Karratha WA June 4 2018

'An interesting day', you could say.

We legged it out of Exmouth early seeing as how they had cancelled the whale-shark tour and citing gale-force winds etc, and also as there is absolutely nothing else to see in town. You go back down the same road that we came in by, for 86 kilometres, and then turn left, a 'short-cut' back to the North West Coastal Highway. The winds, as predicted, are starting to get up and are making van travel a bit unpleasant with the constant buffeting. The scenery slowly starts to change from yesterdays sandy desert and flat low scrub, to the small hill-lines of ancient mountains. The soil must be changing away from sand to some form of dirt as the vegetation, aided no doubt by recent rainfalls, is green. A million shades of lush green. The vegetation itself is still small and stunted, but the leaves and the grasses are this lovely green contrasted against the bright red dirt.

Now, over the last few years, and from time to time, I have noticed in my right hand rearview mirror, that the side of the van appeared to bulge out. Not all the time but occasionally; it had alarmed me in the past and I've been and pressed in the sides of the van a few times to 'check'. The check always showed that there was some movement in the skin, as if it wasn't secured to the wooden frame underneath. But how could that be? The whole side had been professionally removed and replace back in our first year after I stuck a branch through it in the Flinders Ranges. Anyhow I had learnt not to worry... it will be OK.

Well today, after we turned north onto the highway, where the wind was now coming straight across the road all the way from the Indian Ocean without a tree or hillock to slow it down, that bulge was worse than ever. And then, on my next look in the mirror, I was 'horrified' to see the side of the van being peeled back like the lid on a can of sardines.

Naturally, I pulled over and off the road as soon as I could and we piled out of the car to go and see the damage. The first thing we noticed as we clung onto the car to stop being blown away, was that it was indeed windy. Rounding the front corner of the van though, there it was, two of the skin panels torn back exposing the frame and wiring of the caravan wall. One panel was only holding on by the skin of its teeth and would have gone sailing off into the distance in a short time if we had not stopped. Why is it that your first instinct is to repair the damage as soon as possible, possibly to make it all go away because you're still in disbelief. It was real enough though and between us we flattened out the now removed panel, and bent and bashed the other back into somewhere near its rightful place. Armed with some TEK screws and gaffa take, we made as good a job as we could putting the panel back in place, and still not quite accepting the reality that our lovely van was now damaged, we hooked back into the highway and the howling gale. Sometime later we reached the Nanutarra Roadhouse, where we stopped for fuel and a bit of a break.

All gaffa taped and screwed up, ready for anything, well maybe not rain, crosswinds, duststorms etc.
Nanutarra Roadhouse WA

That's not sunset, that's a dust storm whipped up by the roaring winds. Nanutarra Roadhouse WA

More dust this way. Nanutarra Roadhouse WA

And this. Nanutarra Roadhouse WA

And this. Oh well, have to get stuck in and see what happens. Nanutarra Roadhouse WA

Rejoining the road, we found the wind just as strong and so we gritted our teeth and kept pushing on, our destination the Fortescue Roadhouse a few more hundred km up the road. By now we are starting to get into Pilbara area and those typical broken down remains of ancient mountains and the vivid greens are coming into view. Fortunately we have missed the dust storms and make it into the roadhouse, where I take on yet more fuel and go inside for a late lunch.

Typical outback roadhouse. Fortescue Roadhouse WA

Typical outback scenery. Fortescue Roadhouse WA

Love these 'mountains'. Fortescue Roadhouse WA

Southbound and not down, yet. Fortescue Roadhouse WA

Fortescue Roadhouse WA

Sign at Fortescue Roadhouse WA, who re they kidding? It certainly didn't feel like that from where I was sitting

Only a short 120km later we find ourselves stopped on the side of the road wondering where Karratha has gone. The thing is that you come to a big intersection (the only intersection actually for the last hour or so) at about the right place and there are street lights and a big servo and trucks and vans everywhere, but the only sign is pointing to Dampier via the heavy vehicle bypass. We consulted our onboard GPS system which, surprisingly, knew where we, and Karratha, were. So, just another 20km or so we came to another, less auspicious, turn off and soon enough we found the place and the van park and got ourselves parked up not one minute too soon! Cold drink, cold swim.... ahhh that's better.