We headed off for what turned into a longer day of driving than we expected. It was windy and most free camps were pretty exposed on the coast. We stopped for a break at Arno Bay and passed through Port Neill and picked up a loaf of our first frozen bread for the trip – we had to explain to the boys why it wasn’t ‘fresh’ and to get used to it because that’s how it was in many places. We headed down the coast and pulled in at Carrow Wells which was a nice beach with a campground behind large sand dunes. It was still windy and hoping for something better we pushed on to Lipson Cove which is a beautiful little beach with $10 camping. We drove around but the sites were all full – likely some people were settled in for weeks. We reverted to plan of Carrow Wells and backtracked to find the place as empty as we left it.
The outstanding feature was a windmill which – although we had driven past hundreds already – was a restored and functioning piece still pumping out of the “Carrow Wells” – apparently the Aboriginal people were using this water source long before the white settlers realised it was a game-changer for settlement and farming.
We went for a great beach walk and climbed over the rocky headland to find a very nice sheltered little beach where we all had a swim and then walked back to camp. The boys loved the sand dunes which kept them entertained for hours. We spotted some parrots feeding in the very low heath that we thought were rock parrot but the bird book seemed to think they weren’t in this particular spot. Beautiful birds anyway whatever they are.
Beautiful sunset – still windy but we used some thicker bushes and the car for shelter and dropped the side awning tent for the night rather than a full set-up.
JALC-OZ-2018 