Today saw us leave Newman and head through more new territory - south toward Meekatharra . An uneventful drive , leaving the Pilbara , driving through stony desert and sand , a remarkable landscape .
There was some jet stream cloud above us - looked good .
Not much further down the road were a couple of wedge tailed eagles having a snack - they weren’t moving for us though .
Pulling up near the middle branch of the Gascoyne River , we decided to stop early and camp there the night . There was some water in the river , but despite looking good , wouldn’t be good for swimming - a tad green !!
We wandered around the billabong for a while before sitting for an afternoon tipple . A bird soon arrived an bounced around the place , settling in a tree about 3m from me . The bird was dark winged , but spotted yellow , but it’s most distinguishing feature was the neon pink flash on the back of it’s neck and head . It posed nicely for me , we later discovered it is a Western Bower Bird . It joined us again the next morning with it’s mate .
A Whistling Kite was also a resident of the area , keeping us entertained for a while .
Our camp site was about 500m from the road , giving us some peace from the road noise - the Great Northern Hwy is a busy road .
Sunset was good as well , here’s a couple .
After a peaceful night we headed off agin to Meekatharra . Meekatharra Boulders are about 20klms from town either side of the road . Shame about the knobs who think it’s necessary to write their names in white paint on them though .
After a walk and climb around the rocks , we headed into town and straight out to Peace Gorge , another free camp for the night . Peace Gorge is an interesting spot , granite rocks of all shapes & sizes in different outcrops , we found a good spot and setup for the night .
Heading back into Meekatharra , we stopped at the lookout - an area built up with the spoil from the adjacent open cut mine .
There are many trucks and wide loads running up & down this hwy , this was just one of the many , and this is when he stopped for fuel .
Meekatharra is an older gold mining town , but didn’t really grab us , there are some older buildings and a good display and park beside a waterhole . This is an old mail truck from back in the day .
Back to the van and decided to get the drone out for an aerial view of Peace Gorge , it’s a large area with room for lot’s of people to camp overnight - we only had one other family and they were well away from us .
We headed out for a walk in the late afternoon when it had cooled down a bit , the sun lower on the horizon giving the rocks an extra bit of orange glow .
That’s it for a couple of days of travel , here’s a map link : - https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LdCBu4IOpEXIzaPTKydfYax8pbti2uvz&usp=sharing
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