Monday 6th October – Cleaverville to 40 Mile Beach – Fine Sunny Clear Skies

When we woke up we wanted to swap yesterday for today.  The weather was perfect and the ocean was very calm, just perfect for snorkelling.  However, we were on the move and had to pack up.

We left camp at 8.15am and headed into Karratha with a few things to do.  We refilled our water tanks and then the groceries.  Our next port of call was Hall Street, for a photo of their old house for Lyn & Lyle – mission accomplished.  We even met the people living there – :)

 

Next stop was the camping store for the sand pegs as we intend to do a bit of beach camping for now on.  We then headed off to Dampier.

 

We noticed that every direction given by someone in Karratha involves the high rise buildings.  We decided that this must be the biggest thing to happen in Karratha. The people from Hall Street, told us that the buildings were built on the salt plains and there is a problem with them sinking, oops, someone’s in trouble.

 

 

 

We passed the salt mine on our way to Dampier. There were some small ponds beside the road with humorous figures like snowman and penguins and that wasn’t far off the mark, because this one looked like a icy lake. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Couldn’t come this far and not see the tribute to Red Dog.

Hard to believe, but this is the foreshore at Dampier.  It seemed weird coming across this little oasis, after driving through the salt plains, the red rocky outcrops seeing dead grass everywhere.

 

 

 

 

We went over to Hearson’s Beach to see the Aboriginal Rock Carvings.

There are hills everywhere compiled of just loose large red rocks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is where you find the carvings on these rocks.

There are thousands of them.  They say that they are from around 25-30 thousand years ago and the most recent in 1836.

 

 

 

 

We turned off to the 40 Mile Beach Road and there was a massive Gas Plant – Devils Creek Gas Plant on the right hand side of the road.  Great, we are camping next to a North West Shelf Gas Plant, but hey, the upside is that we wouldn’t run out of gas. There are a lot of these Gas Plants around the Dampier Peninsula as well with lots of construction going on at the plants.  Our camp location is 13 klms along this road.

 

 

We arrived and found a great camp site fairly close to the beach with some wind protection.  After we had set up, we met our first neighbour.

Perched on the camp site fire place, catching the last of the sun’s rays.