We took pictures at the dry river bed, and the kids were given rocks by some ex-miner grey nomad. Then we started the journey south. Again little wildlife of note, but the vegetation does change with height, proximity to rivers etc. We stopped to take a photo of some roadside flowers, and realised the ground was teaming with crickets. It's so arid that the grass is razor sharp - we feel sorry for the kangaroos and the cattle!
Once again we passed huge cattle stations - signed in as being 30k from the road at some points!
Our first stop was for fuel at Roebourne, but a local police officer filling up suggested we carried on 25k to Karratha where it would be 20c a litre cheaper and we felt that the saving would be worth the 7k detour off the road. Karratha is a mining boom town - so as well as cheap fuel it has loads of fast food to feed the male miners and contractors. So we stopped at a McD's and brought the kids a 50c (25p) ice cream (their loss leader) - as ice creams cost about 3 or so dollars otherwise the kids understand that ice creams are therefore not part of the holiday budget - so this was real excitement!
Then the kids eked out the remaining lap top battery on a further film, as we travelled onwards further south, filling up again 400k later at Nunatarra Roadhouse - at its extortionate prices - if we were flash we could have purchased bacon and egg (note egg singular) for £10. We speculated that we could have got most of an all you can eat breakfast at a good hotel for that!.
Then we drove a further 70k to our next grey nomad recommended free roadside stop. where we turned up about 4.45
This one was huge, about 20 grey nomads on sight, and no other children when we toured the site. One German cyclist camping doing a Broome to Coral bay cycle - (he previously set off to cycle from Darwin to Coral Bay, but gave up at Broome, so had flown back to complete the challenge. He did not seem very enthusiastic about what he was doing!)
We were given some damper and relish by a grey nomad (damper is traditional pioneers bread cooked in a kettle on an open fire) and very nice it was too!. With time on their hands they had traced their family tree - he was related to some 18th C Lord Mayor of Leeds and his wife was a descendant of a transported convict from Northallerton so they considered us almost cousins as we came from Leeds!
Once again disappointed not to have seen any roos. There were plenty of colourful birds at the site and lines of marching ants - but that was about it.
After some star gazing, in bed by 9pm and all slept like logs, although sleeping bags are now needed at night - its a few degrees colder than Broome!
Stayed at Yarmarie - Barradale free campsite.
Breakfast (with long sleeves!)
Sun out, long sleeves off, and Barnaby Bear explores the dry river bed by our overnight camp
Colour in the red earth desert
Australian scenery is monotonous, we prefer to watch a film (thanks Sebastian for uploading these!)
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