Friday 31 August – Well surprise, surprise!  The fridge seemed to be pretty cold this morning so we reverted to plan A and left Tom Price as originally planned.  We’d left by 8.20 and made our way through Paraburdoo (another mining town 80km from Tom Price, and the place where Red Dog was apparently born) and on to Nanutarra Roadhouse where we are presently installed and staying the night.  The drive was quite uneventful but really beautiful.  The scenery in Karijini is just something else – very different to other parks in its colours and rock formations.  I love it. 

 Lovely outlook on the drive.

The Pilbara’s Cradle Mountain.

After stopping for a morning tea cuppa, I took over the driving, during which time Grant managed to see a frill necked lizard in the gibber plains by the road.  I didn’t see it as I had my eyes glued to the bitumen watching for cars, trucks, road trains and any other big thing that might be coming at me down the road.  And speaking of lizards – I found the one in our van which had obviously been sharing our hospitality for the last three days.  As we were packing up this morning, I was inside lowering the table when I moved one of the seat cushions – and there it was, flat against the wall at the side of the cushion.  I called Grant who managed to manoeuvre it outside where it sat like a stunned mullet for a minute, then Grant touched it and it took off like the clappers.  So I’m pleased to report that as far as we know there is now no wildlife in the van!

There was also very little traffic on the road today – I reckon we would have been lucky to have seen twenty other vehicles on the road travelling either way.  We made pretty good time and were here by a quarter to one.

So after we set up and had some lunch, some new neighbours moved in with their camper trailer and though I was sitting outside attempting to write this diary, we spent pretty well the next three and a half hours talking to them.  They are very chatty and very friendly, come from Perth, and have gone over to the roadhouse at 6.30 to watch The Eagles footy game.  We lent them our extra long power lead as theirs wouldn’t reach the distance from their van to the nearest power point.

We had just finished tea when our power suddenly went off in the van.  Grant checked the trip metre, nothing wrong, no-one else had a problem, so the hunt was on for our problem.  Meanwhile I dug out the battery lamp, a couple of neighbours got in on the act, then after about ten minutes the power just came on again – no rhyme nor reason to it.  But I’ve left the lamp out just in case.  Another one of caravanning’s little experiences!

Just before tea (the sun had just set and was lovely), I went across to the toilet block.  A group of four middle-aged loser type men were sitting in a small group just in front of the toilets drinking stubbies.  As I passed, one of them commented on the lovely evening, and I said something like: ‘What more could you want than sitting around at sunset enjoying time with your friends.’  To which the comment came back: ‘A girlfriend’.  On my return walk to the van I said: ‘Have a good evening fellows’, and kept walking, when one of them said: ‘Are you looking for a bed for the night.’  I think I was being propositioned!!!!  Gosh it’s been a long time since that’s happened .. he must be really going bad!!

We have no phone or internet coverage here tonight, though the phones were working for at least half the way here (we did 360 km today), so this will be out of date by the time you get to read it.  Tomorrows destination is up in the air right now.  We had intended to go straight to Coral Bay for 4 nights, but we think now we may go to Exmouth for two nights, then down to Coral Bay for the other two.  We’ll have to make that decision when we reach the T intersection midway between those two places.  Will we turn left or right? 

(Don’t miss the next exciting episode …. which way will they turn?