This Adventurous Age

Adventures travelling and working around Australia.

Category Archives: 2004 Travels


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2004 Travels August 22

SUNDAY 22 AUGUST     CARNARVON

Olympics watching as usual. There was just too much of it – full on. Too much coverage of sports that do not interest me – unfortunately, most of them! I could raise some interest in the swimming, although even that got a bit boring. The only other coverage that interested me was the equestrian events. All else quickly became tedious, for me.

Truck was done at 6pm. It had been nice of them to work on it on a Sunday.

The plane from Perth arrived at 3.15pm. I texted son that I’d just seen our new wheel bearings fly over! He didn’t understand, and phoned me immediately – he thought we’d been in an accident! Oops. Anyway, we had an enjoyable long talk.

It was great to have Truck back. Even though we were not doing much, it felt better to know we could! Pleasing, too, to know that truck should be fit for the journey home across the desert.

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Pleasantly shaded at Wintersun Caravan Park

At night, there was a very spectacular fireworks display, to end the Rodeo weekend.


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2004 Travels August 21

SATURDAY 21 AUGUST     CARNARVON

In the morning, I walked to Dewsons again, and bought The Australian paper.

The town was busier than normal – it was Rodeo weekend.

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Aerial of Carnarvon – from purchased postcard. Wintersun CP just inside left hand margin

Again, Truck would not be ready today – someone forgot to put the bearings on the plane! This saga was beginning to assume farcical aspects!

More TV Olympics.


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2004 Travels August 20

FRIDAY 20 AUGUST     CARNARVON

I walked to Dewsons supermarket. Bought rolls for lunch and some other oddments – limited by what I could carry back. It was about a 3km walk, all up.

We got the news that Truck was not ready. Only 4 bearings bits were sent from Perth, instead of the required 8.

More Olympics.


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2004 Travels August 19

THURSDAY 19 AUGUST     CARNARVON

Today, Truck was booked into the local Land Rover dealer’s for a service. We drove it in, then walked back.

Decided to keep going and have a look around the old OTC satellite communications dish, by the highway. It was somewhat vandalized. I thought it was a pity that it couldn’t somehow be utilized for tourism.

Established in the 1960’s, to be part of the tracking and monitoring of projects like the Apollo moon expedition, it operated until the mid 80’s, playing quite a significant role.

Then there was more Olympics watching, reading and sewing for me.

The service centre found that Truck needed new wheel bearings. This was not surprising – they were the front ones, which were the originals. It did stand, briefly, in water, too, on one of our Newman drives. The parts would come in overnight, and we should get it back tomorrow. That was alright.

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Gascoyne River


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2004 Travels August 18

WEDNESDAY 18 AUGUST     CARNARVON

I drove to the shops and collected my photos. They were quite pleasing. They were all the film photos I took since we were here last, so they covered some ground. Now I had the job of putting them into albums and writing comments.

I collected the next lot of mail.

John watched Olympics.


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2004 Travels August 15

SUNDAY 15 AUGUST     CARNARVON

After breakfast, I did a heap of washing – three loads! That had built up since way back in the Pilbara.

John played Scroungers bowls at the caravan park. Not much joy.

L phoned. Our old cat. Tarz, was put down today. L’s sister came to help, because L was upset by it all. She’d known Tarz for the three years now that she’d lived at our place. She had treated the cat very reverentially – buried her in a box, with flowers, and a 24 hour candle. She took photos to send us. The cat was about 15 years old – not a bad innings for a Russian Blue. But we would miss her pronounced personality about the place.

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Flowers from our garden in the old cat’s grave

Apparently, the remaining cat seemed to know what was going on, and showed signs of missing her. We were sad. She had originally lived at the house behind John and “adopted” him. When we married and he was moving, her original owners gave her to us as a wedding present.

The other cat – the old tabby – was a Mother’s Day present, as a kitten,  from my children. One should always be suspicious of a boxed present that requires air holes in the lid!

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All alone now

More TV Olympics watching.


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2004 Travels August 14

SATURDAY 14 AUGUST     CARNARVON

Went to the growers’ produce market in the morning, and stocked up on fruit, vegies and eggs.

Did some other shopping.

I was able to get books from the library: $50 deposit to borrow six books. Very good.

Refuelled – $1.12cpl.

We drove to the low river crossing. This has basically been a low causeway across the dry river bed, to give quicker access to the plantations and features on the north side of the river, saving the time it would take to go round via the highway bridge.

We were amazed to find it demolished! It was impassable. It was an indication of how strong the Gascoyne River floods had been, while we were away. Yet again, we reflected how lucky we had been to get away at all, when we did.

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Low level Gascoyne River causeway that was

E and D were still at the caravan park and we chatted with them about where we’d been in the past few weeks.

Had a very yummy prawn dinner.

Today was the start of the Olympic watching – the Opening Ceremony, etc. Glad I have my library books to read!


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2004 Travels August 13

 FRIDAY 13 AUGUST   MESA CAMP TO CARNARVON   405kms

Another of those inauspicious Friday 13ths! I had lost track of the dates – easy to do when just idling away the days. Had I realized before we were on the road, I might have suggested staying another day!

We got away at 8.30. Having the pressure of the next lot of occupants waiting, did ensure we didn’t linger.

In Exmouth, took my library books back to the Exmouth Library. I had been so grateful to have books to read while we were relaxing in our Mesa camp.

Refuelled at $1.28cpl.

Bought bread rolls for lunch.

It was a comfortable drive south.

We stopped for me to make up our lunch at an overnight free camp spot – Lyndon River. It would be an adequate place to overnight. It was obviously well used.

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Lyndon River Rest Area

South of this, we rejoined the main Highway 1.

When we crossed the Gascoyne River bridge, on the approach to Carnarvon, the river was flowing! Not a banker, but a clear stream. This was obviously the aftermath of all the rain there had been, after we left town, back in early July. This was the first time we’d seen water in this river.

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Gascoyne River with water

Went back to the Wintersun Caravan Park. Our main purpose for returning here to Carnarvon was for John to watch the Olympic Games – at a place where he knows TV reception is good. Yet again, our travels were being dictated by sport and TV! But, at least, it was better than Karratha, in that there was a bit more to do on the occasional breaks from viewing.

We booked in for two weeks at $110 a week, after discount.

After setting up, drove to the shopping centre. Collected mail at the PO. Went and bought prawns and snapper at the fish co-op.

I had a lovely, long, shower. It was great to feel properly clean again, after getting by with washes from a bucket, in the van, and the judicious use of wet wipes.

There was a text from house sitter L, to phone her, which we did. She said our old Russian Blue cat was really sick. This was basically cat decline from old age, and not unexpected. We told L to use her judgement about what to do. But we didn’t think we’d see the old cat again, which made us sad.

After tea, watched the last episode of “Old Dogs” on TV. It had been an entertaining  series.

There was no sea noise to lull us to sleep tonight. Just the assorted noises of lots of other campers and the town environment in general.

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