The Pilbara is known for its massive mining activities. We reached charm-less Port Hedland only 18 hours after saying goodbye to Broome, and quickly decided to move on to Karratha, where we had an appointment to fit a brand-new bull-bar. Hadn't it been for the bull-bar, we might have missed out on what the area had to offer. We spent two beautiful evenings near Cossack and at Hearson’s Cove on the Burrup Penisula to observe sunset over the mudflats, and double-up with another Stairway to the Moon, even more fantastic than the one we’d already observed back in Broome.
With a decent facelift, our Prado was more apt than ever to take us back inland over more gravel tracks into Millstream and Karijini National Parks. We spent a whole afternoon at Python Pool in the Chichester Range. It was hard to leave this magical place which seemed to be a little hidden gem off the beaten track. Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to hang around, as we had another two days before having to present our car to an inspector at Tom Price. We decided to invest the time into discovering the wonders of Karijini.
The first wonder occurred in the form of many balloons to our kids, when they woke up in our dear rooftop tent like every morning, except that it was their 3rd birthday. After joyful play, yummie birthday cake and plenty of presents, a second wonder occurred in the form of our great friends from the Simpson Desert, Andrew and Therese, who again happened to cross with our path after their loop into the Gunbarrell Highway and the Coral Coast. Together, we spent the rest of the day visiting the timeless wonders of Dales Gorge, swimming in Circular Pool and Fortescue Falls, and getting a glimpse at the wonderful Fern Pool.
On the second day in the park, after saying goodbye to our Kiwi Friends who are heading into the Canning Stock Route, we ventured into Hancock Gorge – one of the deepest and narrowest ravines. This is a great place to boulder over some of the oldest rocks in the world, and dive into the refreshing pools. For sunset, we decided to pack out our table and have dinner near Oxers Lookout, where we felt extremely stunned at the view of three deep gorges merging into a fourth one… Have a look at this picture set on Flickr: Pilbara.
Tom Price has become our place of defeat, after nearly four months of travelling though some of Australia’s most remote and rugged areas… It wasn’t Oceane’s serious burn-injury and it wasn’t our car’s broken coil-spring (although both did put our ongoing travels on hold for weeks), but it was a stupid administrative issue around the registration of our car that forced is to stop our adventure trip and completely change our plans…
The agent at Tom Price was the only one in the entire region between Broome and Exmouth that was able to inspect our car in time before the previous 12 month period of registration would run out. Unfortunately he was also the one that failed our car because of a slightly loose rear universal joint (which would have been easy to fix locally), but on a side note he said that he was unable to fully inspect the car with four of eight seats missing. That was the killer! His advice was for us to either present the car with only four seats and to disable putting more seats on a permanent base throughout the future, or strip all our camping construction out and put back all seats for reinspection. This poor bastard didn’t seem to understand that we would have to do thousands of kilometres in no time with two little kids in the back, just to get our other car seats from storage in Perth! His answer was as simple as NJET – but he did charge $90 for his expertise.
I spent the rest of the day between the queue at the post office (to buy phone cards) and the only public telephone booth of town, trying to call all sorts of contacts to figure out the options we had, noting that our current registration was about to expire at the end of the week. I went as far as begging the lady in Exmouth, who had arranged for shipment of my kitesurf quiver from Perth, to find out phone numbers of any acquaintance who might have a Toyota Prado of the same generation and would lend out some car seats for the period I needed to present the car to a new inspector. It all seemed really ridiculous, and as suddenly it was too late to ask some key questions to the government’s transport department, and I had confirmation that my surfboard was still waiting in storage at Perth to be picked up by the freight company, we decided we had to leave Tom Price the same evening and drive 1500kms to get to Perth 48 hours later and make the necessary arrangements for a successful inspection.
That night was a terrible one… I can’t imagine what was happening to my brain and my heart, and how Anh-Dao managed to remain so cool and supportive, and keep the kids entertained, too. Strangely, the following morning things were somehow digested, and to us both it seemed a good plan to drive to Perth on a straight line. We knew it would cost us 2500kms more if we wished to backtrack and continue our regular itinerary. We also knew it would take us 10 days more to reach the Ningaloo Reef. And we also knew this would mean a break to our quest for the endless summer, as we were heading back South into the cold and rainy weather which Perth was still experiencing in the late August and September. Despite taking the risk of falling ill for the first time after 4 months of dry desert climate, the idea to go and visit our future place of residence was suddenly quite appealing. We had the opportunity to visit some childcare institutions and select the best ones to enrol the kids in time for next year. Also we started to look out for a new home to live and got to learn about the housing market which is so different from back in Sydney. There was even some time to visit possible future work mates.
Driving into Newman the next morning, I took the chance to make a few more phone calls and make a final review of our new plans. Funny enough, a lady from the Department of Transport explained to me, that it was possible to revert a permit for four passengers back to eight passengers at a later date, with a simple reinspection of the seats in question. Now, had I made such a desperate impression to the other guy in Tom Price that he simply enjoyed sending me off to hell? Fact is, we had already decided the evening before that we had to drive to Perth, and so even this news was too weak to divert our itinerary back directly to Exmouth where we could have done a regular reinspection and get WA numberplates temporarily for 4 seats only. We had already booked a mechanic in Perth, and were in the process of reserving a 2 bedroom apartment with swimming pool and Spa at Scarborough Beach for the following week. Also, the kids were all over smiles looking forward to go back to school and have their own bedroom…
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