Lancelin to Carnarvon

Up early so we could head north quicker than originally intended based on the advice of the Caravan Park owner at Lancelin.
Not a good start to the day though, the toaster in the van did not work !! This coupled with finding a broken wine glass (one of only two) last night was not good news, but a call to Maui and they quickly told us to replace them at their expense so now, on Sunday, we have to go shopping sometime. I was reduced to fruit and bread and jam while Mary tucked into her muesli.
Soon after we left Carnarvon we spotted our first wild Emu in the distance - another native animal sighting ticked off. Further along we started to see huge white sand dunes, some running for several kilometres into the distance, just sitting above the vegetation.
Our first stop was the Namburg National Park and the Pinnacles. These comprise thousands of limestone pillars, some up the 3.5 metres high. They are thought to be the remains of ancient sand dunes or trees that calcified millions of years ago. We took the walk throughthem for 1.2 Kms which really took us into the centre of them.
After that we headed along the Indian Ocean Road which in many ways is as spectacular as any of those in Eastern Australia. The views of tiny islands in an azure sea with white beaches and large sand dunes behind was beautiful. We stopped briefly in Geraldton to try to buy the toaster, but all the shops were shut on Sunday so we carried on. The route confirmed that this is a vast area of diverse landscapes and stunning scenery, although we drove the main road ( very bumpy) and so did not detour to Kalbarri Gorge or Shark Bay; following the advice to get to Ningaloo Reef quickly and see the other sights on the drive back.

The drive was good, spotting lots of goats and signs of kangaroos as well as a group of emus to divert our attention from the absolutely straight road going on into the horizon. We had aimed to stop at a roadhouse campsite, but it was too early for the first, at the second we arrived in the middle of a sand storm and did not want to get out of the van plus it looked like something out of an old western movie and deserted so we drove on through an even worst sand storm to the last road house only to discover at 6pm that it was closed for renovation. We then knew we had to continue to Carnavon, 120+km in the twilight watching out for animals on the road so we do not have an unwanted figurehead on the van. Only goats and cows spotted and we only had to slow once for them on the road. We finally arrived at a site in Carnarvon 7.30pm after the office closed so set up anyway as we had driven almost solidly for nine hours and over 800km and would report in next morning.