Back for 40 or so kilometres for a bit of shopping in Karratha. Karratha is the commercial centre of the Pilbarra and a mecca for shopping – which is not difficult in these parts since there are few towns of any size between here and Port Hedland 270 km up the coast. There is a reasonable shopping mall with a choice of four supermarkets which is quite something, plus a range of other retail shops. Karratha is a relatively new town, built in the 1960s and if the amount of new build going on is anything to go by it is still continuing to expand. Typical tropical architecture of single story corrugated houses with shallow overhanging roofs make for a neat if rather soulless town with plenty of roundabouts (traffic lights don’t seem very popular in the north). It was originally built to house the overflow of workers from the
port of Dampier just up the road and people are here to work in the iron, salt, gas and fertiliser industries.
Days just seem to be racing by and our progress down the coast has started to slow from the initial spurt on leaving Broome. By late afternoon we get as far as Onslow Road Bush Camp 7 km along the turn off to Onslow. No-one else is camping at the huge site sheltering behind a lone rocky outcrop a vast sparse plain.
It’s also a haven for flies – which fortunately are not biters – and some ferocious-looking insects bigger than hornets with trailing bottoms that look as though they could deliver a thoroughly nasty sting. Luckily they don’t seem too interested in us, but nonetheless we retreat to the van for some blogging in peace.
There is a full moon and basking in the warmth of a camp fire, sipping G&Ts (beer in Andy’s case) surveying this remote and endless scrub by the light of the moon. Magical!