The day started early at Denham packing up our camp to move on to the much awaited Quobba coast – Gordies surfing mecca 😆In the light of dawn we hopped in the cars with great anticipation of the day ahead and jumping in the surf on our arrival…..

The road to Carnarvon went through some very barren looking steppe rock formations – dry and dusty.

 

We arrived in Carnarvon, fueled up, bought some supplies and had a quick lunch by the harbour. The harbour was pretty and on the corner of the roundabout was “Shelton’s Corner” …..looked like a bit of an op shop/ junk shop with collectibles….ironic!

Leaving Carnarvon the turnoff to Quobba was not far. The road out to the  coast was sealed and in good condition.  A lot of salt mining is done out here and we passed  another pink lake of salt with turquoise blue water channels beside it – obviously pumping seawater in to harvest salt.

Passing the Quobba lighthouse,  we arrived at the coast near the Quobba blowholes….with a grim reminder on the signpost of the dangers of this particular area.

We turned right and headed to Quobba Station along the now unsealed road. Our plan was to drive to 3 mile camp on Gnaraloo Station about 70kms along this dirt track. The road at first ran close to the coast and the waves at times were breaking on the rough cliff edge.

Despite checking road conditions and being told the road was  good, it was actually very rough and corrigated so Trev decided to lower his tyre pressure.

There are a few mines in the area and road trains come thundering along in a crowd of dust so we had to drive carefully when going over crests.

The Ram was having a few conniptions….or maybe  gremlins….because all the alarms and gauges kept going off and reading incorrectly. Branch was keen to get in and assist as he had been worse than useless the day before during “sandgate”.

We stopped a couple of times to let it rest but eventually Gordie decided to have a longer stop – he decided that due to road conditions and the Ram it would maybe be better to stop and camp at Red Bluff which was closer than 3 mile. After much discussion it was decided that Trev and I, Dave and Rose would continue on to Red Bluff to find a campspot for the 3 vans as time was marching on, and Gordon and Kerry would rest the Ram and then come on slowly joining us at Red Bluff ( BAD IDEA….. no troll should be left behind!!)

The turnoff to Red Bluff seemed an eternity away travelling at 50kph. We reached it finally and turned off only to find the road was even worse with large corrugations, rocky outcrops and sand sections…and 16kms to be done! We perservered and arrived at Red Bluff….what a spectacular and  beautiful beach….no waves however so Gordo would not be impressed…but the campground was pretty feral and unkempt…rubbish lying around, dogs running all over the place but we paid for 3 nights and went in to look for a spot for the vans.

The camp area was quite small and most spots were taken – no real place for 3 vans together and what was left were very uneven. After almost an hour trying to work out where to camp we decided that, as Gordon and Kerry had not shown up,there was a serious Ram issue and as we had no reception at all we would head back to Quobba Station for the night and contact them there.

We went to the caretakers hut to beg for a refund and just as Trev got out of the car a couple pulled up in a campervan and asked was he Trevor Loveday – they had a message from Gordon that just read “gone to Carnarvon “….which I think gave us leverage with the caretaker who kindly refunded our money.

We were not keen to go back all the way to Carnarvon so we decided to head back to Quobba, try to get sites there for the night and ring Gordie to find out the damage… It was getting late in the afternoon so we knew we had to speed up to travel 50k back on the dirt track to try to reach Quobba before dark.

As we turned out of the Red Bluff campsite not 100m down the road but what came into view?? THE RAM!! What a sight for sore eyes! ( Unfortunately for that kind couple they had just done 32kms on a nightmare road for no reason as they were heading to Gnaraloo -thanks Gordie 😃but they were very gracious).  Seems the Ram had improved after blowing dust out of it and Gordie was keen to continue on slowly. We could not return to Red Bluff and the light was fading fast so we made the executive  decision to push on to 3 mile camp which was much closer than Quobba hoping to get there and set up before dark.

We went back out to the main road (by this time Branch was losing it the road from Red Bluff was so bad),

turned left and headed in to Gnaraloo Station, a further 10 kms along the road….the road was slightly better for a while as it looked freshly graded but when we turned off to 3 Mile camp it was worse again.

We arrived at 3 mile camp as the sun set and the caretaker was great giving us 3 sites together. The campground was flat and well set out – much better than Red Bluff so in the end it all worked out for the best despite the hiccups. Gordie planned to  call his mechanic in the morning to see what the issue may have been to determine the seriousness of it. We settled in for the night hoping for some great beach time tomorrow.