Carnarvon has been a restful five day stop over on the way to Exmouth. We are camped on lovely green lawn with amenities close by and 25c during the day. The staff and fellow travellers are all very nice and staying here is a pleasure.

Carnarvon is the food bowl for WA and supplies 70%of WA vegies and fruit. Seems a lot, but not when you see the amount of orchards and market gardens. There is plenty of fresh food available, unfortunately you can only buy so much. Ross was very interested to see how they grew their tomatoes and hoping he could transfer that knowledge back home to his vegie patch. Unfortunately though we don't have the rich alluvial soil that Carnarvon has

We saw the OTC (Satellite Earth Station Carnarvon or Overseas Telecommunications Carnarvon) dish which is one of the landmarks of Carnarvon and dominates the skyline from wherever you are in town. It is 29.5 metres in diameter and was the first antenna in Australia to transmit and receive world-wide television via satellite. The OTC is situated on Brown's Range on the outskirts of Carnarvon and ceased to operate on 31st March 1987. It was one of just eight in the world and was an integral part of the communications network for the Apollo Moon Programme and also for tracking Halley's Comet.

During the "Gemini" and "Apollo" space missions it was the station that transmitted the first live TV from Australia to the outside world on November 25th 1966 and transmitted the first live TV into Western Australia on July 21st 1969. The second event was Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon.

Yesterday - Sunday 15th July we went to have a look at the Mile Long Jetty which as its name implies is one mile long and goes all way out into the ocean. It has a little train called the Coffee Pot because of the shape of its smoke stack, which you can ride in for $7.00 or you can walk for $3.00. We chose the ride. It was fun and we were glad we didn't walk as the jetty is very narrow. There were lots of people fishing. We did see one person catch a fish. One guy said it was a zebra fish and you would have to be desperate to eat it.
In the same area called the Heritage Area we looked around the railway and shearing museum and also the Light house keepers cottage. The pump in the grounds of the cottage, used to bring water up from under the ground using the attached springs and chains. I'm not sure that some sort of bucket wouldn't have been more efficient. Apparently the pump was carted around and used where there was no wind to work the windmills. The dome the pump sits on at the moment covers an underground water storage tank where water was collected from the roof of the cottage or carted from town in times of shortage.

We left Carnarvon today, noting that if we made a second WA trip we would definitely stay at this caravan park and ask for site 38.

We arrived at Exmouth to a temperature of 28c. We booked in for seven days as going by the brochures there is heaps to see. The next morning it was blowing a gale and temp was 10c. What a disappointment! It's not much fun sightseeing when it's quite cool with the wind blowing.
Three days later the wind hasn't stopped long enough to enjoy doing much other than walking at a brisk pace to the shops, which isn't a bad thing, and planning the rest of our stay here and further on. Ross is quite happy as the cricket and football are on to keep him entertained.

After bringing the golf clubs all the way from home Ross finally got to play his first nine holes at the Exmouth Golf Club. he says the course was pretty rustic with preferred lies and sand scrape greens.

We called in at the Exmouth Visitors Centre and booked in for a full day Safari Tour, which looked as though it consisted of all the places we would like to see and more, but we had to wait as the tour operator will take a minimum of four and maximum of six and we were the only couple so far. Today we got some good news. Another couple also wanted to book which meant that the tour will definitely take place. They will pick us up at 6.45am tomorrow (Sunday) and drop us off at about 6pm so it's a full day visiting the Ningaloo World Heritage Area. Strangely this area was featured last night (Friday) on Channel 10, The Living Room, and continues next week. It will also be nice for Ross to sit back and enjoy the sights while someone else does the driving. The wind is gradually getting better so hopefully tomorrow will be a good day with plenty to report and to photograph.

We are back from a very full and long day, which began at 6.00am and finished at 5.45pm. It began by being picked up at the caravan park early this morning and then continuing on to collect the other four people in the tour, so only six of us.

First thing we went to Cape Range National Park The Cape Range is cut through by deep gorges, formed by the land "cracking open" as it was uplifted, and then being cut deeper by water run off. We had a look at two of the gorges.

Now I know what four wheel driving is all about. You know those machines that supposedly help you to lose weight, that you stand on and they make your whole body vibrate, well that's what happened today for most of the day, but it was exciting. Going up totally steep rocky tracks and down really steep washed out tracks and rocky creek beds I can't believe I wasn't scared. It was 45km of wilderness off road driving, crossing the Cape Range. We visited Shothole Canyon and Charles Knife Canyon. The Charles Knife Canyon road follows the top of the ridge, so you're looking down into the vast empty canyon from up high, whereas the Shothole Canyon Road follows the dry river bed deep in the valley.

We went on an hour long cruise of Yardie Creek.Yardie Creek Gorge has the only permanent river on the whole North West Cape. It is a peaceful place, with the red limestone walls of the gorge reflected in the cool, dark water of Yardie Creek. On the ledges and in caverns live blackfoot rock wallabies and incredible plants are literally growing in rocks with their roots hanging down gathering moisture, but not touching the water which is salty and would probably kill the plants.

We visited bays and inlets one of which was Turquoise Bay (the photos don't do the colour of the water justice) but it's name says it all, after that we went across country again to see some Aboriginal rock art. I volunteered to stay with the car as we have seen rock art before and I didn't fancy climbing rocks to get there. Then on to the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse which has a lookout over the whole of the ocean. Some people were already set up with their chairs to watch the sunset. We saw whales almost every time we visited the bays and especially from the Lighthouse Lookout.
Words and pictures just aren't enough to describe the wonderful, interesting day we had, but we have done our best to give you some idea of a very different, special day.