karratha

I am so glad that someone invented washing machines, and I am so grateful for cement under the washing lines so that I can be clean while hanging out the clean washing.

We are in Karratha, a smallish town on the Pilbara coast of Western Australia.  We arrived this afternoon and after some discussion, are staying in the Big 4 caravan park, with clean toilets, showers, a pool and a playground right next to our camp site.  Cooper is sorted!

Our first few hours were spent scrubbing children.  I washed my hair three times and used soap and a nail brush on my feet to get rid of the red dirt.  I sent Jospeh back into the bathroom to do his feet after his shower, because he still looked an unusual reddish brown from the knees down - not sun tan!

We've washed two loads of washing, and after tring to hand wash clothes for a family of seven, it was heaven.

Then, because we've eaten pretty well everything in the van, we went for MacDonald's for dinner (ugh) and a grocery shop.  Nadine kept telling me we had enough food now and should stop.  I think she was embarrassed at the size of the trolley load of food.

I found some potato chips on special - not sure if they tried these flavors in Coles in Queensland.  They had Sunday Roast flavour, Pizza flavor, and Meat Pie and sauce flavor....gee, I wonder why they were reduced to such a low price?  

Now everyone is fed and looking forward to real milk on their breakfast, clean (well, relatively) and asleep.

This morning our neighbors were up and away by 6am.  These bush travelers are unreal the hours they keep.  They would be up and away before 7, back again from their walk before lunch, dinner before dark, and asleep in bed by 8pm.  I came back from the loo about 7pm last night and the campground was silent and pitch black.  

We, on the other hand, amble along, eating our breakfast and slowly packing the van, playing with milk bottles in the creek, swimming in the river, and generally enjoying the lovely campground.  We managed to be all ready by about 11 am then drove back to the main road and up along the Roebourne Wittenoom Road through the National Park to Python Pool.  We had another swim there below the towering rock cliffs with hundreds of little spotty fish, then back into the car and on to Karratha.

Everyone was pretty cranky because we hadn't had much to eat.  A good learning experience I guess - not sure if it's a learning experience for the kids or the parents!  We'd had cereal and bacon and eggs for breakfast, and the last crackers and tinned tuna for lunch.  So it wasn't as bad as it sounds. We were driving through the red rocky landscape with spinifex again, it is so bare.

We passed Pyramid Station, with a free metal water cooler at the front boundary.  Joseph got out, looking forward to a nice cold drink, but  it was broken.

A little further on we reached the t- intersection and turned onto the Great Northern Highway.  Oh bliss, bitumen.  And lots and lots of other cars.

We drove through Roebourne which had a few cute brown brick buildings with white edging as you turned in, but that was about all.  There was nowhere to stay, so we drove on to Karratha, where people fly in and out to work in the oil and mining industry.  It's also very expensive here.

So we're back in the 'city' and it's such a relief.  Grant and I are amazed that some people have been traveling for a year with only an esky..I'm just not cut from the same cloth.

We're looking forward to a few days unwinding before we head off again. 
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Vicki