Natural gas and Red Dog

Aug 2 – 7

What a great time we had in Karratha. It’s quite a large city these days, once again, part of the whole mining and natural gas enterprises of the north-west of Australia, so we were able to find some of the technical services we needed.

My mobile phone had suddenly lost its capacity to turn on wi-fi; John’s camera seemed stuck in closed mode; we needed some new chairs as one of our relatively cheap ones had a broken arm and ended up in a bin; and we definitely needed some food, wine and beer.

As well as getting those essential supplies, as well as advice that maybe the devices had partially gone to God . . . we drove north on the Burrup Peninsula to see the mighty north-west shelf gas

The North West Shelf Gas project near Dampier.

project. It is truly astounding and once again we marvelled at man’s ability to engineer all these marvels. We thoroughly enjoyed our day on the peninsula, with lunch at Dampier, which has a lovely small harbour for small craft, and there’s a café on a hill looking down on it where we had great fish burgers.

We met a Tasmanian couple in the campground who knew people we know at Lennox Head . . . what a small world it is indeed.

The next night, happily in a waterfront site at Onslow, a neighbour stopped to chat and when he found out we lived in Lismore, announced he had dear friends at Alstonville, people he had known from New Guinea days when they had plantations on Bougainville . . . and of course, I knew them as well. We had a great old chat the next evening when we joined them for drinks.

The memorial to the real Red Dog, on Dampier's outskirts, erected by his many friends in 1976; and Sturt's Desert Pea spilling onto the roadway at that information bay.

On our way to Onslow, home of huge salt evaporation ponds, as well as a monstrous new gas plant under construction, we had visited the site of Old Onslow, to the south, near the mouth of the Ashburton River. It’s a popular camping area along the river, and the council ranger who knocked on the door while we had stopped for lunch beside it, told us there were about 35 caravans, motorhomes or campervans there at present, but a week or so ago there were 65. A little way away, but looming on the horizon, was another natural gas plant under construction, Wheatstone.

The river was lovely and I waded across it on a causeway to take photos of John driving the truck

Across  the Ashburton River.

across. Pelicans were perched on a weir upstream, which was built to keep the salt water from the Indian Ocean separate from the fresh when people lived at Old Onslow. Eventually the river entrance became too difficult to navigate to export wool and livestock and the whole town was moved further north to its present position . . . but there’s no wool going out now, just salt.

We were headed south to Exmouth but it’s a very popular spot and we could only get a booking at a caravan park in a few days so we decided to leave Onslow, where the sandflies were biting hard, even though we really enjoyed our beachfront site there; the great boardwalk along the coast; and the refurbished old pub where we had a great meal out. We had three days to reach Exmouth so the first day only went about 200km south on the highway as far as Barradale, a very popular campground on a river.

We’ve been amazed at the great roadside campgrounds established by WA Main Roads, each with a dump point for caravan/motorhome toilet cassettes. That one even has the extra attraction of the Burger Bus, run by Joyce Penny from a station 20km away.

She told us it only started in February this year, after taking 18 months to get all the necessary permissions. She drives there to start at 7am and leaves at 3pm. We had coffee with her when we arrived in late morning, found a nice little nook in a grassy spot near the river, watched as about 50 to 60 other caravans, motorhomes, camper-trailers and campervans pulled in during the day, each finding a nice spot, then we had bacon and egg toasted sandwiches and coffee with her for breakfast the next morning. While she gets quite a bit of business from people in the campground, it is the truckies on the highway who are her main clientele.

Joyce at the servery on her Burger Bus.

Joyce and her husband Darryl run Emu Creek station, which they also operate as a tourism business, and because Joyce is the Burger Bus maestro, Darryl looks after the campers on the station, as well as the station work. Joyce joins in when she returns from the highway each afternoon, and also does all the bookwork. They are hoping to sell the station and its 1200 cattle, but in the meantime, they battle on.

So on we drove, only about 100 km to a delightful cattle station called Bullara which has camping sites, some powered, as well as rooms in the old shearers’ quarters, coffee and scones on the veranda of the homestead and damper around a campfire every afternoon.

Next post: Exmouth to Mt Augustus