We are on holiday!

Friday 19th August 2022

As predicted, a huge wind picked up during the night. Richie got up to move our chairs in, but aside from that the campground provided some shelter and the tent coped. The mattress was not so good though – on the soft sand at Cape Keraudren and Barn Hill it was manageable. On the hard ground at the caravan park it didn’t offer much comfort.

Richie had to get the car in at 7am, with the idea that he would wait a couple of hours for them to do it, then come back. At 1pm he was finally able to leave, only for the car to start flashing warning lights so he had to go straight back! 😭

In the meanwhile the kids and I hung around the caravan park. We cooked bacon and eggs for breakfast, chatted to another young family camping there – staying for four weeks for a fishing trip! We walked to a shopping centre up the road for coffee and ice blocks, then had a swim. I investigated the mattress and discovered a hole in the seam, which is good news because it’s new and we should be able to get it replaced, but bad news because we can’t just patch it. Over 1000km to the nearest BCF. 😬

It’s not a particularly inspiring place to be – the park is on the outskirts of town, there isn’t really anything in easy walking distance (with kids), and most frustrating, we are quite close to Dampier, without being able to get there. I can’t imagine why anyone would stay four weeks when there are camping sites with the beach at walking distance, or national park, or anything else! Surely a pretty ordinary playground and a pool can only be stretched so far in terms of entertainment! Especially when it’s too windy to take the boat out, which apparently it has been a lot!

Richie finally returned with a courtesy car and a pretty foul mood! At that stage the mechanics weren’t quite sure what had happened with the car, and if it couldn’t be fixed we were facing a weekend there, without our car! We had some lunch, chatted to a newly arrived camper who is cycling Broome to Perth, and watched the arrival of many freshly trimmed mullets! 🤔

Richie went back to the car place at 3, and thankfully the car seems to be repaired and functional (we hope 🤞). We quickly jumped into the car to try see something other than a campground! We drove to Burrup Peninsula as far as we were willing to try – the road is incredibly rocky! It’s an interesting place – incredible natural beauty in the flora and the red rocky hills, then the port of Dampier and Iron Ore mines creating a weird, alien landscape. It is also an important indigenous site, with lots of unique and ancient engravings on the stones. Obviously a lot of conflicting interests in the area.

By this time the wind had died down, so Richie went for a fish while the kids and I explored a bit – there are beautiful old mangroves with amazing twisted trunks, and we clambered up a “hill” – a pile of red rocks! Bonnie realised if you slapped the rocks they made an amazing metallic sound, like a metal drum, so Bonnie and Otis started a rock band! 😁 We headed back to the car – Richie finally saw some Spinifex pigeons, that we somehow haven’t seen at all this trip, and loads of flowers. Particularly peas, so many different peas!

We headed into Dampier, a beautiful little coastal town, and got a drink at a pub looking over the water. The kids had a really fun play with some other kids there, so we stayed a while to let them run out their energy! It’s strange that the kids have rarely played with other kids on this trip – we think it’s the curse of the caravan! Other kids disappear into their vans, and just aren’t running around wildly like we thought they might be (or like our kids are!). Generally we see very few (or no) tents wherever we go.

We got back to the caravan park and discovered there is a BMX event on at the facilities next door. That would explain the crazy numbers of well groomed mullets we have seen!