Monday 2nd May 2016

Soon after departing Exmouth as we headed in a North Easterly direction the real red dirt starts appearing. Some aspects are like red sand dunes, others are rocky outcrops and then flat open plains. We have a long driving day today, 500kms. Over this distance the only civilisation is two roadhouses (these offer fuel, basic foods and a dusty caravan park). The price of LPG in these road houses is dearer than petrol (the gas refineries are in this corner of the country!) The Fortescue Roadhouse is close by the Fortescue mines. Right beside the roadhouse is the quarters for the miners. Essentially they are small shipping containers, lined up one after another! What a dull existence they would be having!

Tonight we are camp at 40 Mile beach, right on the Ocean Front. On the horizon we see 2 oil or gas refineries. There are warnings that Crocs have been sighted in the area, thereby dashing our hopes of a swim to cool off. There's a small breeze off the ocean, but not really enough to cool us off.

Tuesday 3rd May 2016

A short drive sees us in Karratha. Karratha is by far the biggest town since Perth. However, without the mining there would be very little here. About 20 kms out of Karratha on the coast is Dampier, the home of "Red Dog" the Pilbara wanderer. Cam especially loves the movie Red Dog, we have to camp out this way. We secure a spot in the Dampier Transit Caravan Park, the only one in Dampier it's on the water front. Close by is the Dampier Port with large jetties ship loading facilities, they really light the sky up at night.

We visit the bronze statue of Red Dog, Cam runs up to him for cuddles. We see some Sturt Dessert Peas in bloom. We visit the Dampier library to read the newspaper articles collected over the years on the real red dog. They also have book clippings from the movie being made. The librarian tells us there was a film crew out recently filming the movie "Blue Dog", the story of young Red Dog. It should be out later this year/early next year. The librarian also tells us that Red Dog's vet is still alive and was an extra in Blue Dog. The vet visited the local primary school recently to talk the kids. One of the questions the children asked him was how Red Dog compared to "Koko" who played him in the movie. The vet replied, if he was to compare them to actors, Koko was like Leonardo DeCaprio and Red Dog was like Russel Crowe!

Wednesday 4th May 2016

This morning before it gets too hot (it's already 28 deg. & humidity in the 80's @ 8am), we walk into Deep Gorge, to view the Aboriginal Rock Art. We spot drawings of Kangaroo foot prints, lizards, turtles, emu's, stingray's and people.

Close by is Hearsons Cove, a sheltered beach cove. The beach is made up off millions of small shells that run downhill like a wide stair case leading down to the water's edge. It's high tide while we are here today, perfect for a swim and a try @ fishing. Yesterday we saw it at low tide, at the edge of the shells the ground flattens out to a muddy base totally flat that runs out to see for approx. 500 meters, out to where the surrounding headlands met the sea.

In the afternoon we explored around Karartha.