Saturday 12th June - Canarvon to Blowholes Road

It was a resupply day for the next leg up the coast as food and fuel tends to be considerably cheaper in towns.  A farmers market was on behind the information centre which, whilst not particularly large, afforded cheap fruit and veg, with Woolworths supplying the rest of our provisions.

After shopping we walked the old tram line to 1 Mile Jetty, the latter having been built to enable the loading of sheep and crops onto ships to take south to Perth.

Nearby was a small museum with random old vehicles in it, so I’ve included a tractor picture for John H.

We caught up with Scott who was staying in town another night to wait for Ted and Judy who now had an operational Land Cruiser, but they had already booked another night in Denham not anticipating a quick fix.  Barry and Jim had headed up the coast to do some fishing, snorkelling and maybe a whale shark trip, whilst Iain and his wife had gone straight to Exmouth to meet up with his father and two brothers (it was his father’s 80th birthday and one brother had come over from Denmark - the family reunion being the main reason behind their overland trip).  They’ll all rendezvous at Ned’s Camp in the Cape Range National Park outside Exmouth, and we hope to see them there as well after we have a few days doing our own thing along the Ningaloo Reef.

On our way out of town we stopped for a look at the OTC dish, used in the first moon landings.

Closed in 1987, it now affords a view across the fruit plantations surrounding Canarvon.  Next stop on the tourist trail was Bibbawara Bore, about 10km along a dirt road.  Having been there I can understand why they haven’t bothered to tarmac the road as I cannot imagine many people bothering with the detour!  However, Anne quite likes “attractions” that are a bit rubbish and made me take a photo of what was essentially a building site.

A late afternoon drive along Blowholes Road, north west back to the coast, bought us to, unsurprisingly, some blowholes.  Even with the fairly calm sea they were doing their thing, with the resulting mist backlit against the setting sun.

We then had a quick drive to the HMAS Sydney memorial cairn before trying to find a place to camp.

There was camping nearby at Point Quobba, but we were discouraged by the large number of other people who obviously had the same idea (although it looks like most were in for the long haul).  As access is blocked further up the coast we headed back towards Canarvon, picking a likely looking track off the road to find a more secluded wild camp spot.  We ended up on the low cliffs overlooking the Geographie Channel,  which we had to ourselves once the fisherman on the beach below had packed up for the evening. SPOT