Coral Bay

Friday 9th July

We pulled into Coral Bay around 11am and it felt good to have plenty of time to set up camp at the Coral Bay People's Caravan Park. With crappy weather conditions this was no time for fishing or snorkelling, it was pub time. There was a neat little Public Bar at the resort next door where a pint of Cascade Green went down easily looking out over the windy Bay.

Coral Bay is a cute little bayside town with friendly locals and on a half nice day, incredible waters. It sits on the Southern gateway to Ningaloo reef so you can just imagine the hundreds of beautiful tropical fish and marine life that swim here. Again we were really unlucky here with weather and there just wasn't anyway of taking part in all the aquatic activities…bummer. BUT in the back of our minds Ben and I know that moving back to the West Coast means that we will be able to visit these places again…. and soon!!!

That afternoon we went 4WDing around the back of the dunes for a few hours, this was fun! I even had a go and managed to put a few nice scratches down the side of the car…Ben was thrilled.

Port Hedland

Saturday 10th July

We got up early to get some beach fishing done and go for a run along the beach, it was a beautiful clear morning and you could really see Coral Bay in all it's beauty.

Leaving the town by 10am and heading for Karratha we were making good time, Long roads and long chats make for good entertainment and the time goes quickly.

Getting closer to Karratha we realise that Port Hedland isn't really that far away and we could probably make it there by about 6pm. So, Ben and I downed a couple of 'Mother" double strength energy shots and got driving…..This is where our problems begin…

Pulling into Port Hedland we thought we'd drive around a bit and see the town, as Ben put's it, it feels like a machine. With giant silo's, cranes, ships, and machinery all around, there's nothing natural about it. Then you see that actual Port and the beautiful waters, you can almost imagine it 50 years ago when things might not have been so complicated….and maybe people weren't so greedy.

Now its time to find somewhere to sleep, we pull up to the Big 4 caravan Park and realise its closed!! AND FULL!!! heading back to the car we go through all our options and finally come to the decision that there is a bush camp ground abbot 2 more hours down the road, so we decide to go and have some dinner first and then make our way there.

Shining brightly in the shopping centre car park is "Yummy Noodle" this looks good! A friendly Asian family welcomes us in and we have some pretty awesome freshly cooked noodles. Feeling good about our decision of where to sleep and heading back to the car Ben says "I hope my guts is alright ay"………

Five minutes later we're driving down the road and…"Nope, this isn't good, I've gotta go to the toilet and I've gotta go now"

Considering Ben's diet that day consisted of, 2 pieces of promite toast, a large mug of black coffee, 5 corn crackers with cream cheese, 1 Mother energy shot, some Mexicana Dorito's and a box of "Yummy Noodles" you can see why tis might be the case.

Driving in the dark and searching for a loo, we see a pub, but it's Saturday night and as we get closer we see the parking lot full of work utes and looking through the window all we see is a sea of hi-vis work shirts…Ben's not keen. so we keep driving, it's time to do a drive by…Ben's got the sweats but everywhere we go to pull over there seems to be people popping out of the dark!!! Finally we find a place on the side of the road we can pull over and Ben gets down to business….Let's just say if you go searching around Port Hedland for rare metals or minerals be careful what you find about a Km out of town and a little to the left……it ain't copper.

Driving driving driving, it's all we've done today, we finally reach Cape Keraudren. Its a long drive down a red dirt track till we decide that we don't care about finding a nice little nook with a picturesque creek to camp by, we just wanna sleep. So we pull up to what seems to be the side of a paddock and push our seats back, bring on Mr Sandman!!

It isn't until we turn our headlights off that we see the sky, it's possibly the biggest brightest night sky imaginable, drifting off to sleep its hard to close our eyes as we count the stars shooting by…but eventually we do.