Cycle day 44 - bushcamp to Carnarvon - Far too much luggage

June 19, 2024

Cycle day 44 - bushcamp to Carnarvon

Cycle day 44 - bushcamp to Carnarvon = 53km. 3412km cycle toured so far on this trip

Set the alarm early this morning for 4am to try and beat the wind but it was already up ... in fact it never went to sleep and blew most of the night although not as strong. It was around 14 degrees today and it was a clear sunny day with southerly winds blowing anywhere between 25km and 40km per hour. So they are strong. This means the temperature was rather cool by old peoples standards - 24 degrees. One lady at the caravan park has a thick woollen beanie on! now that is just over kill - it is not that cold!

We are at Coral Coast caravan park - the one closest to town. $50 per night unpowered - now this is a discounted rate given to us as we are on bikes. Compared to the other 5 caravan parks in town which don't offer unpowered we would have had to taken a powered site and most were sitting in the $60-$65 range with a discount!

So on the road at 5.30am and the only traffic was trucks coming out of Carnarvon so that didn't worry us much. The wind was still there but probably not as strong as what it was when the sun finally came up. We did make good time coming into Carnarvon and arrived around 9.30am. Just before we joined with the Gascoyne Junction road we began seeing the market farms that Carnarvon has.

bananas in the background and not sure on the vege in the foreground

What we did notice is that farms didn't specialise in 1 fruit or vege. They tended to grow a variety of products in smaller lots. Some required wind protection barriers which were dotted around their farm and some things were ok in the strong winds that they must continually get here. One farm had a fully enclosed netting protecting something - now that is big money to create one of those!

It was a welcome change to see all of this for the last 15km or so. The farms continue right up to the edge of town. Fortunately it is not banana season or mango season where we woud be competing with the dirty backpackers in the camp kitchen!!!

Hey Dad, I suspect, looking at the names of farms and the Dalmajica building that I came across coming into towns that alot of the farms were/are Yugoslavian settlers from like when the West Auckland farms were created. I even saw the Borich name but it was a farm and not trucks! Do you remember any of Carnarvon when you came through?

We did the cross the Gascoyne river ...

As you can see it is empty! But looking at how wide it is it would be pretty impressive when full!

Also coming into town you can see the Brown Range Tracking Station

Don't think it is being used anymore but from what I saw in town (on a mural) it was involved in the Apollo 11 Mission.

There is a levy around the farms to protect it from flooding

a levy basically goes from the river and right across to the Brown Range Tracking Station

We get to the campground and Neil is really estatic about his $50 per night bargain and even happier that we are only 500m from Woolies. After a bite to eat we went walking in town - only walked a few kilometers but hell I was worn out - my legs are not made for walking at the moment!

unpowered campspot - yay no red sand but crushed shells!

Carnarvon is a pretty spot and full of Perth people escaping the cold climes of Perth - yeah their version of 19 degrees is freezing for them!

a fabulous mural depicting the history of this area - minus the bloodshed of evicting Aborignes of their land!

The bay precinct is nicely presented and looks pretty enough to swim in but even by our standards it is too damn cold but will dip our feet in tomorrow to see how cold the water is!

We will hopefully get time tomorrow to go across to this Babbage Island to see an old pier that is there. It is a 5km return walk but due to our little legs not walking very much we will see if we can go by bike across the causeway and road to see the pier!

We have a rest day here tomorrow. Then the ride down to Kalbarri where we are expecting more rain this weekend! Oh by the way apparently we had over 100mls when at Minilya and even here in Carnarvon it also had the same amount. So this weekend they are again predicting the 10-15mm which is code for a shit load of rain is gonna be dumped!

Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 3,412 km (2,119 miles)

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