"Back in the land of the living" Barn hill to Point Sampson

As you might have guessed due to my lack of attendance to “THE BLOG” we have been out of range for the past couple of weeks or more, no phone, no Internet so I have been blogging on a word doc. to keep the adventures up to date and here they are … happy reading

NB you can double click to make images bigger

Well we had a fantastic night to finish our stay at Barn Hill. We attended the Sunday roast and a local Aboriginal band was pumping out the entertainment. So here we all are, our new friends and we, miles away from anywhere, all sitting on the grass, on the top of the red cliffs, the ocean roaring below us, a full moon above us and the clearest of sky’s making all the stars dance. You just couldn’t describe how great a feeling that is ….. and no pictures will do it the justice it deserves either.

the entertainment

George Rach and David

Cliffs at Barn Hill

sunrise

Barn hill beach

Here we are now at port smith and we’ve only been here an hour when we meet Sally and David, an old couple from Adelaide who have lobbed here for the winter (the dry). Firstly, Sally could have been a double for “me” mum! Both originally from the UK, give you the shirt off her back if she could. 10 minutes into a chat and we come away with a bag of beads and some beautiful shells for Pippa and a nice fresh fillet of tuna caught yesterday for the three of us for dinner.

Sally and Pip

We have decided to stay 4 nights here as they have a few supplies and Thursday night is all you can eat fish and chips and you guessed it an aboriginal guy is entertaining and playing the dij. We love it! We are quite short now on food, Mike keeps saying he’s loosing weight but I doubt that, in fact I’m quiet surprised at the great meals we are able to prepare on the tin and dry stores we have. Also we haven’t run out of sweet stuff I keep reminding him only the good stuff like fruit veg. One draw back to this place is the sandflies and they are a bit like bloody crows, pick you up and carry you away if they could.  

We went on a couple of 4x4 tracks with Walter on Leanne (people we met @ Barn Hill station who also are staying here) They have done a lot of off road so it was good to have them lead the way as we had been warned of the high tides here around the beaches and mangroves. The caravan park spends a fair bit of time pulling people out due to the rise of an unexpected tide… or should I say untimely exit, as the tide times are not exactly unexpected, they are however very fast approaching during these spring tides. Yesterday was 9.3m tides. Below are some of the Pics from those untouched places...

tide in

tide out

 The sights at the end of these tracks are stunning, often with no other people to be seen for miles. Sheer cliff faces of what appears to be alike limestone in colour. The bird life is also quite prolific with small darting unidentified bird life and large graceful brolgas in flight, not to forget the silly corellas who think they can walk down the track faster than the car can.

Well tomorrow we “BUG” out literally, saying farewell to the sandflies and head to 80mile beach. We have collected some great shells at these last two places but we are told 80 mile has “the best shells”.  Anyway guys take care all and talk to you from 80mile beach.

80Mile Beach:

We enjoyed our fish and chips night on our last night at Port Smith. Pip entered the crazy hat contest and won a prize for the best effort… “a candy jar”, it was that or a bottle of plonk which she gracefully declined. We bid farewell to Leanne and Walter, our 4x4 guides, hopefully we will see you guys in Perth for a catch up. Goodbye also to Sally who reminded me so much of my mum… it’s the only time I’ve felt the slightest bit home sick….. But don’t “yawl worry cause I’m well over it now”.

Pip with hat n Prize

unusual crustaceans??

more 4x4

the 4x4 was quite sandy

Pip feeds the locals

We arrived at 80mile beach and catch up Kathy and Graham, yes that’s right yet another couple we have been playing tag with down the coastline. They are usually heading out a day or so after we bug in so we are SURE to see them again. We head straight to the beach.. no swimming here too many sharks but holly hell you should check out the hundreds of fisher persons on the shore . I’ve never seen so many people fishing in one spot. While we are standing there a women reels in a HUGE salmon. Mike is off fishing the changing tide tomorrow he informs me to catch us our dinner.

Much to our disgust there was to be no fresh fish for us, Mike had a few huge bites and lost tackle a few times to the sharks. They were serious these things swimming in to about 1 foot of water to pinch any fish you had on your line. A few people caught some smaller sharks and were of course happy to cook them up for dinner. We walked for miles along the shelly beach picking up some quite pretty shells. We have quite a collection so NO MORE SHELLS…

80 mile of shells

Pip met a couple of nice little kids the day prior to us departing “Heidi, Coral and Callum” She enjoyed having some kid time.

Pip Heidi and Coral

We head off on our way to Karajini NP. Apparently a must do so we are doing it!. It’s about 300km off the track we are taking so we will back track when we have finished our visit there so we can check out 40mile beach and cape Sampson. We stop off at (South) Port Headland for groceries, oohh how nice to have veggies again. We had to have dry sayos and cheese for brekkie today. We can put the rice and pasta away for a few days at least. Port Headland is a pretty rough looking ol’ mining place, very industrial and interesting red sky line if that’s the right words, glad really not to stay there very red and dusty. We do however need to stop somewhere before Karajini so we decide to pull of at a station camp. “Indee station” is our camp for the night. Pretty cheap so suits the budget, no power or hook up to water, in fact there is no tap in sight tap so we make do with the water we have on board and enjoy the very hot powerful showers knowing it might ge the last decent wash for the next few days. Plenty of action going on as far as the mines goes here. They have geologists on the property drilling for new gold and lithium sites. Plenty of red dust again and lots of cattle. We are given a couple of options as to where to set up camp. Option one is “this side of the fence” option two is “the other side of the fence” We take option one when we are advised the cattle are roaming around option two and are quite happy to stick their head inside your camp late at night. Well guys with home schooling out of the way for yet another day (this is the hardest part of the trip) we are heading over to the homestead for a beer with the other campers all 4 of them. Pretty quite out here in the sticks. Cheers and catch you all later.

Karajini National park:

An early start from Indee station and a beautiful drive gets to Karajini by midday. We are staying at Dales campground. The amenities here are fabulous they consist of a drop toilet AND LOTS MORE red dust… Actually the sites are pretty good and very spacious, we were able to fill our water tanks at the visitors centre so really what else do we need now we have all those yummy groceries. This afternoon we did a 3.5 hour walk. We walked the top rim of Dales Gorge and down into the pool and falls areas. We were able to walk the length of the gorge from down by the water edge between the falls. The walks were magnificent, and lucky for us we walked the lower walk in the heat, which was very sheltered with trees, and the ridge walk as the sun was starting to set. We are now relaxing with a beer (another thing we had run out of) and the stars here are amazing I don’t think I have seen so many before. They stretch from one end of the horizon to the other.

the amenities @ Karajini Dales Campground

our site Karajini

Climbing down into dales gorge

getting to circular Pools

the climb into dales gorge

circular pools

We took a drive to another gorge today called Hancock gorge. 40 km of a very rocky corrugated road which Mike was “not happy Jan” about and we heard all the profanities along the way. This was probably the most challenging walk we have done, it was a class 5.  By the way Class 6 is abseiling. The walk or scrabble / climb had as traversing the side of rock faces and doing a spider walk over the top off small water falls. Pip really was to little to attempt almost half of the walk so I went ahead and came back so Mike could go see the magnificent sights and rock formations along the way. After Mike was well down the spider walk Pip turned to me with a very sad face and said “ I might as well not come if I can’t have a go mum!”  So there we have the start of our true adventure child, I was a bit hesitant as you will see by the pics but she really wanted to do it…. Off we went and yes she made it to the end with an audience of backpackers cheering as she got through.. good on ya Pip. Now she is truly buggered. Mike said he probably wouldn’t have agreed for her to do the climb.. I said I know that’s why we left after you.. I must admit my heart was in my mouth quite a few times.

We had time after to make a short 90klm detour to check out Tom Price which was a very clean and pretty little mining town.

Spider walk quite a challenge for SOME

Pip and I scramble around the rock face to get to the spider walk

down down into the gorge again

Our last day in Karajini we decide to veg out a bit and then walk down, down, down to Fortescue falls again and then over to Fern Pools for a swim. Mike said what a great way to spend a birthday. We left Karajini and drove to a free camp called Peawah Creek it was a dry riverbed on the side of the road, again in the middle of nowhere, there were a few people camped there so we had others to chat the night away with. A fairly early night for all so peaceful and dark then… the dingoes started to come in the camp and what a noise they made, next it was the road trains on the horn as they passed by… I don’t think I actually slept a wink.

View from Pip bed

Up and off another 100km down the road and here we are back in the land of the living with Internet coverage Point Sampson. We have been here about 2 hours, long enough to check in with Jay and Megano and have a well  earned shower. We are heading out for happy hour with our new neighbours so ttfn hope you enjoyed the long read. Will be in touch again soon now we CAN 

P.S I will update the photos in the next few days as it takes quite a bit of time and beer is awaiting.