The Dampier Peninsular

The boys were motivated to get back to sorting and displaying shells, so they were up and packed early. Isabel, finding nobody around, followed them down. So it was a reasonable start, even though we had a good look around before we left, albeit with some ambiguity about where we were and were not allowed to go.

We headed up to another mission settlement, finding out that we had arrived just after closing time for lunch, which lasts an hour and a half, and that without a permit you cannot view the church which was the purpose of the visit, so we continued to Cape Leveque. We had to laugh at the bi-lingual speed bump signs! A quick lunch, then down to the recommended beach for a swim and a snorkel on the reef. Well, not today. The combination of wind, waves, tides, rocks etc meant that was a bad idea, so back to the car and down to West Beach. That beach is not for swimming, but it is quite a spectacular sweep of coastline.

Feeling a bit frustrated we headed to the end of the road at One Arm Point. Yet another settlement charging for entry, and given our recent form, and the bad rap given by a fellow tourist, we turned around and headed back to find our campsite for the night.

We found this place, north-facing, west of Cape Leveque with stunning views over the archipelago. The sunset was aided by the smoke from fires somewhere down south.

And so draws to a close the end of week six on the road. It’s hard to believe where the time has gone, or indeed the 10000km we have now covered. The mechanics of travel, the setup and packdown of camping, cooking and cleaning are all pretty routine now. I asked Lynne how long she could keep this up. The answer was a long time, but not at this pace. And that is probably the point. If you had a long time, you wouldn’t need to do it at this pace. The only thing she’s missing? The coffee and chat with Lindsey, but even then the importance of that little debrief is much reduced with not being part of the hustle back home.

p.s. When engineers play with shells…