A week's stay in Carnarvon

The weather was pleasant and mostly sunny, but for most of the week we were here, it was very windy. We also felt we overstayed our welcome here as Carnarvon is not the most attractive place on the WA coast. There are things to do and places to see, but we could have done it in four days. There is also a vibe you get in this place which reminds me a lot of the more drab suburbs of Perth such as Balga or Langford (those of you who live in Perth will know what we’re referring to). Added to that, the caravan park we stayed at was like being in a retirement village. It was geared towards the 100's of retirees that head up from the southern parts of WA at this time of year. There were endless bowls tournaments, bingo nights etc and it made us feel quite out of place and made us want to head out of town even more.

A couple of weeks ago Carnarvon had a lot of rain in a short space of time, which made the NW Coastal Hwy to the south of town impassable. There were detours in place so we managed to navigate our way around.

The Gascoyne river was interesting to see (if you could) as most of it runs underground except when a cyclone has dumped a lot of rain in it’s catchment area, and then it quite a large torrent. There were places where we could walk of the river bed and the banks of the river are 200-300 metres wide and up to 7 metres deep. One such place was called Rocky Pool which is 55 Kilometres to the NE of town. This is a permanent waterhole on the river and was part of the mail run serviced by Charles Kingsford-Smith between Carnarvon and Mt Augustus. Here it felt like we were in a billabong that bush poets over the years have written of, and felt we were in a very special part of this country.

Another special place we discovered was the blowholes which is on Point Quobba 75 Kilometres to the North. We have seen some spectacular coastline on the south coast of WA near Albany, but this was something else. The sheer force of the blowhole (and there are a few of them here) was defending at times – terrifying but strangely magnetic at the same time. We also did a bit of beachcombing as well and made a good addition to Denise’s shell collection, as well as watching all the teeming marine life in the rock pools. Well worth the 49 Kilometres off the NW coastal Hwy if you’re going past Carnarvon.

As I said at the beginning, great to be out of here and next stop is one of the major tourist destinations in WA – Coral Bay and the Ningaloo Reef.