All night the rain fell. We had hoped by morning that it might have eased up, but unfortunately that was not the case.
We woke to the sounds of heavy rain drops on the caravan roof. I dreaded climbing out of bed, because I knew that as soon as I did I would be outside battling the weather as I packed up the van ready for another day on the road.
It wasn’t as bad as I had thought; but all the red dust had turned to red mud and it did make my job that little bit uncomfortable. I had everything packed away within an hour and a half, and Bec was on top of everything inside the van. Bec also had hot cuppa’s brewed and ready in our thermal travel mugs. It’s just what I needed after spending the morning outside in the rain.On the way out of the campground, we stopped in at the Rangers Station to hand in Scarlett’s Junior Ranger Worksheet that she had been working on aver the last few days. Scarlett was awarded an embroided Karajini Junior Ranger patch that she absolutely loves. It has a Spinifex Pigeon on it that she thinks is cool as she spotted one of these critters while on the way to one of the gorges yesterday.
It took us four hours to drive to Port Hedland; via some very interesting landscapes as we followed the edge of the Karajini National Park. The rest of the countryside was very mind numbing, but the wet weather and constant road trains kept me alert.
At one stage, we had to get off the road as two trucks carrying the dump trays of big mine trucks rumbled past. They were a strange site to see roaring down the road toward us in the middle of nowhere.
On the way up to Port Hedland we must have come across at least thirty road trains; consisting of mainly gravel/iron ore trucks, fuel trucks, and cattle trucks. Some were only three trailers long, and some were three and a half trailers longs; but the majority were four trailers long and they seemed to weave all over the road. Bec and Scarlett loved the trucks, as they had never seen so many road trains in their lives.
We were going to stay in Port Hedland tonight, but we weren’t very impressed with what this town had to offer, so we decided to continue another 130km further up the road to Pardoo Station. The only thing we really enjoyed in Port Hedland was seeing and visiting our first McDonald’s restaurant since Esperance, so we were all very excited. Next door was a Coles, so Bec ‘topped up’ on our groceries.
Two hours later and another twenty road trains later, we finally reached our destination for today – Pardoo Station..........
It took us until sunset to finally finish setting up camp. As it took so long to get here, we’ve decided to stay for two days before heading off to 80 Mile beach Caravan Park. It will give us a day to get back on top of the washing, and a chance to top up with fresh water etc after spending the last four days camping with no supplies or amenities.
The best thing I am looking fwd to tomorrow is the sleep in. Nothing has been planned, so hopefully it’ll be a day of rest and recuperation.
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| What did you say dad? |
posted by Shane
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