Day 126 - Thursday 9th May 2024

At last, awoken by the alarm this morning at 06:00 .... normality is resumed! 

Today started with no solid plan beyond the drive to Karratha 233 kilometres away; about two and a half hours of driving. After breakfast, I checked out at 09:30 and made my way to the Port Hedland tourist office to get some recommendations for the day. Karijini National Park is too far away from the route to consider, but they suggested a side trip to Point Samson and Cossack, so that sounds like a plan to me. 

A stop in South Hedland for fuel (over 10 cents per litre cheaper than anything in Port Hedland), and back onto the highway heading southwest. The road was busy with loads of four wagon road trains to contend with, until about 20 minutes out of town where I took a right turn to follow the road to Karratha. Now the roads were once again pretty empty as I settled in once more for the drive.

The monotony was broken by some hills that provided a nice change to the scenery, and the long straights were replaced for a while by the roads winding their way between the hills. After two hours, I turned off onto the road to Point Samson, and made my way to Honeymoon Cove Beach. A pathway made it's way down to the beach; it had recently been covered by the sea, but the retreating tide had left it wet with a pool overflowing across it. The small beach was really nice soft sand with a nice view of some islands offshore. Out on the ocean there were a load of ships either on their way into or out of port. 

Beside the path, the beautifully coloured rocks bore witness to the past violence of the earth in their twisted and folded strata; it made me think of Geography at school and some of the pictures I'd seen in text books.

Away from this beach, and on to a lookout nearer the centre of town that provided a good view of the ships loading against the jetty, and the ships waiting their turn offshore.

It was time to leave Point Samson, so I returned along the road until I turned right to Cossack. A stop en route to get a picture beside a salt lake with some hills in the background before heading onwards once more to the town of Cossack.

Cossack is a historic town with lots of stone buildings, but it seemed that work is currently being done on those so I was unable to explore. Through the town and onwards to the headland to see what was there, and at Reader Head lookout I was treated to 360 degrees of stunning views.

I was starting to feel a bit fatigued by now, so back onto the road. I selected the Karratha tourist office into the Satnav, and arrived there just after 14:00; on the way I passed a familiar sounding site which turned out to be my accommodation for the evening. The suggestion in the tourist office was a visit to the petrogyphs in the Murujuga National Park on the Dampier peninsula, so I returned to my accommodation to check in before departing to explore these ancient carvings.

Twenty five minutes up the road, and the sealed surface ended to be replaced with a very rough gravel road. I ventured a couple of hundred metres along this before deciding that this definitely was a bad idea with my vehicle as the surface was loose rocks the size of cobbles, so I found a spot to do a three point turn and retreated, defeated by another road I shouldn't have been on. I do wish Google Maps would have given me a warning!

I then drove into Dampier and found the William Dampier lookout that provided a nice view.

Back through Karratha to my accommodation to plan my evening meal; there is no restaurant here at the resort so I needed to head into town to get something to eat. The tourist office had provided a pamphet with the eateries that are available, so I selected an Indian restaurant as I've been craving a curry for a while now!

With that need satisfied (and a very nice curry it was as well), I returned to the room to finalise plans for tomorrow. I have some suggested places to visit, so I need to check those out before turning in for the night.