After some quick farewells we were on our way. Was it hot for travelling.......you bet it was thankfully we only had some 300kms to travel. We were grateful that the air conditioner didn't miss a beat. When I checked the temperature at Cane River which is at the end of the 80km Onslow driveway (the road from the NW highway into town that the locals call their driveway) it was 39 degrees, admittedly it was midday. Not much between Onslow and Dampier/Karratha only the Fortescue Roadhouse which was an obligatory ice cream stop. Thankfully we didn't need any fuel @ $1.92/litre.

There was minimal traffic, only one tourist bus and one ute passed us and only trucks and a couple of camper vans heading in the other direction and so I took to counting road kill. At the end of the day there was a total of 4 reasonably fresh dead cows and only 1 roo! No other wildlife to be seen at all, either dead or alive......can't blame them for keeping out of the heat.


Many mines and gas fields dotted along the track. The landscape is stunning, we comment about some of the hills just look like a pile of rusted oversized lego blocks. But there's money in them there rocks! The colours are amazing and no photos can do them justice, but I try anyway.


Karratha has grown since we were here last in 2003....traffic lights and huge huge houses everywhere and we've decided that if you don't have a dirty great big fishing boat out the front then you're just not living!!!! Now I know why this place hasn't really appealed to me.......fishing! The town revolves around the export of iron ore, salt and gas from the enormous NW Shelf project. It was so nice to see green all around us and the colour of the water was just perfect. I heard recently that Dampier has the highest per capita income in Australia but the town itself has no facilities, which it doesn't, apart from a shoddy looking IGA supermarket. All the shops etc are in Karratha some 20km away. Dampier was the home of Red Dog, who is now famous around the world. I recall listening to the story of "Red" when we first travelled this area in 1996 and then I had to buy the book. Loved the film and so it was only natural that we had to visit his statue.

We didn't do any re-visiting as our car has a water leak that my bush mechanic hasn't been able to trace even though he tried in vain to undertake mechanical repairs in Onslow in the sand!! The Burrup Peninsula is a beautiful place and it astonishes me that the NW Gas Project can supposedly live in harmony in that area.

We (well I) were just happy to undertake some retail therapy and fill up our depleted food cupboards, fridges and freezer. We spent way too much time discussing the condition of the supermarkets and the way the shelves had been filled......eek!!! gotta get over that. We even had a bite of lunch in a cafe, something we haven't done for months........there wasn't a lot of choice so Jamaica Blue it had to be, I was shocked at the condition of the cafe, clearly cleanliness isn't a priority. Never mind we'll never be there again.

Tuesday arvo and the car is fuelled up and both jerry cans at a bargain price of $1.649/litre, so the genny will be cranked up for the next couple of days as we won't be staying in a caravan park again until we get to Broome which we expect will happen on Friday.........no need to hurry.

At sundown on both evenings we've been threatened with some cloud that looked like it might be rain producing but sadly nothing. Ah well I'm sure Broome won't let us down.