Jon managed to document a lot of our stops, almost up to present day, so now I’ll try to get the rest captured for posterity while we’re in one place for more than one night.

We arrived in Carnarvon from Kalbarri on Thursday, 20 Feb. The super friendly owner, Deano, had a sign setup to welcome us and gave us a tour of the grounds.

We checked out the town, got settled and then joined Deano and some other guests/friends of his for drinks. It was fun to get some local knowledge before heading in to make dinner and fall asleep watching Crocodile Dundee.

Carnarvon is the start of the “Coral Coast” and we’d read about an area with blow holes and a beach nearby called the aquarium for the good snorkeling so we decided to stop on our way out of town. The Quobba Blow Holes were super cool, but unfortunately the flies were out in force enjoying the view too. I assume it’s not always that bad which would make it a great place to hang out. Unfortunately, that was not the case for our visit so we quickly enjoyed watching the blow holes and checking out the interesting landscape before jumping back in the car with a few new fly friends.

Our next stop was Coral Bay. We’d thought about staying there, but lodging was scarce and more expensive than the not too much further Exmouth. We didn’t really understand why until we actually got there and discovered the town is basically one caravan park with all types of lodging along one street. It is incredibly gorgeous and luckily the flies hadn’t infiltrated so we enjoyed pb&js with a view and then rented snorkeling gear to drift snorkel down the beach along the Ningaloo Reef.

We made our way from Coral Bay to Exmouth for the night. Since we got in later than usual, we decided to treat ourselves to dinner and beers at one of two local breweries (!). The food and beer were delicious and a great way to cap off a great day.

The next day we repeated our snorkel adventure at a beach near Exmouth, Turquoise Bay, in the Cape Range National Park. Another day another gorgeous beach with even more interesting fish including a reef shark sighting. Wow.

Exmouth almost seemed too perfect to be true, 320 days of sun a year, super close to the Ningaloo Reef which you can snorkel straight off the shore, two local breweries, what’s the downside? Well… there isn’t much of one really, but they do get bad flies according to locals we talked to and it is normally much hotter there in summer, 40 C (100+ F) vs mid-30s C (mid-90s F) with low humidity while we we were there. Oh and it is definitely one of the most remote places I’ve ever been to so maybe I’ll keep looking for perfection. Sigh.

We also booked a snorkel trip on a boat in order to see some of the outer reef areas. Exmouth is famous for being a place where you can snorkel with whale sharks and humpback whales, but neither are in season right now. Instead, we enjoyed seeing several giant turtles and loads and loads of colorful fish, so much more plentiful in the depths. Unfortunately, my tendency to get seasick did not take a day off so I enjoyed as much as I could before heading back to wonderful dry land. One perk of it being off season is that we had the snorkel tour to ourselves so we got to dictate the duration and had no trouble getting back to shore when I needed it most! Our snorkel tour randomly included the use of seadoo scooter

which I thought was a silly gimmick but sure, why not. My skepticism was quickly silenced as the scooters were great! They made snorkeling out in choppy seas so easy, just hit a button and you could maneuver around with ease. Such fun too.

In our last afternoon in Exmouth, we decided to take Suz out for a spin to Shothole Canyon, at 13+ km drive along a 4WD track into a canyon. It was very scenic and very bumpy going over numerous dry creek beds. I can’t imagine what that place is like the one time of year when it rains.

And don’t worry, we hit the other local brewery one night while we were there and I am happy to report they are also making delicious beer.

I almost forgot to add random emus in town in the plus column for Exmouth.

Oh and Exmouth was supposed to have a giant prawn, but nothing remained except for the stand. They also have a giant whale shark, but given that it’s about the size of a real whale shark I don’t think it should count.

After having a wonderful time in Exmouth, we were loath to leave, but we wanted to get to Broome where we planned on staying put for 5 nights so we set out on the road again. We couldn’t make it to Broome in one day so we drove a long way and stopped in Port Hedland for the night. It is quite a busy town with all sorts of road trains and other enormous mining vehicles about. I was not sad to leave the next day to get out of the chaos and on to Broome.

We arrived in Broome on Tuesday, 25 Feb, and settled in for our longest stint in one place since our first stop in Coffs Harbour. We rented a one bedroom apartment for a steal and were thrilled that it included laundry facilities. Unlimited laundry after being on the road for over a month is a luxury beyond imagination so we started some immediately. We also enjoyed stocking up on groceries that require refrigeration. It’s the little things 🙂

Broome is home to the famously gorgeous Cable Beach with famously gorgeous sunsets. Our motel is short walk to the beach so we’ve enjoyed going every night to watch. Each night has been very different, always lovely.

Jon got to enjoy a round of golf with free greens fees being part of our motel booking. We also took care of other odds and ends around town, haircut, car servicing, passport applications and more. That’s all between time taking long walks on the beach, driving around to scenic spots, and lounging by or in the pool. Good stuff.

It had been a restorative time and got us ready to get back on the road. Unfortunately, ex-tropical cyclone Esther had different plans for us. We’d read all about it and the rain impacts along our planned journey, but nothing indicated the roads were too bad to get to our next stop so we set off on Sunday morning as planned.  We drove along and the areas with water over the road started growing more and more frequent until there was one that freaked me out a bit, but we got through that without problem. Then we drove up to another spot where the water covered the road for a long way, seemed pretty deep, and was moving very quickly. There are depth markers at all the potential floodways, but not always in spots that help and that was the case here. We stopped and watched as a van on the other side made the same decision to stop and then two big 4WD trucks went through. The fact that other vehicles made it through was great, but they were higher clearance and probably heavier and it looked like the water went over their tires so it didn’t really boost our confidence. We were also worried that things beyond would be worse and we were at least 100 km (60 mi) from the next town. So we decided to turn around and based on the radar showing lots more rain moving through and the road being officially closed the next day, I think we made a smart decision. We also decided to head all the way back to Broome despite having made it three hours out of town because the only other lodging option was a roadhouse with a motel in the middle of nowhere and we expected to have to stay somewhere at least two nights before trying again.

(Side note: both Jon and I frequently made fun of all the signs that just say “Floodway” along all the roads we’ve been on thinking it would easier just to tell people all the roads are potential floodways, but we learned the signs are right where the water is when it does flood so the signs are super helpful especially when the potential flooded area is not visible ahead of time. Oops, we were wrong to make fun.)

As I write this, I am sitting by the pool back at our motel, the lovely Blue Seas Resort in Broome. We enjoyed dinner out last night at the Divers Tavern as a treat for making a smart and safe decision and we’re enjoying a super lovely day today. I’ll never complain about more relaxing!! Which in fact, I now know I get one more day of as Jon just checked the available information and it appears that all the rivers are still rising so we’re going to stay put until at least Wednesday, 4 March.

We’re in Broome, WA now, way ahead of where we are on the blog. It’s my turn to try to catch us up.

The last post left us in Ceduna, South Australia, about to cross the Nullabor Plain and make our way into Western Australia.  We decided to spend two nights while crossing to allow us to stop whenever and still not drive in the dark.  You don’t want to drive in the dark in rural Australia because sooner or later you will hit a kangaroo (or a camel, emu, cow, wombat, etc.) and have a bad time.

We set our first stop to be in Eucla, WA, which is 492km from Ceduna.  We stopped at a few view points along the way to take in the Bunda Cliffs and to break up the drive. There were a handful of flies at each stop that incited a bit of fly rage. Little did we know we had no idea what fly rage was just yet.

At the SA/WA border we got a picture of the “Big Roo” and one of the holes of the “Nullabor Links” – a golf course that spans 1,365km.  I thought about playing, but decided against it since the last three holes were north of the route we were planning on taking and you know, snakes.

We made it to Eucla fairly early, but a bit later than we estimated since we learned it was in a weird timezone (UTC +8:45) and not Perth/Western Australia time (UTC +8).  We had planned to use the pool only to find out it was closed. So after setting up camp in the most wind protected place we could find, we made dinner and turned in fairly early.

The next morning we skipped the pay showers ($3 for 5 minutes!), fueled up by the “big whale”  and got on the road with a plan to make it to Balladonia (another 492km day).  The stretch of highway from Caiguna to Balladonia is the “Longest Straight Road” in Australia which seemed hilarious after a whole lot of long straight roads.

We got to Balladonia quite early (~1pm) and it was really hot, and the only thing in there is the roadhouse / caravan park.  We couldn’t think of what we’d do with all that free time, so we decided to keep going.  I had read about a small community run caravan park in Salmon Gums, WA so we decided that would be our target – a further 316km.  We stopped at an underwhelming viewpoint in Norseman, WA (which is considered the end of the “Nullabor” drive). An hour more found us at the caravan park (only $10 for an unpowered  tent site!) in Salmon Gums.  We set up camp, had dinner and then set out to the local hotel to have a beer.

Given the extra ground we covered, we only had an hour of driving left to get to our next stop, which was Esperance.  We planned to stay two nights there and given our string of tent sleeping and the forecast rain, we opted for two nights in a hotel.  We got there before noon, and did a quick loop of a tourist drive to kill time before check-in.  We were not disappointed – except for “Pink Lake” which hasn’t been pink for over 10 years but they haven’t bothered to rename it.

The next day we went for a run and then I played golf while Sara walked around town.  After that we didn’t do much as it was raining most of the day, so we just enjoyed our time in a non-tent structure.

Our next stop was Albany – about 5 hours away, but first we traveled the opposite direction to check out a nearby national park, Cape Le Grande, where roos sometimes lounge on the beach. The weather was pretty iffy, but we went for it anyway.  Sadly no roos, but the beach (Lucky Bay) was beautiful even in the misty rain.

I had to drive the whole day because something was wrong with our seat and it would not go far enough forward for Sara.

In Albany we stayed at a caravan park that was right on the water.

There was a thunderstorm the first night followed by some ridiculous winds that made sleeping in a tent quite challenging. After having our coffee and breakfast, we visited a local Suzuki dealer and they fixed the seat issue quickly and free of charge!  We went and visited a few spots in the local national park, then explored the cute downtown area.  Next we stopped and had a beer at a local craft brewery, Wilson Brewing Company,  before heading back to camp to make dinner.

From Albany it was another 5 hour drive to Perth (the capital of Western Australia), with a stop at another national park, Porongurup National Park, along the way for nice long hike to a neat viewpoint on top of some rocks.

We spent 3 nights in Perth where we explored the town a bit, took in a Women’s Australian Rules Football match at the fancy new stadium, and checked out a few craft breweries, Bright Tank Brewing Co and Blasta Brewing Company, both highly recommended if you find yourself in Perth.

After Perth we were off to Jurien Bay – only about 3 hours away.  On there way there we stopped at a few national parks.  First, one that had koalas.

Next, one that had the pinnacles – they were quite amazing.

Unfortunately, this is where the flies really begin for us.  We thought they were annoying along the Nullabor, but we had no idea. When I say flies, there are a lot of them and they buzz your ears and nose and are really annoying. More on that later.

In Jurien Bay we camped at a caravan park near the beach.  We got set up quickly as we have gotten quite good by now at setting up camp. That night the winds came and made sleeping nearly impossible.  The wind was gusting up to 65kph (40mph) at times shaking the tent and just generally making a lot of noise.  Quite annoying.

We were staying two nights in Jurien bay, so the next day we explored a nearby town, then spend some much needed time on the beach relaxing and swimming in the ocean. It was very hot that day and didn’t cool down that much, which made sleeping a challenge again.

Next stop, Kalbarri, about 4 hours away.  On the way, we stopped at a pink lake that was actually pink.

We hooked up the chromecast and caught up on some new Brooklyn Nine-Nine episodes and got some much needed sleep in a hotel after two nights very poor sleep in Jurien Bay.

After a robust sleep, we were off to Carnarvon, 4 and a half hours up the coast. On the way out of town, we stopped at a few coastal spots of the local national park.

We planned to stop at some of the cool-sounding inland gorges of this park, only to find out it was closed for the week for feral goat eradication – I did not anticipate that as a reason for a park closure.  It was a bit rainy, and this seemed to bring all the roos out of the bush and into the road.  I had to stop and honk at a lot of roos as they didn’t bound off when the heard me coming.

I now understand why there are so many dead kangaroos on the side of the road, as the big trucks don’t stop, they just mow them down.

Back to the flies, for anyone doubting how bad they are, here’s a taste:

Well, now we are only two stops away from being caught up – that’ll have to be in the next installment!