Over the last few days we have been exploring the Pilbara region of Western Australia. In particular the central Pilbara coastal area and it’s amazingly ever changing landscape. Initially we thought we would stay in Karratha, and take advantage of the excellent shopping in town. But someone mentioned we may like to stay at Point Samson which is only about 60kms from Karratha.
So off we headed to Point Samson, by-passing Karratha, for the time being. We stayed at The Cove Holiday Village in Point Samson which is right on the beach. From the park there is an easy walking path which takes you to the beautiful Honeymoon Cove. At high tide Honeymoon Cove has a wonderful little beach that offers safe swimming and snorkeling. The park is very large and at the time of our stay it was quiet. There are a couple of amenity blocks and two laundries, a dump point, car-washing bay (which was out of order), BBQ areas, Adult theatre room, kid’s playground and a swimming pool. They had a deal of pay 3 stay 4 nights for a power and water site at $126 (worked out to $31.50 per night). However, to be quite honest we should have stayed in Karratha for a couple of nights to explore the area and then head to Point Samson.
Karratha is a bustling city, yes city, with a few new high rise architecturally designed apartment buildings. Also a range of other modern buildings, stylish restaurants, cafes and a great shopping centre. The shopping centre included Coles, Woolworths and even a Kmart along with the other usual smaller boutiques. The city extends out into new suburbs and it’s nothing to what we thought it would be. Actually it was way better.
From Karratha we drove about 20 km out of town, past the airport and the salt flats to Dampier. The town of Dampier is said to be the home of the ‘Pilbara Wanderer’ Red Dog. You can’t miss the Red Dog Memorial on your left as you drive into town. Make sure you take a drive to William Dampier Lookout which gives you a great view of Dampier and surrounding areas. From the lookout you get a greater appreciation of the vivid colours from the white of the salt stacks to the red of the rocky landscape, blue of the ocean lush green parks and Palm trees.
While we were in the Dampier area we stopped into the North West Shelf Project Visitors Centre situated on the Burrup Peninsula near the port of Dampier. It was quite an eye opener and the centre gives you a panoramic view of the plant along with viewing displays. To help us gain a better appreciation of what we could see from the viewing window we were given an interactive I-pad that explained some of the functions of various areas of the plant. There is also a very informative DVD playing on a loop in the information theatre. The Visitor Centre is great value and it is well worth taking the time to enjoy and learn.
It was great to learn more about this region.
Below are a list of others places we have visited that may be of interest to you:
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- Alice Springs NT to Broken Hill NSW
- Broken Hill to Sawtell – NSW
- Crossing the Nullarbor
- Free Camps – Broken Hill to Cobar -NSW
- NSW – Free camps, Donation camps, Showgrounds and Caravan Parks 2019
- Northern Territory – Free camps, Donation camps and Caravan Parks 2018/2019
- Queensland Road Trip 2017/2018
- South Australia to Western Australia 2019
- South Australia trip 2017/2018
- Victoria 2017/2018
- Western Australia Coastal Trip 2018
- WA’s Got the Lot 2019
Cheers
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Happy Aussie Caravanning Lifestyle
Dixie and Graeme