Canarvon to Exmouth (427 km)

This morning we woke up reasonably early, showered, ate breakfast, packed up Bessie and got back on the road for our drive to Exmouth. After filling up the car we drove for a few hours before hitting the Minilya Roadhouse roadhouse where we stopped for a quick break before heading on to Coral Bay for lunch.

At Coral Bay, Elyse was amazed at the colour of the water (as we all were!) and we had a very brief (and chilly) dip before heading back to set up our picnic table in the car park for lunch. As always, lunch was accompanied by a beer and we lapped up the warm sunshine and great views before heading back on the road for another couple of hours before we hit Exmouth.

At Exmouth, we checked into the Potshot hotel where we had a 1 bedroom villa with a spa – the only accommodation I could find in town as everything else was completely booked out. It was late afternoon again by this time so we walked over to the bottle shop to replenish our supplies before relaxing in the room with our bottle of sparkling Shiraz. We made up Elyse’s bed with the mattress and bedding from Bessie before heading across to the pub for another drink. The outside bar at the Potshot hotel was great – friendly staff and a nice atmosphere by the pool. We were actually just passing through on our way to find some food but we stopped for a beer before moving again.

The receptionist had said that Whaler’s was a good place for dinner so we walked to the shopping mall only to find that Whaler’s was completely booked out until 8 o’clock. We decided we couldn’t wait until then so we went to Planet Burgers (a fast food joint set up in a caravan with fairy lights) just outside the Potshot Hotel and had the most amazing burgers with fries. We sent Elyse back to the outside bar to see if she could convince them to sell us some beers to go with our meal and she came back successful so we sat on the picnic tables and enjoyed our dinner and beers.

Naturally after dinner we walked back to the bar where we found that the bartender (Elyse’s boyfriend for the night) already had Cooper’s on ice in preparation for our return. Ross went back to the room to pick up some jumpers and the cards and we sat playing Shithead again for hours until the bar closed at 10pm. We went back to the room and continued to play Shithead until we were too tired to speak and fell into bed exhausted again and looking forward to spending the day exploring the reef and not in Bessie on the road.