One of the features of Carnarvon is the One Mile Jetty and at the landward end is the Jetty Railway Museum. We couldn’t spare the time to visit the museum but I took a few photos of some of the vehicles dotted around the outside.
Back to the trip, after a buffet breakfast at the Carnarvon Motel, we headed out onto the North West Coastal Highway to continue our trek up to the north. Once again we topped up with fuel and set off.
We hadn’t been on the road for very long when I felt the need to stop and snap off a few photos. Carnarvon sits on the Gascoyne River and the road out-of-town crosses the dried up river bed.
While I was taking my snaps the local parrot population was very vocal, heckling me from every vantage point.
Once more en-route and after an hours motoring I felt the need to empty my bladder. So cue my visit to a bush loo. This one was at Yandoo Creek …….
As an aside I have noted, regarding Australia’s public loo’s in remote places, is that they tend to be clean, not smelly or vandalised. Quite often they have toilet paper and sometimes even soap and water. The reason I mention this is that coming from the UK I find it surprising. Typically, back home, any loo in as remote a place as the Yandoo Creek example, would have been vandalised and covered in graffiti. They don’t even have to be remote to have been trashed.
Well done Australia and shame on you UK.
Our journey continued and, after another 80 kilometers, our next stop was Minilya Bridge Roadhouse.
After a snack, comprising some dubious sandwiches and a Magnum each, we continued on our way. A short distance up the road we left the North West Coastal Highway and struck out onto the Minilya-Exmouth Road and after approximately 50 kilometers further we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn.
What a pair of posers !!
Moving on we started to see new features in the countryside …..
We started off seeing the odd one or two nests alongside the road. The further we travelled, the more we saw. There were literally thousands of these nests, scattered as far as the eye could see. And they aren’t small …
Termite mounds – Each mound is an entire kingdom, complete with a king, queen, soldiers, workers and thriving cities. Millions of termites may live in a single mound and each termite has a role of its own in maintaining their complex social environment e.g. worker termites (smallest) build the mound using dirt and saliva. They have no eyes or ears but work by smell. They make tunnels to help keep the mound cool. These mounds can last up to 100 years. The King and Queen have their own room and the soldier termites keep quard outside their door. The King and Queen can live up to 30 years.
The above description was taken from an information board via this blog
Eventually we arrived in Exmouth and located our accommodation for the next two nights, the Ningaloo Lodge.
WrAnTz 