We reached “Carnarvon” comfortably but did not stay at the park we had picked out because it did not feel right when we arrived so we stayed at the Top Tourist Park which was ok, but a bit above our budget, there was not a lot to see around here except for some historical stuff near the pier and we could have done a walk out to the end of the pier which was a mile long but they wanted $4 each for the privilege so we moved on towards Exmouth and stopping at “Coral Bay” on our way we were very disappointed because we had been told not to miss it, the bay itself was beautiful but the area was cramped with campers, dirty and dusty and $49 per night if you could get in. We had a look around took a few photos, had some lunch and kept going to a working cattle & sheep station we had picked out in our camps book about 100k from “Exmouth” called “Bullara”. We stayed for 3 nights and had a great time interacting with the animals and station hands and made a day trip to Exmouth exploring as much of the area as we could visiting a gorge in the Cape Range nat. Park and stocking up on a few supplies in town.

The station had an open air shower which was a novelty but the best amusement was a 35yr old horse which followed everyone around scrounging food and loved a beer, we had trouble keeping her out of our van. One of the station hands was a professional dingo hunter but he is lucky to be alive because he contracted Murray River encephalitis, after almost 2yrs and lots of determination and rehabilitation he is able to walk without aids for a short distance.

Next we travelled on towards (after stopping at a free camp on the Robe River 1 night) Dampier where the statue of Red Dog is(we were given a dvd of Red Dog for easter) the park there is right near the port where all the iron ore leaves and it was a constant change over of ships. Karratha and Dampier is just a beehive of mining vehicles, ore trucks and people in fluro clothes. I had to make a trip to hospital at Karratha because the sebasist cyst on my neck got infected again so had to have it lanced and a course of anti biotics but while they were checking me in the nurse wasn’t happy with my heart rate so organised an ECG which was ok so no panic.  I got up to go for a jog on Anzac day and noticed all these people about then I remembered that we were told of a service being held nearby so I stopped and delayed my run for ½ hr to attend.

Our next stop was to be “Port Hedland” so we could catch up with our mail and the cheapest place we found to stay was at South Hedland $30 night with no power, Port Hedland didn’t appeal very much so after getting our mail we hit the road again and travelled another long 300k of open country to a great free camp site about 180k from “Broome” next day after a relaxing night we made our way to “Broome” and booked into a park for 3nights but after doing a tour of the town I could smell a familiar smell and our radiator had decided to start leaking again, so after going to the local radiator repairers we made the decision to fit a new radiator but nothing is cheap in these areas and they wouldn’t let me do it myself in the park so we had to get it fitted but they couldn’t do it for 4 days sooo we had to extend our stay which meant some calls to RAC to help us with expenses and at least we get our park fees paid for but the credit card is going to suffer for awhile.

When I went to pick up my car they said that my bonnet cable was no good and they had broken the fan shroud for which they tried to charge my for so after a heated argument and a few threats I managed to get that deleted off my account but we had to stay another day so I could fix their stuff ups,  they had jammed the cable under the battery box and I had to glue up the shroud, all I will add is what goes around comes around, and the final bill $1080!!!!!

With the extra time we were able to visit the markets and an expo where we collected all the giveaways we could get our hands on, we also  had an evening at Cable Beach watching the sunset then fish n chips at the beach cafe (with some new found friends) which were great and not expensive. The night before leaving was the local attraction of the moon coming up over the mud flats which creates an effect of a stairway hence the name "Stairway to the Moon", we also decided to do the walk out to the Catalina plane wreckage which was bombed there during the 2nd world war, it was 1.8k out through mud flats and we followed the tide out but at times we were in water almost to our knees and the day before they had closed the beach because of a 4m croc roaming the area and Marion managed to get an infected foot from stepping on some coral ?