Day 55 25/10 (Mon) – Karajini to the coast

Left the next morning around 9 am after seeing Bertha the bus head off with another tour group. Long day of driving through red earth, low rocky hills, spinifex and stunted shrubs out towards the coast. Stopped for fuel at Paraburdoo and discovered Colin’s back leg had dropped down again (as it scraped over the concrete on entry into the shell station). Tied up as an interim measure for review later. Aiming for Exmouth but the distance was going to defeat us so turned north for a place called Onslow for the night at least. Reached 41 degrees during the afternoon so the sight of the Onslow turnoff sign advertising “the Cooler Coast” provided encouragement to keep going. No initial drop in temperature on the road out but still 70 km inland. Eventually started dropping and had reached a balmy 31 degrees (10 degrees cooler) by the time we hit Onlsow itself just before 5pm. Whoo hoo! More humid but much more pleasant and got to see the “Stairway to the moon” – the just over full moon rising over the water at half tide – accompanied by lots of red and white and the left over curry. Still have red earth but possibly not as pervasive as further inland. The caravan leg has a stripped and dent screw and we found that the front panel of the fridge had shaken itself off as well. Will probably need a caravan repairer and a caravan fridge repairer now!! Night was still a bit hot an humid but survived.