We left the coast for a bit and went inland into the Pilbara. The red dust here is very thick. Houses, cars and even trees always have a slight red film, and soon our car and caravan looked the same.
The first stop was Tom Price, a tiny mining town in the mountains. We used this as a base to head into Karijini National Park, consisting of very deep and steep gorges, that look like cracks in the landscape. There are countless walking trails going up and down the cliffs, climbing over rocks, passing many waterfalls and at times we had to take our shoes off to walk through icy cold creeks. Ida & Lena are really getting into bushwalks and can easily walk for 2-3 hours without too much complaining. They slept very well afterwards 🙂
We also celebrated Ida’s 5th birthday here, so we had some cake and went to the pub for dinner. Since it was also NAIDOC week, there was a little festival in Tom Price, with an indigenous rock band playing in the park. Ida got a new scooter for her birthday and we spent the afternoon at the local pump track.
Next stop was 80 Mile Beach, a huge caravan park on a cattle station right on a beautiful beach. The coast is so flat here, that during low tide it takes more than half an hour to walk to the water, while at high tide there’s very little beach left. The sunsets here are stunning.
Since it was school holidays and Broome was packed with tourists and everything booked out, we went to Dampier peninsula first to wait it out. This place is mostly inhabited by indigenous Australians living in hundreds of small communities scattered along a beautiful coastline. Quite a few of them are running campgrounds, so we stayed on one of them near Pender Bay. The landscape was stunning, camping in the jungle on top of red cliffs overlooking a white beach with crystal clear water. The kids loved it and we really enjoyed our time.
We did a day trip to Ardyaloon, a small aboriginal town at the end of the road. On the beach there we watched huge (but harmless) Lemon Sharks swimming right past us, some of them more than 2m long!
After a relaxing week, we finally went to Broome, where we spent almost 2 weeks for some maintenance and also to celebrate Meike’s and Lena’s birthday. We spent a few days on the famous Cable Beach and also visited various markets, a carnival and a crocodile farm where Ida was brave enough to hold and pet a baby crocodile!
We are now staying on a cattle station near Derby where we are getting ready to take on the famous Gibb River Road.
Ich schaue jeden Morgen beim Kaffee Trinken nach, wo ihr seid. Ob ihr was neues gepostet habt. Und versuche dann euren Standort auf meiner Karte zu finden. Spannend!