West Coast 2021

The Great Central Road (aka The Outback Way) is the shortest practical way from southern WA to Cairns via Central Australia.   The section we travelled was from Laverton in WA to Alice Springs, distance of 1,541km and mostly gravel from Laverton to Yulara near Uluru (Ayers Rock).   The gravel road goes through a very isolated region with only a few roadhouses supplying fuel and basic needs.   Forget about mobile phone reception and listening to the radio. We took 4 leisurely days to cover the distance and camped in some amazing spots.   We had brumbies and camels run across in front of us.   The small sand goannas and lizards tried the same thing but crossed the road more slowly so we managed to drive around them.   We saw more budgies and finches than previously but this time only a few wildflowers. Some parts of the gravel road are fairy corrugated and have taken a toll on cars and caravans.   We saw far more abandoned cars that were burnt out ...

  Now that we’re heading east from Geraldton we are starting the long journey home.   We passed through some wildflower country and several old gold mining towns.   The wreath flowers beside the road near Pindar were spectacular. They only grow in large numbers along a 300 metre stretch of road about 10k north of the town. The towns dating from the 1890s are dying even though there is plenty of gold.   The gold is now mined by FIFO workers who mostly stay and eat in the onsite accommodation provided by the mining companies.  Unfortunately the slowly dying towns show little evidence of the gold and other sought after minerals that surround them. Camped among the wildflowers at Tenindewa Wreath flowers along the road near Pindar Nana and the grandchildren A wreath flower And another one Fringed Lily The entrance to Jokers Tunnel - dug in the 1890s to mine gold G & T time A lonely grave of a miner killed by a rock fall in 1899 Camped at Lake Mason Homestead...

 We spent over a week in Geraldton - great weather, great facilities and great coffee.  From here we are heading slowly but surely towards home.  St Francis Xavier Cathedral was designed by the young English priest/architect Robert Hawes in 1916, a year after came out to Australia. The archdiocese of Geraldton was the largest (larger than all of the UK), poorest and wildest in Australia.  Father Hawes found the heat oppressive but still managed to design dozens of buildings and helped build 5 of them.  In 1941 Geraldton was the last Australian port of call for HMAS Sydney II which later came across the disguised German raider HSK Kormoran off the Western Australian coast.  The gun battle resulted in both ships being sunk - the Sydney with the loss of all 645 men. The ship's memorial on the hill in town features a dome made of 645 seagulls and a woman looking out to sea for her lost son/husband/brother.  The trees grow sideways because of the constantly...

The weather is getting cooler as we continue to travel south.   And there seems to be more tourists than ever. This part of the trip included stops at several different places on the Peron Peninsula which juts out into Shark Bay.   Near the top of the peninsula is the town of Denham and about opposite that is Monkey Mia.   At the tip of the peninsula is the Francois Peron National Park. We first stayed at Hamelin Station, a former sheep station now a conservation park with nice camping facilities.   Next was a caravan park in Denham and lastly a lonely beach at Goulet Bluff, south of Denham.   Sign at the start of the road up the peninsula.  Love the humour. The emus here are more brown rather than the grey we see back east There are hundreds of finches in the bushes around the lake at Hamelin The spring fed lake at Hamelin - an oasis in the desert Here's us at Shell Beach just north of Hamelin Station.  It's made of millions of small shells. N...