THE BIG DASH: Village hopping
Holiday sleep ins, remote beaches and a rattly awningYou’ve heard of island hopping? Well, this week we’ve been village hopping.
After last week’s station stays deep in the bush, it was on to the villages of Point Samson and Onslow.
Clinging to the edge of the Indian Ocean high on the north-west WA coast, they’re not as well known as famous WA winter destinations such as Broome, Exmouth and Monkey Mia.
But they have their own charms, including not being as crowded as those places.
They’re also evidence of the intrinsic relationship in this part of the world between a spectacular natural environment and people who want to dig it up!
Also read:
THE BIG DASH: Why we went Chinese
THE BIG DASH: Buying all the bits
THE BIG DASH: Sorting the tow tug
THE BIG DASH: Hitting the scales
THE BIG DASH: On the road, finally!
THE BIG DASH: Onwards and upwards
THE BIG DASH: Do we have to go?
Solid work week
It’s been another solid week of work for the Kia Tasman X-Pro, or Tas as we know him.
There’s been a solid day’s towing 350km from Pardoo to Point Samson, a few days of light runabout use, and then another solid 350km run from Point Samson to Onslow.
These sorts of distances are about as much as we like to travel in a day.
Some caravanners are up with the dawn and gone before we’re even awake, and probably set up at their next destination before we even leave.
We like a more casual approach. Hey, we’re meant to be on holiday.
Our driving days follow a recognisable pattern. Settle in for a while to make sure all is running okay, then listen to a podcast (ABC Conversations has been excellent), followed by a break for lunch and a run for the dogs, then music in the afternoon (‘60s female singers such as Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield have been getting a workout recently).
We also adopt a pretty cruisy approach to speeds. As I may have mentioned 100 times already, it’s beneficial for fuel consumption.
Speaking of which, it’s obvious any concerns many people had about diesel prices and availability are gone.
The queues for the diesel pumps can be long at the roadhouses, and I’d estimate two-thirds of the traffic we see coming the other way are caravans, campers and motorhomes headed north to the sun.
Some of the outfits are truly incredible in their size and investment cost. You see a V8 petrol Nissan Patrol (yes, not everyone owns a Toyota) towing a 23ft off-road caravan and you can’t help but ponder the upfront and towing costs.
Tas has been almost trouble-free in this week’s driving. Almost.
Loading up in Onslow, I didn’t realise a small table we carry with us hadn’t been stowed properly.
It levered the tailgate off the right-hand hinge as I closed up. That’s something that’s never happened to me before and for a second I was panicking. Here we are in the middle of nowhere and the tailgate’s fallen off!
The panic was short-lived. The tailgate slipped straight back onto the hinge, no harm done. It’s been fine ever since, and I scrupulously make sure there’s nothing to foul it when it’s being closed.
Here’s this week’s fuel numbers:
Litres consumed: 132.91
KM travelled: 738km
Consumption average: 18.01L/100km
$ paid: $312.85 (best price paid: $2.199 per litre)
KM per $: 2.35km (was 2.99km per $ last week)
Sights and sounds
Things we enjoyed this week:
Point Samson: Key impressions are of a rocky shoreline, a great pub with sunset views and obvious evidence of the iron ore exports that drive WA’s economy.
Point Samson sits on Nickol Bay and its origins are as a fishing village. You can see that in its look and feel. The big houses overlooking the ocean, the boats parked in the yards.
There are other places like it dotted all around the Aussie coast.
Just up the coast is a place called Cossack, with spectacular 360-degree views from its headland.
Just down the coast is Cape Lambert, where Rio Tinto’s long ore trains pull up and offload. Giant cargo ships sit offshore waiting for their turn to load up and carry it away to the steel mills of China.
The best beach in the area – and one of the few that allows dogs – sits in the shadow of the Cape Lambert loaders.
It’s a bit strange to hear industry roaring away in the background as you sunbake.
Yet Point Samson doesn’t have the feel that it’s been run over by mining.
The workers tend to live in Wickham, about 10km inland, which has that Legoland look familiar from many purpose-built mining towns.
Onslow: Another fishing village that has grown off the back of industry. There’s offshore oil and gas, iron ore exports and salt – yes, salt – mining here.
When we arrived, the town seemed very much under construction, with hi-vis, hard hats and machinery much in evidence.
Part of the main street was blocked off and there were a heap of obvious updates and refurbishments underway.
It feels dynamic and like something is happening here. Whether it’s real or not, time will tell.
We benefited because a brand-new extension to the council-owned caravan park had just opened and we were lucky enough to stay there and get an unfettered view out to the ocean. Awesome.
The beaches of Onslow stretch for miles around Beadon Bay, so they’re great for walking the dogs.
Swimming? Not so sure. The locals recommended a couple of spots out of town, but we never saw anyone taking a dip.
Another place with a lively pub, and this time there’s plenty of evidence of the mining workers who are bringing so much money into the town.
That’s because Onslow is pretty isolated, about 80km off the North West Coastal Highway.
We reckon it’s worth the trip.
Van life
You never stop fiddling with your caravan. There’s always something that needs changing, maintaining or improving.
If a town has a hardware store, I love it already.
As we set up our awning at the Point Samson caravan park, a neighbour quickly came over and advised us to batten down the hatches.
It was calm enough now, he said, but overnight the winds had been blowing up furiously.
Our set-up is pretty good. We’ve got a Grasshopper (yep, that’s the brand) anti-flap kit that’s meant to clamp down the awning, extra poles to secure it and the privacy screens, ratchet straps and, of course, a profusion of pegs.
So we were pretty confident we were going to be okay. By 3am, I wasn’t so sure.
The problem was, despite all our measures, the awning was still bouncing up and down like mad as the winds blew up.
The awning rattled, banged and flapped. It was painful to listen to. And I listened to it much of the night.
The next morning I wandered the park looking at other solutions. Wrapping pool noodles around the stays that support the awning was a common one.
Another was a curved central stay rather than the flat stay we had.
Now, credit to Jane here. From day one she’d been saying we needed a curved centre stay, not just a flat pole.
The temporary solution was to take the foam mattresses out of the dog beds in the car (yes, they get foam mattresses), wrap them around the stays and secure them with zip ties.
That helped, but not enough.
So I cut up some rubber matting originally intended to protect the floor of the front bum (front storage compartment of the 'van) and wrapped that around the stays as well.
The final solution was to swap out the flat central pole for a curved stay from Aussie Traveller. It basically just plugged straight in. Add the foam and rubber once more and we seemed to have significantly improved the situation.
No more flapping! We hope.
Park life
The MDC’s mini awning is really giving me the shits. And the experience of parking up the 'van at both Point Samson and Onslow is a really good example of why.
At Point Samson, the site included a concrete pad you are supposed to reverse alongside and cover with your extendable awning. Thoughtful and easy if you have a full-size awning.
Trouble is, our undersized offering wouldn’t cover it if the 'van was parked in the orthodox position, meaning we wouldn’t be able to peg in our poles.
So I had to be very specific in moving the 'van across far enough onto the concrete for the awning to extend beyond the pad.
Well, the first attempt was great – if I had a full-size awning. In fact, some bloke even complimented me on nailing it as he wandered past.
So we had to try again.
Trouble is, with our room to manoeuvre hemmed in by an amenities block and a fence, we had to reverse in and out a few more times, crabwalking the 'van across further.
The veterans watched on, beer in hand, no doubt amused. But we got there eventually.
At Onslow, the 'van was parked next to an artificial grass strip. Wonderful stuff. Love it.
But again, for the awning to cover it, the 'van had to be moved well across.
That bit of the job was achieved quite efficiently. We really did the job quickly and efficiently.
But then started the job of trying to drill, then hammer and then bludgeon pegs into the ground.
Damn, I turned some of them into spaghetti!
In the end, I went and bought a couple of five-litre diesel containers (from the hardware store – yay) and used them to help hold down the privacy screen.
The artificial grass turned out to be the easiest place to hammer pegs into. So if I’d parked further away from it, the whole job would have been that much easier.
Lessons, lessons. Always learning.
Next up, it’s on to Exmouth and a rendezvous with some whale sharks.
It’s a moment that’s been 11 years in the planning...
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