Denham – Monkey Mia – Canarvon (331 km) and Elyse arriving!

It had poured down over night but when we woke up in the morning the sky was bright blue. We got Bessie organized and tidied up before walking down into town for breakfast at the bakery. Over sausage rolls and cappuccinos, I updated my blog and Ross read the paper as we watched people come in and out of the super busy bakery.

We walked back to Bessie and chilled out for a while, spoke with our friend Dee who should be on the road trip with us but couldn’t get time off work and did a few more things to get ready for our drive to Monkey Mia to pick our friend Elyse up who is flying in from Perth today.

With Bessie all packed up and ready to go, we drove towards Monkey Mia to have a look around. Our first stop was at Little Lagoon, a tidal lagoon just off the coast. It was a beautiful spot and we walked about half way around before walking back again. It looked gorgeous at that time of the morning although it was still a little chilly.

From Little Lagoon, we thought we would drive in to Monkey Mia to have a look around but when we arrived we realized that we had to pay entrance fees just to get into the area. Seeing as we didn’t really have time to see any dolphins and the fact that we had seen them before, we decided not to go in and headed back to Denham instead to buy a couple more things and fill up the car before going to meet Elyse.

We found the Monkey Mia airport fairly easily and waited in Bessie until we saw the plane fly over getting ready to land. By this time the car park was pretty full with people either picking passengers up or waiting for a flight themselves. Elyse’s plane landed and we met her at the wire fence. It was great to finally have her here with us in Aus!!

First things first, we mixed up a cocktail (see photo) and gave Elyse her presents – a pair of thongs with the names of beers in different states, a stubby cooler with all Aussie Sheila sayings on it, and her RECD tour tank top (the Campervan and Cocktails tour from Perth to Broome July 2009). After catching up for a while in the airport carpark, we headed back out on the road for our drive to Canarvon; Elyse and I with traveling cocktails for the afternoon.

We drove for a couple of hours before hitting our first road house where Elsie started her trend of taking a photo of her jumping in front of every roadhouse we would pass. Back on the road again and we made it to Canarvon by about 5pm and checked into the Plantation Big 4 Caravan Park. “Shirl” (not her real name) at the desk was a doll and provided Elyse with her first true Aussie Sheila experience.

Being a Sunday night, things were pretty quiet in Canarvon but “Shirl” put us on to the roast dinner buffet at the local motel about 1 km down the road. After setting up Bessie, we rugged up and walked down the road to the motel. It was obviously a popular spot as the place was packed and the only table we could get was outside. The food however was amazing and just what we felt like after a long day. As we ate, we were entertained by a lovely old bloke playing the keyboard with his wife sitting next to him picking and refiling the music as he played – it was pretty cute to watch as they must have been both over 70. After our third dessert and on our second bottle of red wine, we started playing Shithead until one of the waitresses came over and told us that they closed at 9 (it was 9.25 at this stage). So we finished our game and headed back down the road to the caravan park to play more Shithead in Bessie until we were ready for bed.

A good first day on the road with Elyse.

Day 2 - Kalbarri to Denham (340 km)

Surprisingly, we didn’t wake up until just before 9 this morning. Obviously the curtains did a good job of blocking out the light. We packed up the bed, put everything away and headed out to start our next day on the road. After filling up, we drove out on the main road and tried to go to The Loop for a walk but the track was closed because they must have had so much rain recently. Instead we drive to one of the other lookouts and walked down to the Murchison River banks to have breakfast. The river was really flowing and the contrast between the bright red cliffs and the green gum trees was gorgeous. We found a quiet spot and enjoyed our breakfast before wandering around a bit longer then heading back to “Bessie” (the campervan).

We hit the road with Ross driving this morning. We tried to put some km’s under our belt before stopping at the Billabong Roadhouse for a break and some lunch. We picked up a tacky stubby holder with Aussie Sheila sayings on it for our friend Elyse who we are meeting in Monkey Mia tomorrow (she’s American).

I drove in the afternoon and we made great progress along the highway. Not much to see, just plenty of straight road! We turned off to the west to head out to Denham where we would spend the night. On the way, we stopped in at Hamelin Pool to look at the stromatolites. I had seen them on one of my geology field trips years ago and just thought that they were amazing. It is the only place in the world where you can find living stromatolites and the ones in the Hamelin Pool area are around 5000 years old. They are made up of cyanobacteria that has been on the Earth for 2.4 billion years and these bacteria helped to produce the oxygen in the atmosphere which allowed animals and plants to evolve. OK- I am a bit of a geek but that is pretty cool!

There is also an old quarry at Hamelin Pool where they mined cocquina, basically they cut out building blocks of shells that had been stuck together by calcium carbonate that had dissolved from the shells. A lot of the buildings in the area had been made out of this material.

From Hamelin Pool we drove another 100km into Denham. We turned up at the Blue Dolphin Caravan Park about 3 and after some confusion we found our spot and set up. We took a bit of a walk along the foreshore and picked up some snags, onions and salad to have for dinner. Back at “Bessie” we cracked open a beer and played a few rounds of shithead before starting dinner. I made gin and tonics while Ross cooked the snags and onions on the gas stove.

You can’t beat snags with onions and sauce in fresh bread and it was nice to have some fresh veg again. After dinner we packed up our stuff, did the dishes and set up the bed. We walked into town (500m down the road) and headed to the pub for a beer and to watch the Ashes and AFL. We also played a couple of rounds of pool and watched the locals for a while – what a place! We can’t wait for our friend Elyse to join us to experience true Australia!

We headed back to Bessie and as usual had a cup of tea with some chocolate while listening to the cricket on ABC radio until we went to bed. Another great day on the road.