Karijini

Another massive one unfortunately. Turns out the shit internet on the east coast is the best Australia can hope for.
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I got away today. It was still pretty windy when I packed up but it died down around midday.

It was more straight boring road. Most of Australia is really, really flat and boring.

The only thing of interest was Port Hedland. I don't know if I went into Port Hedland. It's hard to tell. There were loaders and conveyor belts everywhere. Some close, some way off in the distance. There was also the occasional spattering of shops. Sort of industrial shops like truck hire and Ken's roofing. In between all that there was miles of flat red dirt.

I heard ages ago that giraffes were thought of for years as solitary animals, but they studied them and discovered that because they are so tall, they can see each other from miles away, so they are actually in these herds that are just massively spread out. If that is true, then it was definitely a giraffe that designed Port Hedland. It is spread out but still somehow connected.

However, I don't know if I actually went into the town. I certainly didn't see any houses or giraffes.

I'm now at Indee station. It is an actual real station. They are mustering the cattle at the moment. I came in on a well maintained but sandy track and nearly came off a couple of times. When I got here I realised I didn't have any cash. I only needed $12.50 so have spent the last half hour pulling everything out of my bags and going through every pocket for loose change. I have managed to pull together $13.60. I didn't realise this was a real eftposless station. I thought it was like El Questro Station, which has more eftpos machines than cows.
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Had a dull night last night. Went to happy hour and watched this poor little girl be harassed by one of the station staff. The station lady desperately wanted this little girl to go look at the camel. Kudos to this little girl for not giving in. Kudos to her for distracting the station lady as well.

Until that family arrived I was getting the most detailed description of where the camp kitchen was. I was having muesli bars for dinner so really didn't need to know where it was in relation to every other thing on earth.

Today felt long but I only came 277km. It was windy again and there were a huge amount of road trains. Apparently they have to maintain a 3km gap so there was one every 3km. The oncoming ones are fine but overtaking them when it is windy is scary. When you get in front of them the wind kicks back in.

I got out to Karijini. It's pretty spectacular landscape. Both camp grounds here are full. It is online booking only which is useful when the nearest internet is 400km away. Optus reckons the park has full coverage. There is wifi at the visitors centre so I went there and thought I may as well go in and see if they can squeeze me into one of these full campsites. The lady said yes straight away. She hates the online booking too and reckons she'll probably get in trouble for going around the online booking system. I'm in the overflow camp ground and I'd say it is about 1/5 full. Absolutely ridiculous.

Really rammed in at the camp ground. 

Nice road through the canyon. 

May have parked where the trucks park. 

I'm here for two nights then off towards Tom Price.
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This morning I got up reasonably early and went over to Dale's Gorge. The main camp ground over there was virtually empty too. I walked down to Fortescue Falls. It is a waterfall like the others. I then walked up along the stream at the top of the Falls and found the fern pool. It apparently has spiritual significance to the traditional custodians of this land. Rio Tinto being the current custodians.

Looking down Dale's bloody big gorge. 

Fortescue Falls

Fern Pool

The information centre tells me that when walking to the fern pool the elders would go first and sing to the water. Then upon arriving at the pool they would greet the water by taking a mouthful and spraying into the air. Essentially it is the whale joke.

I went for a swim and the water wasn't too bad. The waterfall above was a few degrees warmer so it was like having a shower. I think. I barely remember what a shower is like.

I then walked through the gorge to the other end. At that end was the circular pool. It is a pool that is in the shape of a circle. To be fair most of them have been circles.

This is actually a 360 degree photo that for some reason my phone cropped about 300 degrees off. 

A heap of people were sitting around egging each other on to get in, but nobody was swimming because it was too cold. I figured they are wusses as I'd already been in up the other end and it wasn't bad. So I jumped in and I can confirm it was really bloody cold. It was definitely worth the cold though. As I got out my nipples scraped two lines into a rock I brushed up against.


The walk to the top of the gorge at that end was a steep goat trail. It was a real scramble and I was totally stuffed at the top. The family from Indee station was there, minus the little girl who wouldn't pat the camel. I assume she was murdered by that lady at the station, but at least she died without patting that camel.

By the time I'd done all that it was only just after 11. I went to the info centre and asked how the dirt track to the other sections are. The ranger said it was a bit rough but not too bad so I rode out to Kalinga Gorge (or something like that).

 That gorge was nicer except the water was a bit shallow for swimming. The bottom of the gorge is flat rock which makes it seem a bit like a giant natural storm water drain, which it pretty much is. I got as far as I could without walking in the water and headed back to this dusty camp.

On my way my windscreen fell off. I guess a few too many bolts had rattled loose. I pulled up and collected it. I don't think I'll put it back on. I did a test on the bitumen and the clean air hitting me is better than the air off the windscreen was. I'll see if that holds up at 110km/h. The bike does look odd without it.

When I pulled up I also discovered my right rear blinker was hanging by the wires. So I've got some work to do I guess. The work being to find the duct tape I've misplaced.

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I am buggered. I got up bright and early because that is something I do now. Last night I borrowed the best roll of duct tape ever and taped my blinker back up. I also covered the gaping hole behind the instrument panel that used to be covered by the windshield.

Setting off the lack of windshield took some getting used to. I can feel the wind pushing on my chest and up around 110 the wind noise gets about as bad as with a windshield. No buffeting is fantastic though so I'm leaning towards leaving it off.

I went around to Weano gorge. It isn't that far in a straight line from where I was camped but was about 80km on the bitumen and then 13km of really rough dirt.

The gorge was less impressive than all the others except for one short section. There was essentially a crack in the end of the gorge about a metre wide that continued in and then opened up into a glorious pool. It was quite surreal. Hard to believe it was naturally occurring. It was like it belonged at a fun park.

The pool was called the handrail pool because there was a handrail to climb down. When I got there I was the only person there. I went for a swim over to the crack at the other end and the gorge continues on. That is the part where you spider walk above the water with one foot on each wall of the gorge. It didn't look to go too far so I didn't bother, especially in bare feet.

There was another walk I would've liked to do but I'd run out of water and didn't want to die so I left.

Half the bitumen stained with red dirt over a km from where the red dirt ended. 

A big hill. 

I got to Tom Price which looks like a nice modern town. The info centre was shut (when are they ever open?), the caravan park wanted $40 per night for an unpowered site (nope), and I drove around for 30 minutes looking for a tap. I only succeeded in looking like a paedophile. Taps are usually at sports fields, which today were full of kids. I ended up going into the shopping centre and filling up from a bubbler, making a huge mess in the process. What town doesn't have taps?

With no other options to stay in town I headed out of town to a free camp. It was fairly nice by a dried up river. The ride in was rough and fun. Proper dirt, not corrugated gravel. Unfortunately I couldn't find a single spot that wasn't rock hard.

I decided to keep going to this station stay I'm at. I continued on and the road turned to dirt, which was unexpected. I thought it was going to be dirt for the next 270km as the sign suggested. After 40km or so  it turned back to bitumen at a turn off for Tom Price. Turns out I'd gone 40km on dirt when there is an actual bitumen road I could've been on.

The dirt road to the left and the bitumen I could've been on leading off to the right. 

I'm at this station stay now and am camped on grass! Underneath the grass... Is soil! The last time I camped on grass was Katherine.

The station has another camp 45 minutes away next to some gorges. I'm tossing up whether to stay there tomorrow. Would be good to fly the drone and I just charged it up. But I'm keen to get to the coast and out of the dust.
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I headed for Onslow today. It was long and boring.

My expectation of Onslow was a beautiful beachside village with luminescent waters, white sands and lush green grass. My first impression can be summarised with a picture:

Note that weird coloured ocean and the red soil. In reality it is somewhere in between. Walking around there is quite a lot of green. For instance I walked past a green shipping container and the slippery dip at the park was green too. There is patchy grass growing and the town is pleasant. The beach isn't great and the ocean looks a bit ordinary.

I'm mostly here to pick up a package at the post office. I think I'll go to Coral Bay tomorrow if I can.

All these old farts have been telling me about how great the West Coast is. Like with most things, they are wrong. Mainly, I assume, through a combination of early onset dementia, senility and stupidity. From my experience of it so far the Dutch were right for disregarding it. Although, it turns out to be a fantastic spot to dig holes. I'm hoping that heading south it will become nicer. So far I feel like quite a lot of pretending is required to compliment it.

I'm struck with the horrifying thought that the best bit of coast in Australia lies between Port Macquarie and Coffs Harbour. The regional capital of Kinchela might be the greatest city in the country. Faaaaaark.