After an early start, we encountered a set back when we saw the the road from Minilya Roadhouse to Exmouth was closed due to flooding. We knew it had rained very hard up here, but hadn't thought it might close roads. There is an alternative route to Exmouth but it adds more than 50km to the journey.
On the way to Minilya, we found several bits of road with water running over it, but it was less than 10cm deep and the lorry in front managed to move a lot of the water as he plowed through. After 140km we pulled into Milinya Roadhouse and went in for a coffee. We also caught up with the lorry we'd followed through the flooded bits and he asked the Roadhouse staff about the Milinya to Exmouth road and they said it had re-opened, but to be driven with extreme caution. He was headed to Coral Bay whereas we wanted to go all the way to Exmouth.
We set off before the lorry knowing that he would be following us, just in case we got stuck! We did well for the first 20 km with only a few creeks overflowing, but 25km in, we found the Lyndon River. This is normally a 'dry' river, but not today. The crossing was about 50 metres wide and had about 20-30cm of water flowing across it. Lynn wasn't very happy about attempting it, but I reasoned that at least there was a solid road surface under the water. With the car doing between 15-20kph, we slowly entered the river and gently drove right across without incident. We knew this drive was going to be a bit of an expedition and deliberately hired an SUV, but weren't really expecting River crossings!
After testing the brakes, we carried on, the road quickly climbing into low hills and all bone dry again. The section of road from Milinya to Exmouth is 222km long with no services and no civilisation at all. For a while it almost gets to the west coast near the turn off for Coral Bay, but then just heads north through miles of scrubby desert. Saying it was desert isn't really correct as it had rained and lots of plants and grass were shooting.
Finally, at around lunchtime we rolled into Exmouth. Temperature 35C! Distance from Perth, almost 1300km and about 14 hours of driving over three days. As we drove into town we encountered a family of Emus wandering down the road.
We parked in the local park and ate our self-made 'wraps' whilst watching someone mow the grass! After that, it was off to the tourist office to see if I could organise some scuba diving. Just north of Exmouth is the H E Holt Australian Naval Base a joint Australian American base providing communications to submarines. There is an enormous VLF (Very Low Frequency) transmitter and receiver antenna array at the end of the peninsular. On the base there is a pier which is world renown as a shore based dive. I've arranged to do a couple of dives there tomorrow.
Our hotel used to be the accommodation block for the US Navy Chief Petty Officers. Now, it has a pool and is considerably more civilised! The building is cyclone proof and strangely, all the building materials and electrics were shipped in from the USA.
After checking in and sorting our bags out and discovering it's going to be laundry day tomorrow too, we drove 5km up the road to Bundegi beach. Here, there is a sandy Bay with a boat launching pier and a very inviting blue sea. It was very refreshing despite the water being the temperature of bathwater. We also discovered that the tiny flies that plague everyone, don't follow you into the sea, bargain!
Once we'd finished there, we drove back to the hotel and got into the pool there. It was slightly cooler than the sea and again, the flies are less of a problem.
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