513kms / 9 ½ hrs

Karijini National Park - Port Headland (fuel, lunch, shop) - Cape Keraudren

Today is the end of our first 4 weeks and we have completed 8,116 kms (only 6 weeks left)

We left Karijini around 8am and topped up with fuel from the jerry cans to get us to Port Headland. The scenery on the drive was pretty and went from the large cape ranges with the green trees and red dirt to very flat and green and then a few mountains and mines along the way. We also hit road train territory. We think we went past about 60!

Unfortunately one road train that was coming towards us, showered/pelted our windscreen with rocks so we now have 5 big chips (which look like bullet holes!) and lots of little marks. I had nothing to complain about in the past as now I know what a chip in the windscreen is! Luckily it's still driveable and they haven't started to spread so we are hoping to make it home so we only have to replace the windscreen once. The noise was so scary and then I freaked out every time a road train overtook us or went past us!

When we were about 90kms out of Port Headland we came up behind a large road train hauling a large portable switchboard. It was huge and took up both sides of the road with lots of escorts so we had to travel at 40km p/h for quite some time. We arrived at Port Headland around 12:30pm and refuelled then went to a park to have lunch. It was by the water at the port authority overlooking the bulk carriers being loaded with iron ore. We were lucky enough to see a bulk carrier come into port with 4 tugs assisting it to the loading terminal ready to be filled. The other big industry is salt mining. We saw the huge salt stacks and there was a bulldozer grooming one of the stacks. Josh thought that was great. We then did a little shop at Woolworths (and were very excited when they were open on a Sunday) then continued on our way into Cape Keraudren.

As we came out of Port Headland we were stopped at a railway crossing to let one of the extremely long mining trains go back to the mines to load up. Fortunately it was one of the smaller ones that was only 250 carriages long (they can be as long as 680 carriages!) We were then back on our way for the remaining 150 kms. We arrived around 5:30pm as the sun was setting and we had to drive carefully down the dirt road as there were kangaroos around. We found a spot right near the beach then saw the sun set for the evening. It was very pretty with pinks, blues, reds etc.

Roger cooked sausages outside, which was a bad idea as we have never seen so many mossies in our life. There were swarms of them so it was an entertaining evening eating our sausages inside while Rog had the electric racquet killing all the mossies in the caravan. The kids thought it was great helping daddy find them. The kids did a puzzle and went to bed. We think we all finally got the red dust off us tonight. It sticks to you and it looks like you have a nice tan but it's just dirt.

We saw lots of eagles, cows (although lot's of dead ones also), horses and kangaroos.

It was a hot 29 degrees today and looks like it's only going to get hotter from here until Darwin!