This morning we woke not knowing whether we would be stuck at camp or able to move on. Karen chatted with the camp hosts and even though the road was still closed, they were expecting arrivals and departures through the day. The only concern was that if we travelled on it, we were voiding our insurance due to the road being closed. We decided to head off and keep to program.

The road was already in much worse condition than yesterday afternoon when we arrived back from Karratha. We travelled cautiously at a constant speed and only had one issue when the car steering didn’t do anything when we were heading around a corner. We arrived safely at the end of the 10km dirt stretch to a diabolical state of the cars and vans! Mud and clay stuck in thick clumps end to end on the rigs.

After 20 minutes of prodding the worst of the clumps off we continued through to Onslow, 250km down the road. The plan was to visit Old Onslow, a ghost town that was abandoned in the 1920’s after the Ashburton River silted up and ships could no longer navigate to the town. However, once arriving at ‘new’ Onslow it became apparent that the road in would be equivalent to the road we had just traversed and none of us were up for that! So we stayed in town and visited the museum, which was very informative. One of the things I found most interesting was around the cyclone history of the town. It has had to be rebuilt so many times. Onslow is the most cyclone prone area in Australia. In the last 115 years it has averaged a cyclone with a minimum wind speed of 90km/hr every 2 years, and in the 10 years between 1953 and 1963 there were 5 cyclones with gusts exceeding 170km/h!

After a quick, late lunch we headed out along the boardwalk through the dunes along the coast. Heaps of informative boards were dotted along the walk with information from ships, flora, fauna etc to keep us looking for the next one. The wildflowers and the sun were out and the day was fun.

The walk took us through to the town jetty – not the first as they have a tendency to get wrecked by cyclones here. This jetty is private and is used to load salt from the local salt pans onto ships. There wasn’t any ship loading today, but the stockpile was being added to and the trucks were delivering.

After the salt stockpile, we said goodbye to Karen and Kieran who are heading to Quobba Station a day ahead of us and will be there tomorrow night. They found a lovely free camp enroute to stop for the night.

The Allen’s have moved to Coral Bay today and will be there for the next couple of nights. They enjoyed a walk to the lookout and then rode bikes to the boat ramp for some squidding. No luck this time though. Mav has recoated herself in mud after being washed in Karratha yesterday. We can so comprehend!

After our afternoon explore Bob and I headed back to the caravan park in Onslow. We are here for one night and the washing machines are getting a workout! We haven’t had water plugged in for weeks and it really is the most precious resource. Long showers were had and enjoyed before heading over to the bar in the park for a game of pool and happy hour. It is really nice to be back in some civilisation again briefly.

After an absolute flogging, we went to the dining room for a buffet dinner. A lovely evening. Tomorrow we head down to Coral Bay where we will catch back up with Jase and Sue.