Moving right along

It was a big toss up whether to stay another night at 80 Mile Beach.  Grant had heard it was very good for fishing, and Dom still wants to go fishing somewhere, but we arrived yesterday at low tide, and the next high tide was at midnight.  So to go fishing around the high tide, we would need to stay until lunch time, or stay the extra night.

When it is low tide, the water goes out about a kilometer and leaves a very wide beach but it's a long way to go to fish.  The boys went out on the beach at low tide in the morning, walked out a long way, and then had to walk fast to beat the tide rushing back in.

Although I could have stayed for a week to collect the lovely shells and soak up the long beach, the decider was when the sun got very hot about 9am.  We just felt so hot and miserable, the van park was just a huge paddock by the sea with very little shade, that we decided to press on to Port Hedland, where Grant had some specials from Repco on hold!

I had spent the morning  searching for a lost earring that I thought may have fallen out when I took Nadine to the toilet in the night.  I walked the way there and back several times, my eyes glued on the ground, and asked a few people if they'd found anything, but no joy.  Nadine even walked to the toilet and back and reported that she found nothing.  She was pretty quick.  It isn't the first time I've lost an earring camping, and God has been very kind and answered my prayers every time, and I've located them again, twice in thick grass in a field when they could have been anywhere.  Well, I was wondering if God had something else to teach me this time and was trying to be joyful anyway.  I thought I'd pack away my bed and have a good look, and after I removed the doona, there it was, sitting on the bed, where I'd already looked twice before.  I'm very thankful that God returned it once more. Nadine said she was thankful she hadn't looked harder and embarrassed herself peering at the ground.  Good on ya, Dini!

So, muddling around, we managed to pack up and head off for Port Hedland. 80 Mile Beach was a place we'd visit again, but we were keen to be on the move.

A way along the road, a white sedan sped past us.  It's interesting who you pass and who then passes you or who you see at a roadhouse beside the road.

About 40 km out of the Pardoo Roadhouse, I noticed some nice skid marks on the road.  Then we saw a group of cars on the side of the road.  Then I noticed they seemed to have decided here was a good place for a picnic, because they'd put up a tarpaulin, using an old car wreck for one side.....hang on, I don't think that's an 'old' car wreck at all.  

"Grant, I think that's the car that whizzed past us earlier, I think they've crashed."  We had a call on our radio - "do you have a satellite phone?"  "no."

 We turned around to see if we could help, but a big truck had stopped by the time we'd returned, and he'd called the ambulance and the police.  The driver was, apparently, almost unhurt, but the passenger was very cut up and the car was a disaster.  They'd ended up almost ten meters away from the road on the opposite side, on their wheels, facing the road.  The roof of their white car was red from all the dirt.  It must have been a very wild ride, to say the least.  The driver said he'd swerved for a bird

One of the people who'd stopped had been camped at Broome at the same time as us - I recognized the car.  He'd helped to put up the awning and wet the ground around the injured guy to try and keep him cool.

There was nothing we could do so we continued on our way.  About fifteen minutes later we passed two ambulances and a police car zooming along the other way, so hopefully they got there in time.

Port Hedland was not raved about by anyone we've spoken to on  the road, and apart from Repco, which Grant loved, it was a tired, dirty town, that looked like a red dust storm had just been through it.  If anyone is hanging out for the wet season I would pick Port Hedland.  It needs a big wash.  It is a mining town, with large equipment and huge fuel storage tanks everywhere.  I saw one green shed in a dusty yard, sitting on the muddy bank by the water, declaring itself to be  "Bruno's Ocean Lodge".  I think the name might have been stretching it a bit.  The port had three large ships in, waiting for their cargo of Western Australian ore.  We passed numerous road trains full of dirt and kilometer long trains, with engines at the front and the middle.  

Today was probably our busiest day for passing large trucks traveling in the opposite direction or having them pass us.  The Great Northern Highway is the elected heavy vehicle route so that's the way all the big trucks travel up and down the coast.  We left our radio on the trucking channel, and listened to them chatting to each other and telling each other when it was safe to pass.  Jo was scared we would go on the radio and give ourselves away as 'newbies'.  "You'll sound like newbs, going 'Hi everyone, how ya doin''" he said.  I think his parents embarrass him sometimes.  

There was also someone with a funny accent who kept coming on and saying "you free point one?". His Chinese accent just didn't seem to fit with the rough Aussie trucking speech.

We phoned Katie from Port Hedland and  connected to the internet while Grant was off shopping in Repco.  Cooper was a bit restless, jumping around the car while I tried to hear what Katie said, until he did his little escape artist act and opened the side door.  I got off the phone from Katie, looked up to see Grant returning along the red, dusty roadside with two shop assistants in tow carrying his purchases, and looked behind me to see Cooper peeing on the ground just outside his door.  Boy, do we look feral now!  

Next stop, Woolworths, and I took Cooper with me where I could keep an eye on him.  Grant spent the twenty minutes on the phone trying to locate a fuel station in Port Hedland that sold LPG, with no luck.  On my way into the shopping centre I saw a large truck being loaded by a few ladies with crates of Milo tins, tinned beetroot, bundaberg ginger beer, tetra juice packs and so on.  I asked, and they told me they were from a remote school, about 7 hours drive from Port Hedland, and they were there for the six monthly shop.  It would take them a few days to buy everything - they had a big assortment of eskies for their fresh produce, and some portable freezers for their meat.  It looked like a big job.  Good on them for living on the remote school in the first place.  I did my 'little' shop then we headed off inland towards Karijini National Park.

It was an ambitious distance, and once again we have made a road side camp, this time at Bea Bea campsite, arriving after dark.  We avoided a few cows on the way, including a frolicking calf who I hope survives the night.  One bull gave me a big fright, looming up as I passed him, black and staring with his big white horns shining in the headlights.

Once we had to stop for Cooper to pee, then everyone had the same idea and piled, one by one, out of the car, avoiding the spiky grass, then clambering back in again.  These are some of the things we wouldn't do so easily a few weeks ago!  Oh, the achievements we applaud...

One thing I wanted to do was stop for a dead Kangaroo and check it's pouch for a baby Joey.  There isn't that much road kill now, so my opportunities haven't been great, but I'm pretty sure it's the season for joeys.  When we visited the wildlife stall in Broome, they gave us a brochure on rescuing joeys, and it wasn't as simple as I thought...in fact the whole procedure becomes rather gruesome and involves a fairly specialized roadside rescue 'kit'.

Joeys can survive for up to five days in their mother's pouch after she's become road kill.  The safest way to remove the Joey is to cut open the pouch from the  top with some strong scissors (she assured me there'd be no blood). Item one: strong scissors.  

Next thing you need to know, if the joey is very young (hairless, or lightly haired) it's mouth is probably fused together around the mother's nipple so you have to cut the nipple off...same scissors would do.  Still no blood.  yeah, right! Pick up the Joey with an old towel..item two in your kit, making sure to rub some of mother's scent onto the towel.  Don't bother if she's starting to smell.

Next thing you might need - a safety pin - to pin the nipple to the towel so the Joey won't choke on it now you've chopped it off -  I think I'm going to have nightmares.  Don't worry, the Joey should stop sucking on it after about three hours.

So now you have a Joey wrapped in a towel sucking on a pinned on nipple - you have to produce a nice hot water bottle to keep him at a constant temperature....item four, or is that five?...Grant told me not to stop under any circumstances to look for Joeys.

Everyone pitched in again to set up camp and we had a nice dinner and sit under the stars before bed.  There are a lot of bugs here, and Nadine found it all a bit much.  "I want to keep driving until we are home where there are no bugs," she said.  She ate one burrito, but then had had enough of bugs falling in her dinner and in her water and went to bed.  Cooper did his usual strip routine, then I told him a bug might bite his bottom, and he was very keen to get dressed again, even went so far as to ask for a shirt!  "so the bugs don't bite my back" he said.

I just had to go for some bug spray - they love this computer screen.  Time for some games on my iPad now everyone is in bed.

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Vicki