bird and brother: Calming down in Carnarvon

Travel so far had been a little bit intense for our little family - driving up to seven hundred kilometres in a day, the endless (and often fruitless) searches for a patch of shade, the constant putting up and taking down of the camper (now pretty much a one-person job while the second person is occupied with the little person). Signs of wear were starting to show - bits of snappiness with each other, exhaustion at the end of each day and, worst of all, Little Bird was starting to hate the car. Having always been happy enough to sit in the back and while away the hours with a couple of toys, she was now starting to wail every time we popped her into her seat. You could almost hear her little voice saying "no daddy! Not another seven hours in this thing!" It was time for us to pause, take a breath, regroup and work out how to survive this trip. Enter Carnarvon town.

Carnarvon is the main centre of the sandy Gascoyne region, which is to say that it has a few thousand people and a couple of supermarkets. It's also the source of a lot of WA fruit and veg, grown from water pulled from the underground seepage of the Gascoyne River (like the rivers across most of the country, the Gascoyne is almost always a long stretch of sand with occasional waterholes, but that doesn't seem to phase the banana growers of Carnarvon). There wasn't much for us to do in town, apart from wander the waterfront in the cool hours, and sample the coffee in quirky cafes in the heat. To be honest, we probably wouldn't even have paused here if there was another town nearer than three hundred kilometres away. One highlight was a short drive out of town to Bumbak's for some preserves and delicious homemade smoothies and icecream.

We took the opportunity for quiet times and to try to reacquaint Little Bird with the joys of car travel - taking her for a few short drives to nice places and timing them with when she was in the best frame of mind for experimentation. It seems to have worked - we've actually managed some short trips without tears - which is a huge relief for us given the miles we have ahead.

We pulled out of Carnarvon on Saturday morning, first day of the school holidays, and headed south toward Shark Bay. We soon discovered that Easter time roadtrips to distant beaches is at least as big over here as back home. No matter that we were still 900km north of Perth, we were soon passing lines of cars packed with red eyed families heading north towing caravans or boats and loaded with kayaks and bikes, or surfboards for those headed to the remote breaks above Carnarvon. Not us though - we were relaxed, rested and happily heading south. We're out of the tropics now and heading into winter - and we honestly can't wait.