30th July 2013

22^nd July 2013

We camped at Sherlock River enjoying the peacefulness for two days then moved on to Roebourne and carried out the normal things – water and washing etc. Roebourne is now a very small settlement but was once a thriving community benefitting from the busy old port of Cossack some twenty odd kilometres to the west. Cossack was once designed to be the principal port for WA during the halcyon days of Pilbara gold rush and pearling industry circa 1865/70. By the turn of the century pearling had moved to Broome and the gold rush had diminished. All that remains of Cossack now is a few preserved old stone buildings. With the demise of Cossack, Roebourne also gradually diminished into what is now a one horse town desperately clinging on to survive. The visitors centre here is in the old goal and by the size of it there must have been a lot of bad buggers around mind you I think a lot of our indigenous people were incarcerated for very little in those days when black-birding was rampant and control of the savages was considered paramount, which often meant imprisonment for very little and permanent neck and leg irons while incarcerated. Just out of town there is the modern version with its razor wire and modern buildings, it also is a large establishment with a large extension being built next door. Even with a diminished population law breaking obviously hasn’t followed suit and I would venture to say a lot of the inmates are of the same variety as the early ones unfortunately. While at Roebourne we took time to drive out to Cape Lambert where iron ore from Rio Tinto is shipped out and although we couldn’t get really close we could see that it is a huge operation probably even bigger than Port Hedland. Once again numerous iron ore bulk carriers festooned the horizon waiting patiently for their turn to berth.

We only travelled 25 kilometres to our next destination at Cleaverville Beach, 12kls from the highway down a gravel road to a stretch of coastline, here we selected a site behind the dunes to gain some protection from the freezing easterly buster. I have mentioned before how the easterly here is like the westerly in Brisbane lovely out of the wind but bloody cold in it. It blew that hard at night I had to lower the TV antennae to stop it rattling. During the day it wasn’t so bad once the sun heated up and by early afternoon it would drop off all together and become hot enough to seek shade. We camped for 3 days, local government runs the place and it costs $11 per car per night, you have access to a couple of clean long drop toilets and there are a couple of waste dump points for caravan/motorhome cassettes, plus rubbish wheelie bins but no water.

Monday 22^nd July

School holidays are finally over, today we headed back to Roebourne where Nancy needed to check something with the small local hospital and then on to Point Samson on the coast for one night for all those domestic things again.

Tomorrow we travel 50 odd kls to Karratha near Dampier where I have booked the car in for a service on Thursday. I’m also hoping to get some work done on our caravan fridge, driving 12 kls on the dirt to Cleaverville Beach shook the flu off the back so the fridge has to come out to replace it, bloody pain but at least it’s still working.