or 7ºC, we were hoping that seeing we were within spitting distance of the tropics we would be out of the cold.

So it was off the Newman, which meant we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn just before Newman. Finally in the tropics, no more jumpers and tracky daks. Well that’s what we were hoping for.

We stocked up on food, beer and water in Newman and headed to Karijini National Park. When we woke up in the morning it was 6.2ºC! We were robbed! What sort of tropics are these where you have to wear jumpers and tracksuit pants? The diesel heater sure is getting a workout on these cold mornings. Wake up, turn on the heater, crawl back into bed and sleep for another hour or so.

The camping here is really good, the sites are big, the camp area is well laid out and there are many to choose from.

We cycled around, no puncture weed here, and hiked down to Fortescue Falls and Fern Pool for a swim. Very nice. We drove out to the Eco Lodge and Weapo Gorge and enjoyed lunch sitting on their restaurant’s balcony, very civilised considering where we are.

We stayed in Karijini National Park for 4 nights and head off tomorrow towards Exmouth, where we’ll do washing stock up on food and water and head to Cape Range National Park and Turquoise Beach for some coral snorkelling.