After leaving the pretty cool Point Samson, we drove the mammoth distance to the awesome Karratha (made so by the Morrissey’s! J). We arrived at about 11am, parked the van up outside Kez and Petey’s, then headed into Karratha to have a bit of a look around. After some Maccas to help Matt’s sore head, we drove out to Dampier to check that out. (I’ve just realised that I deleted the photos I took out at Hearson’s Cove, near Dampier, so there’s not going to be anything on the blog from there. I’m so annoyed with myself for doing that, it was so beautiful the day we were there. Grrrrrrr…)
After a swim and a bit of a wallow in the water (it was so warm and clear!), we headed back to K-town via the bottlo (priorities), and got back to Kerry and Peter’s just before Petey got home from work. We sat around having a good old yarn with Petey, then Kerry came home and after a bit of a catch up with her, we decided we’d head out to the pub for dinner. The Tambrey was full of guys in hi-vis, which is to be expected on a Friday night, I guess. The ratio of guys to girls was about 10:1, so that was a bit funny. We had a nice meal, a couple of drinks then jumped in a taxi to go (no more walking, hey Kez? J). After a few more drinks back at the house, we had an early-ish night.
Saturday was hot again (I didn’t expect anything less in Karratha). We headed into town to the shopping centre to have a wander around, do some shopping and pick Conner up from work. Kez suggested we all sit and have a coffee at Muffin Break, and I tell you it was one of the funniest shopping-type experiences I’ve had. Firstly, it took us about 10 minutes to actually get to be served (there were only two lots of people in front of us), then by the time we actually got to the counter we could see why. The dude behind the register was (to put it nicely) a bit all over the place. He took Kerry’s order, then went off on his merry way to get it all together and by the time he came back it looked like he wasn’t going to take any money. Then there was no EFTPOS (who doesn’t have EFT these days, I ask you?!), so we asked him to add the orders together, then when we asked how much it was he pulled out a calculator to figure it out since he’d taken the first order off the register. I was wetting myself by this time, and I was surprised that we actually got what we’d ordered! After that fun little experience we went to do the shopping, Conner was finished at Coles by then and we headed back to a nice big lunch and a very relaxing afternoon back at the house. We headed off to the local AFL grand final later on, Matt and I just made it for the last quarter. One of the guys Petey works with’s son was playing, and they won so that was pretty cool. It was a good game, even for me who’s not really into AFL. We watched more footy and cricket on the movie screen Kerry and Pete have in their home entertainment room while having a few quiet drinks.
Sunday Petey, Conner, Matt and I headed off to Cossack to go out in the estuary in Pete and Kerry’s (soon to be) son-in-law’s boat that Petey is “looking after” during the winter months. We had a great day, crabbing and fishing, but only ended up with one mud crab that Matt and I ate that afternoon while K & P were out at a friends place. Had another relaxing evening around the outdoor table. We said our goodbyes that night, and it was lucky we did since we woke up later than we’d planned. Such a great weekend with good friends, we’ll definitely be back to park to van on the corner and stay in Karratha again! J
Monday we headed off early to do some shopping for the week/s ahead, it ended up taking us bloody ages but we weren’t really in that much of a rush so it was all good. We ended up leaving at about 1, and drove straight through to Old Barradale (there used to be a roadhouse there) with a quick stop off at Fortescue River for Matt and Jack to have a swim! Barradale was packed with grey nomads, but we found a spot alright since the place is so big. We woke up the next morning to find that we were the second-last people there, because apparently you have to get up at the crack of dawn to be at your next night’s accommodation by 10am (rule #76 in How To Be A Grey Nomad). We only woke up at 8, and didn’t think that was too late, but clearly we were wrong…
