Lewis's Travel on the Gravel

From Outback to Outer Space Carnarvon

We made it to Carnarvon and booked a caravan park. We stayed at the one at end of town near the carwash and would say it was the pick of the bunch some of the others looked a bit dodgy. The police presence was big in town as there had been a little girl missing feared abducted from this area. Needless to say our parent radar was set to 11 while we were here.

Carnarvon is famous for its space station. It is now a museum but in its heyday it was used to relay messages for NASA on various space missions including Apollo 11 which had Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on board for their very famous flight. The museum is staffed by volunteers and is full of great info and memorabilia. Worth a look.

We headed down into town and ended up out at the old pier which unfortunately had been damaged by the cyclone so we were not able to walk on it.

There is also a very powerful statue in the dunes that has been made to remember the Aboriginal people who were medically incarcerated on an island off the coast here. Some of them never saw their family or the mainland again, The statue is called

"Don't look to the islands"

The road to Carnarvon

The desert can be spectacular as long as you pay attention. These desert flowers made a pink carpet in the hot hot rocks. And they were hot I could only sit down for a minute on the ground as it actually burnt my feet.

There was alot of Pioneer history on this route, in fact it was part of Smithies mail run. For those who don't know Smithy his full name is Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and he was the first pilot to make a trans pacific flight. He became synonymous with Australian Aviation and was by all accounts a bit of character and entrepreneur. This mail route was one of his ventures and there are sign posted stops.

There are also sea shells to found in the desert hundreds of miles inland. Reminding us of how this planet is ever changing. Amazing

Nash cooking in 43 degrees looking for fossils

Feature Creatures

Ernie the Emu and his 3 headed 5 legged chick

Mt Augustus 22nd to the 24th

We arrived at Mt Augustus late afternoon ( of course we had fun exploring on the way)

There is only one place to stay out here so guess what that is where we headed. The caravan park has fuel so we filled up with diesel which was pretty reasonable ($1.85) we paid more on the main Hwy. Some parts of the camp ground have nice grass sites and all have access to a permanent flock of Galahs. They are noisy and funny we only stayed 2 nights so we enjoyed them however I imagine if you were there for longer you could do with a break from their out of tone singing.

Mt Augustus is Huge. It claims to the biggest rock in the world. There are all sorts of debates about this so I will let you do your own homework. That said it is bigger than Uluru but Uluru is a Monolith and Mt Augustus is Monocline so you cant compare Apples with Apples here.

Maya and I rose early the next morning to catch the sunrise on this huge rock and it was glowing.

It was hot out there so it was decided not to do the summit walk as the temp was up to 43 degrees and the reflected heat off the rocks can add between 5 and 10 degrees and that is just not fun and if fact is down right dangerous to do the summit in those conditions and it is signed everywhere that people have died attempting this walk in the heat,

There are plenty of lovely walks around the base.

There is a loop road that is about 50kms long that does a full 360 of the rock and it has various walks. We did most of the shorter walks and saw Aboriginal art and some amazing rock formations and the desert survivors that find a water source and make their home there.

Massive River red gum (this is one tree)

Gorgeous bug look at the pattern

Desert Blooms

Long nosed lizard

Zebra Finch

Art work which is engraved into the rock face

Heaps of art works in this Gallery

The Kids made friends with one of the kids from the station her name was Maddi and they spent some time doing outback station stuff with her and the dog patch.

Maddi's parents had been kicked off their sheep station in Kalbarri by a mining company which left them broke and homeless. So they are doing 12 months work at Mt Augustus.

We set off in the morning for the coast.

Feature creatures

Jim and Merv taking a siesta

Emu Creek Station (again) and the road less travelled to Mt Augustus 21 October

As we head back down the coast I am delighted that we are going to be stopping at Emu Creek Station again. We really liked this place and it didn't disappoint. There were only two other families camped there so we got a lovely spot on the grass next to the river. The station managers told us that everyone was checking out the next day, and they themselves had to go to Exmouth for an appointment so guess what we were in charge again! ( the other family ended up staying another night, a lot of people do that)

The bird life is fantastic here and weather perfect. We spent our time splashing around in the water, having a fire, checking out the wool shed and working out our route to Mt Augustus.

Part of the Wool Wagon Pathway

Wool Classing table

Hand made nails

It was not in our plans to go Mt Augustus but, there has been a police search and now crime scene on the coast where we were heading. A little girl Cleo has gone missing from the camp ground at the blow holes and is now presumed abducted. Such a terrible situation. So we decided not to go to that area as we didn't want to be in the way of the investigation. The whole region has done an amazing job, everywhere we have been had posters up with her information on it within days of her going missing, even in the middle of nowhere. Our thoughts are with the people who love Cleo and hope she is found soon.

We had to do some calculations on fuel before setting off to Mt Augustus. We were taking the back Rd and there is no fuel, water or reception until we get there. After some deliberation it was agreed that we were good to go so we packed up and headed out through the station back gate and on to the Lyndon Towera Rd. About 300 kms on the dirt.

We saw some swans in the desert. Fantastic ruins of another Shearing shed and quarters, wild flowers and lots of bird life. The road was a bit busy, we saw 3 other cars! 1 for every 100 Kms . Mt Augustus loomed in the distance. It is huge.