Greetings from Coral Bay
We left Tom Price on Tuesday morning after spending two relaxing days in their cosy motor camp putting up with wet showery weather. After trying to top up with some essentials (the bottle store was not open then) we settled for a cooked chook and a loaf of fresh bread and hit the road. The plan was to stack up some good k/m's and find some blue sky as we headed closer to the coast. At Paraburdoo we were able to get those essential supplies and a hot chocolate and carry on trucking. The landscape kept changing from wide open plains covered in that horrible spinifex grass to rolling dry rocky hill country with gorges that always seemed to keep our interest. After clocking up about 450 k/m and driving through a lot of rain it was nice to park up at the road side bush camp of Barradale with about 50 others for the night. We had actually stayed there last year also but everybody was vying for a spot on the tarseal on the road in as the ground was so red and muddy. The river beside it had no water in it last year but was a raging torrent this time. After a good nights rest we managed to be on the road by 7-30am (that's early for us) as we were told to be at Coral Bay camp by 10am to have any hope of a last minute cancellation space in the very popular booked out camping ground. A road sign warned you that there was roadworks for the next 200k/m's ! and with all the rain lots of areas and side roads were flooded. After 150k/m's of rain drizzle and fog the skies cleared with brilliant sunshine as we cruised into Coral Bay and snapped up a powered site for 4 days. Fantastic ! This was our favourite place from last year and it felt really good to be back and be walking in the warm clear waters on the sandy beach on a humid 27 deg. sunny day.