TripRoundUnder

Heading back to the coast, we were getting closer and closer to what Lauren’s Dad refers to as, ‘Gods Country’ and with that support, we entered the Pilbara region of WA. 

On the way up, we dropped into the fishing town of Onslow and we were pleasantly surprised. In WA especially, you can always tell when there is mining or other industry nearby, with the money making its way back into the closest towns. We had a much needed moment of relevant luxury, with coffee and food at the local resort! Steve even managed to get some fishing in, but sadly although he saw a bunch of fish, none were silly enough to jump on his lure.

Next stop was Karratha and its “cheap” diesel! This was last time we have seen it below $2, not exactly amazing when you’re driving around a state as big as WA! Similar to Onslow, you could see the effect mining money had been having on the town and given that it is in the middle of nowhere, it seemed like a thriving city. This was good, as the troopy needed a wash and its tyres rotating and we were in the right place.

We also ventured down to the neighbouring small town of Dampier, best known for being the location of Red Dog, made famous through the movie of the same name. In preparation of this, Lauren made Steve watch the movie and there were more than a few tears shed! We did our due diligence and inspected the local pub and found it a suitable establishment to have a few lemonades and watch Port Adelaide Football Club assert its dominance over the Adelaide Crows. It turns out that skimpy barmaids were still a thing in these parts, much to the delight of the local miners.

We also managed to find a perfect little bay in the National Park next to Dampier to cook breakfast and watch the sunrise.

After stocking up on supplies, it was back to beach camping at the nearby Cleaverville and we managed to score an awesome spot, right next to the beach and overlooking a classic WA sunset.

Much to his delight, Steve finally had some good fishing luck, managing to secure this decent sized cod which made for a very tasty dinner!

Putting aside our shyness, we made friends with the slightly older couple in the campsite next to ours and it was nice to be social for the first time in a while. Luckily, we still remembered how to talk to other people! Much to Steve’s delight, the bloke was another keen fishermen and they planned a fishing day at the river mouth down the road. The morning session proved to be less successful than hoped, but we talked with a local who assured us that low tide was peak fishing. We drove back and managed to secure permission from the boss to go back that afternoon. This proved to be a good plan as there was plenty of fish action going on and we both managed to catch several! If anyone can name what species this fella with the teeth is, it would be much appreciated. In saying that, this was probably the hardest fish of all time to fillet with the amount of bones it had and we never ended up eating it.

After saying goodbye to our new friends, we were back on the road heading north. We were excited, as although nobody had any idea how to pronounce it, we had heard good things about our next location, Cape Keraudren. It was here, that we got our first taste of the famous tides that the North West of WA is famous for, with an 8 metre drop completely changing the landscape in a matter of hours. This was good because if you lost your tackle at high tide, you could go and retrieve it a couple of hours later. This also created a myriad of rockpools to explore and even use a bath as it had been a while between showers!

In addition to that, it was another amazing spot to get the drone out and capture some images of the spectacular landscape!

Again being the social butterflies we are, we made some more friends, this time, two younger travelling couples like ourselves and in even better news, one of them had a dog! We had an awesome time over a few days, playing cards, diving, fishing and most importantly, playing with Forest the dog. Sadly, they were travelling the opposite way around Australia to us and we said our farewells to Forest, making sure she knew that we would like to see her and her owners again. 

Stay tuned as we head towards Broome and the rugged North West!