kathndes: Out of the Pilbara and on to Perth

Our visit to Carnarvon was brief as we intend to come back this way next year. The one alarming thing we noticed was the lean on which the trees grow here. Gives you some indication of what the winds must be like MOST OF THE TIME. We have found the wind blows VERY STRONGLY most of the year. We can make that statement because we have been in this state almost one year now and you never get used to the wind. There’s a bad hair day and then a slightly less than bad hair day. Moving out of Carnarvon after re-supplies, we headed east again for the Gascoyne Junction and the Kennedy Range Nat. Park. The Gascoyne area has been really heavily hit with flooding for the past year but the land, once again, is at its best. The wildflowers have been great, again. On the red dirt again after Gascoyne Junction, another thing you never get used to. The Kennedy Range is very spectacular, and unique in its own way. We walked a couple of the gorges there, and almost got blown off the top of the escarpment. The rock formations here are very strange. One gorge is formed like honeycomb, while another is so smooth you would swear it was poured cement trowelled off by an expert. The rock colouring also is quite varied, from pinks to red to white and some yellow. We spent 3 days here before moving on to Mt Augustus, further east and closer to the desert. The road was quite good really, except for one spot where a grader was working and that was so bad and dangerous he would have been better off leaving it alone. Mt Augustus is the largest rock in Australia, but quite different to Ayers Rock in that is has vegetation growing on it. There’s several drives and walks to do here. The Cattle Pool on the Lyons River is a permanent water hole, quite deep but not very suitable for swimming because of the reeds. A lovely spot just the same. We were very adventurous and walked to the summit of the mountain. It took us 6hrs return, and very challenging for one of us. Des would have done it in 5hrs alone. The track was quite steep in places and the wind (once again) almost blew you over, especially when exposed to the SE plains. We got some nice photos, some we will put on for you to see. We will also include a few shots of some of the wildflowers we have seen so far. From Mt Augustus we had another 300km on the red dirt until we arrived at Meekatharra, refuelled and continued on thru Mt Magnet, Cue and Pindar to Geraldton. A lot of history in these old goldfields towns and a lot of new large open cut gold and nickel mines are being worked near most of these towns now. From Geraldton we were treated to hundreds of kilometres of wildflowers in bloom all along the road and in the paddocks and bush along the road. We camped in Coalseam Conservation Park intending to stay a few nights. During the early hours of our first night the rain started so we were up at the crack of dawn, in the pouring rain, packing up so we could bug out. As it was we just made it out as the road out was very treacherous (red clay & very slippery), otherwise we could have been stuck there for many days. Not something we enjoyed! Caught up with friends in Coorow and had a nice meal in the local hotel. Most of this town would not be operating today, except that the locals formed a co-op which runs most of the businesses in town, including the hotel. After a few more roadside camps we arrived at Des’s sons house in Perth and had some “family” time here. Kathy left for QLD on 13^th Oct for some R&R! See if you recognise the famous horsewoman in the last photo????