Thursday, October 1, 2009
Exmouth to Hutt River Provence
Hello all,
The weather is changing. It's become very windy & dosn't look like improving in the near future. The temperatures are also sliding down to the low 20's. Exmouth is a neat & tidy town at the tip of a narrow peninsular & is exposed to all of the elements. We had hoped to stay in the "Cape Range National Park", but all the camping sites were full, so we stayed in a caravan park in the town. We did however spend time in the national park, & it was a beautiful place. The coastline here is wild , with beautiful coves dotted around. Whilst here, we saw the old lighthouse, & the shipwreck "The Mildura", which was a live cattle ship. Late one afternoon, we went on a whale watching cruise, where the whales performed well. It was most enjoyable. After our 3 days in Exmouth, we travelled to Coral Bay, which is just a nice seaside holiday spot . We stayed for 2 nights & then moved on to Carnarvon. This is a good sized fishing town of about 9000 people. It is also the food hub for the mid west coast, where we bought fruit & veg at a better than reasonable price, & it tasted better than any we have ever had. The seafood here is also great, as they only sell locally caught seafood. During our 4 days here, we saw yet another light house, & some fabulous blow holes on some very wild coastline. You will see this in the photos that I will post shortly. Then it was onto Denham, which is situated on a peninsular in the World Heritage area of "Shark Bay". It's still windy, & not overly warm. There is an amazing aquarium in the area, with the most enthusiastic staff we have ever encountered. It was money well spent. The visitor centre was also an interesting place, & we spent about 3 hours there. We spent 2 nights in Denham before travelling further south to a bush camp on the banks of the Murchison River for one night before going even further south to Horricks Beach for 2 nights. Another seaside holiday spot where there is one shop only, & it charges double what you would pay 20k away. The weather is still poor, so there was no swimming . We did spend half a day in "The Hutt River Province", which is a principality that seceded from Australia on 21/4/1970. It is about 75 square kilometers in area. Unfortunately, Prince Leonard was in Australia on business, so we were greeted by Princess Shirley, who showed us around. They even have their own postage stamps & currency. Luckily they accept the Australian dollar, & didn't ask to see our passports.
Love to you all,
Avril & Doug
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The weather is changing. It's become very windy & dosn't look like improving in the near future. The temperatures are also sliding down to the low 20's. Exmouth is a neat & tidy town at the tip of a narrow peninsular & is exposed to all of the elements. We had hoped to stay in the "Cape Range National Park", but all the camping sites were full, so we stayed in a caravan park in the town. We did however spend time in the national park, & it was a beautiful place. The coastline here is wild , with beautiful coves dotted around. Whilst here, we saw the old lighthouse, & the shipwreck "The Mildura", which was a live cattle ship. Late one afternoon, we went on a whale watching cruise, where the whales performed well. It was most enjoyable. After our 3 days in Exmouth, we travelled to Coral Bay, which is just a nice seaside holiday spot . We stayed for 2 nights & then moved on to Carnarvon. This is a good sized fishing town of about 9000 people. It is also the food hub for the mid west coast, where we bought fruit & veg at a better than reasonable price, & it tasted better than any we have ever had. The seafood here is also great, as they only sell locally caught seafood. During our 4 days here, we saw yet another light house, & some fabulous blow holes on some very wild coastline. You will see this in the photos that I will post shortly. Then it was onto Denham, which is situated on a peninsular in the World Heritage area of "Shark Bay". It's still windy, & not overly warm. There is an amazing aquarium in the area, with the most enthusiastic staff we have ever encountered. It was money well spent. The visitor centre was also an interesting place, & we spent about 3 hours there. We spent 2 nights in Denham before travelling further south to a bush camp on the banks of the Murchison River for one night before going even further south to Horricks Beach for 2 nights. Another seaside holiday spot where there is one shop only, & it charges double what you would pay 20k away. The weather is still poor, so there was no swimming . We did spend half a day in "The Hutt River Province", which is a principality that seceded from Australia on 21/4/1970. It is about 75 square kilometers in area. Unfortunately, Prince Leonard was in Australia on business, so we were greeted by Princess Shirley, who showed us around. They even have their own postage stamps & currency. Luckily they accept the Australian dollar, & didn't ask to see our passports.
Love to you all,
Avril & Doug
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Port Samson to Exmouth
Hello everyone,
Port Samson is a pretty & relaxed place. I did some fishing & caught a couple of good sized flathead, & swam at the beach each day. One day we went on a tour of Rio - Tinto's iron ore plant at Cape Lambert. The ore comes here on long trains, up to 4.5 ks long & 380 tons in weight, is unloaded & graded into sizes that the customers have ordered & then placed into big heaps. It is then loaded onto ships via huge conveyor belts. We also spent a few hours in the old town of Cossack,which was very interesting. A lot of the old buildings have been restored to somewhere near their past glory. & turned into museums. We visited Karatha a couple of times, as this is the main shopping town in the area. It's a big town & growing very quickly. The amount of building going on was astounding, & I doubt there is any unemployment in this town.The average house price is about $750,000 to $850,000 for a 3-4 bedroom house. It's strange, but we didn't think that the place had a great atmosphere. Dampier, on the other hand, looked nice, & seemed to have a good atmosphere.
Whilst in Point Samson, Avril celebrated her 70th birthday. She received a few presents from friends & family, a few phone calls, & we went to the local seafood cafe with friends for dinner.It was a lovely night. We ended up staying in Point Samsom for 2 weeks & left last Monday.We spent the next night in a free bush camp on the bank of the Robe River. It was idealic with people swimming & fishing & had a great atmosphere.Tuesday was at another bush camp, but the wind really came up & the place was a dust bowl. Not very enjoyable. We spent Wednesday, Thursday & Friday in Exmouth & thoroughly enjoyed it. More about Exmouth next time.
Love to you all,
Avril & Doug
XXXXXX
Port Samson is a pretty & relaxed place. I did some fishing & caught a couple of good sized flathead, & swam at the beach each day. One day we went on a tour of Rio - Tinto's iron ore plant at Cape Lambert. The ore comes here on long trains, up to 4.5 ks long & 380 tons in weight, is unloaded & graded into sizes that the customers have ordered & then placed into big heaps. It is then loaded onto ships via huge conveyor belts. We also spent a few hours in the old town of Cossack,which was very interesting. A lot of the old buildings have been restored to somewhere near their past glory. & turned into museums. We visited Karatha a couple of times, as this is the main shopping town in the area. It's a big town & growing very quickly. The amount of building going on was astounding, & I doubt there is any unemployment in this town.The average house price is about $750,000 to $850,000 for a 3-4 bedroom house. It's strange, but we didn't think that the place had a great atmosphere. Dampier, on the other hand, looked nice, & seemed to have a good atmosphere.
Whilst in Point Samson, Avril celebrated her 70th birthday. She received a few presents from friends & family, a few phone calls, & we went to the local seafood cafe with friends for dinner.It was a lovely night. We ended up staying in Point Samsom for 2 weeks & left last Monday.We spent the next night in a free bush camp on the bank of the Robe River. It was idealic with people swimming & fishing & had a great atmosphere.Tuesday was at another bush camp, but the wind really came up & the place was a dust bowl. Not very enjoyable. We spent Wednesday, Thursday & Friday in Exmouth & thoroughly enjoyed it. More about Exmouth next time.
Love to you all,
Avril & Doug
XXXXXX
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Broome to Port Samson
Hello again,
We spent 12 days in Broome, and found it to be of a cosmopolitan nature. Whilst there, Avril got the flue & kindly shared it with me. We both had to go to the doctors for antibiotics, $79 each per visit. If your time is over 15minuits, then the fee would have been $159 per visit. Nothing is cheap here, but the atmosphere is great. we were lucky with our caravan park in Broome, our site was right next to the swimming pool which was huge & fabulous. We had our first swim in the Indian Ocean, at town Beach, & drank wine & ate nibblies on Cable Beach at sunset, whilst watching the camel trains. We also went to a pearling farm called "Willy Creek", where Avril tried on a $20,000.00 string of pearls. Unfortunately they didn't suit her, so she had to settle for a $40.00 pair of pearl earings. When we left Broome, we travelled to a working cattle station called "Barn Hill" where we stayed for the weekend. This place is situated right on the coast, & the beach is fabulous. To get there, tou have to drive for about 12 k on a dirt & sand road, which was very rough, & soft in parts. We slid around a bit, but managed to get in & out without sustaining any damage. There was red dirt everywhere, & the ablutions didn't have a roof. The atmosphere was great, and made up for the short commings of the place. On Sunday night, there was a communal roast dinner, attended by about 200 of us, & an Aboriginal band, with lots of dancing.
We had a great time there. The swimming at this place was excellent, as the beach was very nice.Then it was off to 80 Mile Beach. We stayed there for 4 days & got in some fishing, & caught fish. No swimming there. Whilst fishing, there were sharks patroling up & down the beach all the time. Once again the park was great & we got to spend a few days with friends we have met some months ago. We are now at a place called Port Samson, which is a pretty place. As this is mainly a mining area, most of the towns nearbye are fairly dumpy. (Roebourne,Cossack, Dampier & Wickham). Our caravan park is right on the coast & we can watch whales with their babies each morning. we will be here for a week, & will be doing a tour of Hammersley Iron on Friday. There is a pub just across the road, which has a balcony that overlooks the harbour, & it's very well patronised. I'll post some pictures soon.
Love to you all ,
Avril & Doug.
We spent 12 days in Broome, and found it to be of a cosmopolitan nature. Whilst there, Avril got the flue & kindly shared it with me. We both had to go to the doctors for antibiotics, $79 each per visit. If your time is over 15minuits, then the fee would have been $159 per visit. Nothing is cheap here, but the atmosphere is great. we were lucky with our caravan park in Broome, our site was right next to the swimming pool which was huge & fabulous. We had our first swim in the Indian Ocean, at town Beach, & drank wine & ate nibblies on Cable Beach at sunset, whilst watching the camel trains. We also went to a pearling farm called "Willy Creek", where Avril tried on a $20,000.00 string of pearls. Unfortunately they didn't suit her, so she had to settle for a $40.00 pair of pearl earings. When we left Broome, we travelled to a working cattle station called "Barn Hill" where we stayed for the weekend. This place is situated right on the coast, & the beach is fabulous. To get there, tou have to drive for about 12 k on a dirt & sand road, which was very rough, & soft in parts. We slid around a bit, but managed to get in & out without sustaining any damage. There was red dirt everywhere, & the ablutions didn't have a roof. The atmosphere was great, and made up for the short commings of the place. On Sunday night, there was a communal roast dinner, attended by about 200 of us, & an Aboriginal band, with lots of dancing.
We had a great time there. The swimming at this place was excellent, as the beach was very nice.Then it was off to 80 Mile Beach. We stayed there for 4 days & got in some fishing, & caught fish. No swimming there. Whilst fishing, there were sharks patroling up & down the beach all the time. Once again the park was great & we got to spend a few days with friends we have met some months ago. We are now at a place called Port Samson, which is a pretty place. As this is mainly a mining area, most of the towns nearbye are fairly dumpy. (Roebourne,Cossack, Dampier & Wickham). Our caravan park is right on the coast & we can watch whales with their babies each morning. we will be here for a week, & will be doing a tour of Hammersley Iron on Friday. There is a pub just across the road, which has a balcony that overlooks the harbour, & it's very well patronised. I'll post some pictures soon.
Love to you all ,
Avril & Doug.
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