August 29th
Quite a long drive south today, all on tar along the North
West Coastal Road. We’ve started a new audio book - ‘Orange is the New Black’
(the book that the TV series is based on – quite loosely it would seem) so the
long stretches with not much to see aren’t too bad (and WA certainly has a lot
of long stretches with not much to see!).
We stopped in at Carnarvon (home of the lunchbox banana!!)
for lunch – no bananas but a great meal of fresh fish and chips at the local
seafood co-op. Did some grocery shopping (including some lunchbox bananas) and
also bought a cool carry bag for our new hose. Carnarvon seems quite a nice
place from our brief stop – they have lovely parks along with waterfront with
great spots to sit and admire the water view.
Our home for the evening was Wooramel Station. The options
for accommodation along the road are a bit far and few between. Many people
with camper trailers and caravans are content to just pull over into a rest
stop for the evening but that isn’t as appealing to us in a tent. There are a
couple of roadhouses on this stretch of the road but by all reports they aren’t
much chop. While in Carnarvon, we picked up a flyer for Wooramel Station, rang
ahead and discovered they still had available camp sites. It seems to be a
really busy time for tourists in this part of WA and a couple of times we have
had to go to Plan B as the first choice option wasn’t available. It would seem
that every other person over 60 in Australia has bought a caravan and is
travelling around and around the country. The ‘Grey Nomad’ phenomenon is alive
and well and holding up traffic on the highways and byways.
Random caterpillar
Wooramel Station is a working station that dabbles in the
tourist trade but is actually making a good fist of the tourist component of
things. The natural environment helps and the station is situated on the wide
banks of the Wooramel River (dry). Camping is amongst magnificent river gums
and they have a natural artesian bore which they have made into a couple of hot
spa baths for the visitors to soak in. Great place for beer o’clock tonight
although we really felt that we were the youngest people there by about 15
years!!
The other point of interest here is their machinery
‘graveyard’. This is a patch of ground behind the hanger (yes they had a light
aircraft) that contained the remains of 100 years worth of farm equipment. A
fascinating array of abandoned vehicles ranging from horse drawn wagons through
to modern 4WD. There was also an interesting collection of kitchen appliances
that showed the evolution of these devices over time. As well as these easily
recognisable objects was a vast array of other machinery and equipment whose
purpose was impossible to discern and probably long since forgotten.
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