Karijini National Park Pt. 2



Sunset at Millstream-Chichester



Millstream National Park



If you Google Millstream Chichester National park, you will see where we headed to next. At the end of a very arid stretch of road we hit the Fortesque River which runs from the northern parts of WA down through Karijini National park, To give you an Idea of the scale of the river, WA’s water authority have substantial operations on this stretch and the whole area is lush green.



Kicking up dust





Red headed and fake tanned

We pulled in here not long before dark and wandered around the homestead and had a look at the parks highlights, but there were people here. We hadn’t seen people for a while, so we headed to the Chichester part of the park 30klm’s up the road. We camped the night here and drove on the next morning. We were finally back on real roads and racing enormous trains that do the Iron Ore runs to the Pilbara Mines, the are Huge. Everything in this area of the world just seems to be colossal. We drove all the way to Karratha. The first big town we’ve been in since Geraldton, back in July. We walked into the main shopping centre Holly was now a redhead from the dust and we both looked like we’d been fake tanning for decades and our clothes were a rusty colour. We felt gross compared to all these big town people, we bought some cheap, CLEAN t-shirts, changed into them and enjoyed the air conditioning for a while. I’m ashamed to say we did go to McDonalds. And headed to Dampier. Dampier is a big area for Gas, there’s a platform of the coast there, a refinery and a big port. The town feels a bit like Fremantle and any British seaside port town. Karratha is a huge place for industry, a big Iron Ore Mining hub, gas, oil and everything in between, even salt farming.  Dampier is just 20 minutes from Karratha and is where the Gas and salt are all farmed. Our to sea it looks like Paddocks, just white paddocks of salt, 60% of which is used by commercial industry. And only 2% is used for human consumption. Dampier is also home to the famous Red Dog, the Pilbara Wanderer, famous in these parts. The story is known by everybody.  It is currently being made into a movie, actually.



Dampier







After our Karratha /Dampier trip we headed back home to Exmouth, and long trip along probably the windiest road I think we’ve ever driven. It took around 7 hours to get back, $15 for 8 litres of fuel at Nanutarra Roadhouse and a dramatic sunset over Exmouth Cape. It was good to be home.



We pulled up outside the house cleared the car, had showers and collapsed on the couch.



Next big trip is Back to Perth for Christmas with Darryl Donna and the Vanzetti crew. Very Bittersweet.  Did we mention that we are majorly involved in the Christmas Carols in Exmouth.  Holly is playing the role of the mum in the play (which consists of Holly, Santa and a boy named Jesse, who is the narrator, and all the children silently going through the nativity scene. ).  We are both also singing in the choir, 5 men and 5 women.  How we get ourselves sucked into these things I don’t know.  Guess I  (Holly)  haven’t learned the art of saying no…even after being in Australia for two years. J  It will be good times.

Thanks For Reading,

Holly & David



The Patrol...in the middle of nowhere