Day 72, September 18th.
.
Spent last night at Wooramel Station. The station covers 1430 square kilometres, has 60km of coastline on its western edge and is disected by the Wooramel river. The river is an "upside down" river in that for 95% of the year there is no water in it, the flow happens below the surface. The station taps into the subsurface water for irrigation and stock water. As well as farming cattle, sheep and goats, Wooramel runs a station stay along the northern bank of the river near the homestead and a roadhouse about 5km down the highway as well.
.
Once we parked up the girls visited the Wooramel hot spring spa for a swim in the water that is heated deep beneath the earths surface, I opted to do the "historic tip" walk followed by the 4km river bank walk. The historic tip is basically all the machinery and appliances that have broken down placed in chronological order in a paddock by the sheds. Not everyone's cup of tea but certainly was mine. After half an hour or a bit better of perusing the dumping ground I strode off along the 4km river bank walk which overlooks the sandy Wooramel river bed. After a couple of brief, one sided, conversations with some inquisitive cattle I was thinking that I must be close to the turn around point, I must have done 2km by now? I reckon I'd walked another kilometre before it dawned on me that maybe the 4km walk wasn't return and it would be 8km by the time I got back to the van. I'd come this far I might as well finish and besides it wasn't as though I had anywhere else to be!
It was just before dark that I made it back to the van. Dinner preparations were well under way.
Not that it was necessary but we had a fire in the truck rims provided for that purpose. The fire was alight just long enough to incinerate half a bag of marshmallows, fill the van up with smoke and make us all smell like we had been fighting a bushfire So in the morning it was a quick shower for all and a change of clothes before we set off on the relatively short 255km drive to Denham. Half way down the Wooramel driveway (that doubles as an airstrip) we stopped to feed a couple of very appreciative horses some apples that we had had in the engel and were past their used by date, filled up with diesel at the road house (pushing into a headwind yesterday the van was consuming diesel like a greedy kid consumes food at a buffet restaurant!) and finally we pushed off.
.
Denham is WA's western most town and sits on the coast of a peninsular in Shark Bay. To get to Denham from Wooramel we need to travel south to the bottom of the peninsula turn off the North West Hwy and head north west through the Francois Peron National Park. Beautiful drive really and we made pretty good time arriving in Denham mid afternoon. No assistance from google maps required in Denham its pretty much one street that runs parallel with the beach. We found our caravan park at the northern end of the beach (another Agnew travel guide recommendation) got set up and headed down to the beach for a look. I did contemplate taking the fishing rod with me but decided against it preferring to spend the remainder of the afternoon frustration free.
The section of beach directly below the CV park in hindsight wasn't our best option. After half an hour or so of the smell of decomposing sea weed was too much and we collected our stuff and moved on to explore some more. Well all of us minus Olivia who had had yet another squabble with Grace and had stormed off to the van for some quiet time by herself.
For a small remote coastal town I'd have to say Denham's waterfront is terrific. They have a good boat ramp, fish cleaning facilities (not that I require them), swim pontoons, large play ground and great BBQ facilities. Once Olivia rejoined us we spent the afternoon in the park or on the pontoons or jumping off the jetty great place and great fun.
Being Australia's western most town, Denham has Australia's western most pub. It must only be west of Denhams' other pub by some meters but nevertheless it's the most western. Considering I have had a beer in Australia's eastern and southern most pub a beer in the pub was a must. After explaining to the children that the earlier squabbles negated their right to a lemonade their interest in the pub disappeared and they walk back along the waterfront to the CV park to play on the giant jumping pillow. Nicole and I crossed the road for a quick beverage (before anyone is compelled to alert child protection we can see the CV park from the hotel!) Enjoyable couple of beers out the front of the pub looking over the street to the playground, boat ramp, swim pontoons and BBQ's (I did say Denham's basically one street) we were just gathering our stuff to leave when a man and woman approached. The man, smiling said "you must be Nicole and James, we've just had a long conversation with your girls"
It's a product of this form of traveling with shared facilities etc you have little choice but to chat to your fellow traveller, our daughters have honed their conversation skills on this trip especially the youngest one who is rarely quiet!
We chatted to the couple from Sydney for a few minutes before saying our goodbyes and strolled back to the CV park to watch the sunset. Not much else to report, stir fry dinner in, game of UNO, book reading and bed.