We are on holiday!

Saturday 20th August 2022

We had another windy morning to pack up the campsite, and felt quite glad to be getting away from Karatha. The caravan park was nice enough, the staff were really friendly, we just felt like it wasn’t our best stopover. Especially Richie, who spent many hours sitting at a mechanics!

The drive south has been a beautiful one – coming out of Karatha Sturt desert peas blanket the roadside, along with masses of purple and white Ptilotus – there are quite a few species in flower at the moment, and a lot of yellow Goodenia, which always looks good with purple! Along with all sorts of other peas and shrubs, amongst the Spinifex against the red sand, it is a spectacular sight!

The campsite I had been keen to stay at on the south side of town – Miaree Pool, looked like a beautiful spot! A gorgeous river side campground that is meant to be good for swimming and fishing. Nevermind – given the outcome of the car service it was probably easier to be in town. Actually it seems all the rivers we drove over today had lovely free camps on them – very spacious as well! It would be fun to river hop along the highway, if we had the time!

The landscape changed from rocky mountains to red sand dunes. We had a random stop at one dune, where the kids played in the sand (who can resist that amazing red sand!!), and I had a quick walk to the top. Again such beautiful and different plants, and given the tracks in the sand there must have been loads of reptiles. Dad reminded me I should be watching out for thorny devils and I feel like that must have been the place for them!

We eventually pulled into Bullara Station a little after four. The plan was to go to the National Park or Exmouth, but when I looked into where to stay, Cape Range NP and Exmouth were all booked out. The station is inland but an easy enough drive to get to the coast for a day trip. In fact even the station looked to be booked out online, but I rang anyway and was ‘squeezed in’.

On check in we saw they sell their own beef, so again stocked up on some meat, hoping it will be as nice as the last lot. At almost twice the price I hope so! Though admittedly the meat at Willare Roadhouse was bargain priced! We were escorted to our campsite by an enthusiastic man on a bicycle, who filled us in on all the happenings of the station.

Our site is just lovely – a beautiful grassy spot under an amazing twisted old tree, perfect for climbing! Again I think the great advantage of being the minority in a tent, rather than a van, is getting those great sites a van can’t get into. 😀 The campground itself is beautifully done – they have an open air woodfired shower if desired, otherwise the usual facilities are done with rusted iron, pressed tin and gal, and the old shearing shed has been converted into a lovely seating area, with couches and rugs throughout!

We set up, then headed to the communal fire where a long term ‘guest’ (I think he said 9 years) makes damper for everyone, and tells a few stories about the place. There were loads of people there, all with drinks and chairs, but they handed out enough fresh warm damper for everyone to have a generous slice, and seconds if desired! The kids enjoyed their damper, checked out some of the curiosities about the place, like a bottle tree, old cars and various farm metal sculptures, then we headed to the playground, which looked a bit like a sculpture of old farm pieces itself! We took a short walk into one of the paddocks to see the sunset while the kids played with some other kids in an empty dam. Then Richie went to cook dinner while the kids and I returned to the playground until dark – where we did find some of those other wild, late dinner children we have been missing, before having dinner ourselves. ☺️