Up bright and early Monday morning, nice breakfast at the Esplanade hotel in Port Hedland, and off to the airport. Sad to be parted but Chris is keen to maintain her Business, so I will continue without her company.
Then drove 250Km back to Karratha to retrieve the caravan and tow it 200km north to a wayside stop on the Peawah River. Unfortunately departure from Karratha is delayed but yet another water in fuel warning light. This time I sought some guidance from the mechanic and how to drain the filter so I can self service in future.
Wayside stops are interesting – there are way to few in WA, they tend to be alongside dry riverbeds and provide a large parking area off the road but near enough to hear all the road noise. They typically have one or two drop toilets (if you dont know what that is do some research). These days they are perched on top of a collection tank so you have to climb up stairs or ramp onto a raised platform to enter them. They are often very smelly.
Around 2pm the travellers start to collect, parking their vans in the shade where possible and they just keep coming until either the spot is bursting with vans or 7pm rolls around. In this case there would have been about 30+ vehicles by 7pm.
There is an interesting etiquette on the parking dance. How close do you get to those already there, many seem to want to get very close for security perhaps, others cannot be too far away. But by the end of the evening you are all crammed in anyway.
Personally I am not a fan of these overnight stops I would much prefer a National Park but some times they are difficult to avoid.