Australia Blog Posts, Blog Posts

Week 113: Changing groups, the Kindness of Strangers

Last weekend we were staying in Shark Bay, saw the dolphins being fed on the beach and camped at a lookout where you can see dugong, sharks and dolphins swimming in the bay. From there we took a couple of days to travel up the coast to Carnarvon, but on the way we had to spend the night in a rest area because Dave didn’t like to drive after 2pm. I worked here for a few days while I was working for the Department of Water, so I knew a little about what the town has to offer. We took an afternoon to explore the beach and walk down ‘1 mile jetty’.

Western Australia

We then drove 50km inland to a campsite called Rocky Pool, the river flows underground for most of its length, but this campsite is next to a section which you can swim in. We camped here for a couple of days, walked around the pool, swam and generally chilled out. We wanted to head north to Exmouth from there but stopped in Carnarvon to get some shopping. We had been having some problems within the group up to this point, but we had all been trying to get along and see the positive elements of our time together, so when we stopped in Carnarvon, I walked around with Ben and we decided that we should leave the campervan. The only problem was that we didn’t have any place to stay or any way to continue travelling north.

Western Australia

We checked out the prices of rooms in the hostels, which were expensive, sent out CouchSurfing requests and checked Gumtree for other groups to share a ride with, but nothing was working, so we decided to get some beer to drink while we thought about it. We walked through the town, met a Japanese girl called Chie, in the street, we asked her where the nearest bottle shop (off license) was. After speaking to her for a couple of minutes, we told her about our situation and she invited us to stay at her place, with our tents in her garden. Chie lives with Nana Mex, of the Global Thunda Network, a website for Australian music. We agreed and invited her for a beer to celebrate, this is when we met a group of people on the beach. They are a group of 8, who have been travelling together in 2 cars and a van. They are a mixed group (French, Italian, Austrian, Belgian and English), musicians and hippy types, we told them about our situation and they invited us to join them. They will spend some time in Carnarvon before heading north, so we will hang around here getting to know our new friends.

Western Australia