Sunday 21 September 2014

Day 18: 21/9/2014   Karratha, WA to Carnarvon, WA       Distance traveled:  650km

We left Karratha around 7:30am. Weather perfect, around 29C, not a cloud in the sky.   The drive south to Carnarvon was pleasant, with little traffic. All that changed around 100km before Carnarvon. We hit a large dust storm, reducing visibility to about  100 meters and heavy winds. This went on for around 60km. Then it turned into rain. Well at least it washed the car of all the red dust.

The temperature went down to 20C and windy. We heard on the news that Perth and the surrounding areas were expecting heavy rain with winds in excess of 100km. Also, the temperatures to mid-teens. I looked at Pat and said let’s turn round and go North again. Pat was ready to agree.

We did have a look round Carnarvon and were pleasantly surprised at the size of the town, it has a population of about 10,000. As we came close, we left the mining region of the Pilbara and moved into the Gascoyne region.  Here, the western dessert comes close to ocean and the fertile delta along the Gascoyne River means this area is ideal for growing a variety of fruits and vegetables we saw a number of plantations as we came into town.

No photos for today.  The most memorable sight was the dust storm, but we were too busy focussing on seeing the road to think about taking pictures of it.

Tomorrow it’s off to Geraldton, WA

No comments:

Post a Comment