Day 18 - Exmouth to Carnarvon
Heading down the coast toward more and more civilization, with a couple detours.
Quick Stats
- 4 hours on bike
- 412 km
- 7414 km total
Not in any particular rush this morning, I'm up at 7 and going for a walk to find coffee. Gone is the roadhouse slurry, I can find actual cafes in Exmouth.
Caffeine injected, I pack up and head off. As I leave town, I pull in for fuel and next thing I know I'm on the horn as I'm being reversed into...
He tells me his rear window shattered yesterday and he's replaced it with plywood (that he's painted glossy black to look like a window). Doesn't explain why you ignored me in your left side mirror... or my horn... Thanks mate!
Oh well, I fill up and head off 10 minutes down the road to Charles Knife Canyon.
I saw this on the way in to Exmouth the other day. If nothing else, the winding road looks fun. Indeed it is and I pay no attention to the scenery around me (it'll be there on the way back). A good first 5 km, then it goes to gravel, then it goes to dirt, then, well, if you're finding yourself "picking your line", you probably aren't sport touring anymore.
End of the road, it turns out Chevron tried their luck at drilling for oil up in this insanely remote range. Didn't have a lot of luck, but (spoiler alert) they'll come back fifty years later and find plenty of oil off the coast.
Anyway, time to head back down, and slowly, cause I caught some promising glimpses on the fly up.
The Cape Range, named because its a range on the cape, was originally sea floor before it was forced up to form enormous limestone cliffs and canyons. It's also the reason for the fringing reef, a relatively shallow plateau for the Indian Ocean.
They apparently find shell and coral fossils all over the tops of these ranges. As well as that, not far from here is a karst system (a bunch of underground caves) hosting the only known habitat for two cavefish species (and only one of two places in Australia to have cavefish).
Anyway, time to get on. It seems the Cape Range NP, like Karijini the other day, will require more exploring in future.
An hour down the road I take a short detour to Coral Bay for some lunch.
Coral Bay seems to be nothing more than a giant caravan park. The water is immaculate though and there is snorkelling opportunities right off the beach. That's what makes it a fringing reef.
A quick swim and I'm off for Carnarvon. Once again, there's not a whole lot going on out here. I had always wondered why the Dutch never wanted anything to do with Australia when they first sailed past the Western Coast in the 1600s, but I'm getting it now.
Weirdly, for a while, theres fields and fields of termite mounds. I'm not sure what they're eating, because there's no timber anywhere.
As I get closer to Carnarvon, the scenery hasn't really changed, but the scrub has gotten a little greener. I start seeing signs of life when a cat darts across the road.
The aboriginals in the NT have dreamtime stories about cats, going back well before the camels, sheep or foxes we also introduced. Its believed those early Dutch explorers may have brought them over and they then spread like the adorable voracious killing machines they are.
Weirdly, another 10 minutes down the road, another cat. I've spotted many cats on my roadtrips over the years, more than once with local marsupials in its jaws, but never two in a day.
Bit further down I spot some emu, and some more emu, and some more emu. Ridiculous creatures. And while I enjoy seeing them, I do wish they wouldn't run alongside the road as I'd really not want to hit one. I wonder if the cats would have a crack at taking them down...
Ten minutes from Carnarvon, I cross the (dry) Gascoyne River, and things get weird again. There's banana plantations here. And mango trees.
While Carnarvon is still as arid as everthing else up here - thanks to the river they have ready access to water and nutrient rich soil. And due to their lower latitude, a temperate climate.
Although that climate is making me think my swimming might be over for the trip. I check into my motel and go for a walk on the foreshore. 20°C and "feels like" 14°C due to the very strong, chilly breeze.
Carnarvon was a port town setup for cattle and wool export in the late 1800s. A tramway bridge was built from the town out to the nearby Babbage Island to then onload from a one mile jetty.
Carnarvon is the first town I've been in, since perhaps Longreach, that feels like it has a real local population, rather than just the transient population existing to service the nomadic invasions. We're still a long way from metropolitan though...
Might have a salad for dinner. And then should probably figure out where I'm going tomorrow.