Karratha

Day 1 - Fishing

We were convinced by one of Elliot and Bianca’s housemates that Sunday was going to be the perfect day for fishing. Luckily we listened to this advise as it was the best day we’ve had on the boat for a long time.

Paul and Friend on their boat at sunrise in Karratha

It was like glass!

When we got out to deeper water we put the lines out in hope of catching a Mackerel and within a few minutes we had our first. That’s the one you saw Elliot bring in on his birthday blog. Also while out there we were surrounded by whales but trying to get a good photo is really hard. I was on one side of the boat and they would come up on the other side, so I would move and wait over the other side and then the same would happen again, and it’s quite hard holding the camera still when the boat is rocking. These are some of the better shots I got out of about 30....haha

Shame this one is a bit blurry!!

We weren’t having much luck with bottom fishing so we were moving all the time, and apparently if there are whales about, there won’t be many fish. Anyway our last move I decided to put the line in for the last time and within a minute I had something huge on the line. The line was burning my hands and I couldn’t hang onto it so past it over to Stephen, who in turn was telling Elliot to put the gloves on so he could pull it in. As we got it closer to the surface we saw it was a shark, normally we wouldn’t bring it in but Elliot wanted it, so we did! Unfortunately when we got her home we realised she was pregnant and had 3 perfectly formed babies inside her...I felt bad!

Before we left the spot we had a visit from a turtle..so cute!! Everything we could have asked for all in one fantastic day!

Day 2 – Geocaching Kids

It was very windy so we decided to do a few caches with Elliot and Georgia. There were three down near Wickham and the kids were very eager to have a go! Our first stop was Cossack, an historical town and is almost a ghost town with only a couple of residence who are caretakers and own the art gallery. We thought this would be easy and handed Elliot the GPS for his ‘first find’, unfortunately after about 45mins we had to give up. The kids not so eager anymore!!

Elliot searching, searching....

Georgia, not really dressed for the occasion..not the right shoes..but gave it a good go!

We moved on to the next one which was called Samson Lookout. When we arrived at the spot I remembered it from when I used to live in Wickam, but had never been up the hill. It said you could drive a 4WD up the hill, but looking at it we wouldn’t have attempted it if we did have one. Anyway, it was a hard climb on foot. Elliot jumped out of the car all ready to FIND this one.

Looking back down the hill. This photo doesn’t really show how high it was because we had the big lens connected.

I only got three quarters of the way up when Stephen told me it was too hard and to go back down. I was huffing and puffing by then. This photo was taken just before I fell on my bum! The rocks were very slippery; I found it harder going down than up.

Elliot on his way back down after spending around 20mins looking for the cache and not finding it.

We thought it was time for some lunch and a rest so we went to Point Samson and had lunch at Moby’s Kitchen, yummy fish and chips.

On our way out we gave the last one a go, but when we got to Sam’s Creek we were faced with a big walk up a very red sandy track and thought better of it and went back to Karratha. There was one left to do in Karratha, a multi cache, we thought surely this one...we can’t be that unlucky, but we were searching again for about half an hour and coming up with nothing. WE WENT HOME VERY DISSAPPOINTED!

Day 3 – Rock Art, which Rock Art??

Off we went to the Dampier area, more caches there and virtual (just take a photo) so this would be an easy day. WRONG!! We had to find a specific piece of aboriginal rock art. It was great looking at all the carvings but we just couldn’t find the right one after about 2 hours searching, because we were determined and we knew this one couldn’t have been muggled. We even got a bus load of tourists looking for it and researchers from the CSIRO who said they had never seen ‘that’ peice. We went to lunch in Dampier and did a couple more virtual caches that WERE easy.

We went back for another look again spending about an hour looking then drove the 20 klm’s home to Karratha feeling quite disappointed and wondering what we were doing wrong? Maybe the iron in the rocks was putting the GPS off?? Who knows?

Stephen looking pretty cool considering we still haven’t found it.

Which rock do you think it is???

When we got home we got home we went on Geocaching.com and checked other cachers photo’s for some hints. We downloaded a couple which we thought could help in the search and armed with this new information drove the 20klm’s back to the site. This time we thought we could go straight to it...still again it took a while but we got it in the end. Yah!! Yahoo!! Woop Woop!! 

The special rock art

Day 4 – 30th Birthday

Elliot’s Birthday. After breakfast with the kids we had another go at the caches we didn’t get with them on Day 2. This time minus the kids. We don’t understand it...we got them all within a few minutes this time, weird!!

That evening we all went out to dinner at the Icon in Karratha and had a great meal with all the family. Some partied on until the wee hours, some didn’t!

Janelle and Elliot

Jack and Georgia

Bianca and I

Day 5 – The Day we Broke the Car

We had left a couple of caches because Bianca had wanted to do a couple to see what it was like. But we had one which was a fair way out of town and decided to do that and leave two for her to do after work. We got to the spot and in front of us was a very large hill with a track up the side. It looked pretty good so decided to give the Kluger a workout. By the time we got to the top of the hill we had a very rough sounding car, we had bent the flange where the exhaust pipes join.  

Steve set off to find the cache as we didn’t want this to be a waste of time and we definitely were not coming back again. Over another hill of rocks he climbed and came up with the goods. I’m soo glad I didn’t follow him.

Can you see him??

We still had to get the car down again, which was pretty scary, at least for me anyway.

Next move was to get the car fixed. Went to Toyota they said we could wait a week for the parts and would cost around $2,500. He suggested if we wanted it fixed today then we should try one of the tyre places in town, which we did at a fraction of the price and a couple of hours later we had the car going a lot quieter.

We did a quick trip out in the late afternoon with Bianca and Ryan who were pretty competitive with each other and they found one cache each. Bianca is hooked!!

I Found it!! I Found it!!   Bianca with the Cache

Day 6 – We left Karratha

We left Karratha this morning at 4:45am and are now travelling 15 hours or so to Cervantes to drop the boat off. Depending on how we’re feeling when we get there we may stay a couple of days to recuperate. I’m bored so I’m typing this in the car and will upload it when we get there.