Millstream Chichester National Park & Cleaverville Beach

On Wednesday the 2^nd May, we packed up again and headed out of Tom Price along the Rio Tinto Rail access road.  We did about 180km along this dirt road before turning off and heading into the Millstream-Chichester National Park.

Driving along the Rio Tinto 'Rail Access Road'

As we drove along the rail access road we passed 8 Iron Ore trains,  5 were empty and 3 were full.  

One of the 'Pilbara Iron' trains - about 2Km's long with 300 carriages - very impressive

Once we arrived in Millstream we found that the back window of the caravan had jolted open along the dirt road and the caravan was  full of red dust!  We spent quite a bit of time cleaning off the kids beds as they were covered with deep red Pilbara dust.

The dirt road out to the National Park

Liz is just about finished cleaning out the red dust from a 'leaky' back window!

Later that afternoon we walked over to the Visitors Centre Homestead and had a look around, before returning to our camp for dinner.

The Millstream homestead

The next day we got stuck into some school work in the morning and then headed out to have a look around.  We went to a lookout above the Fortescue River, and then to the Homestead Visitors centre to do the Homestead walk.  The Homestead walk takes you to a beautiful crystal clear pool,  It  looked so inviting especially since it was another hot day, but due to Aboriginal cultural reasons you are not allowed to swim in this pool

Looking over the Fortescue River

Crystal Pool - along the Homestead Walk

After the homestead walk we headed to the ‘Deep Reach’ picnic area by the river and had a picnic lunch, from here we travelled around to the Crossing Pool campsite, which is a really nice campspot and we wanted to go to this campsite but caravans are not allowed there, so after getting a tip from some of the campers we headed to a nice spot for a dip and cooled off in a small part of the river.

Cooling off in the river

After returning to our car we noticed that another camper had pulled in and was setting up, it was Matt, Kirsty and their kids whom we had first met at Lucky Bay and we have not seen them since Albany.  We spent some time chatting and catching up before we headed back to our campsite.

On Friday morning, we did some school for a little while before packing up the van ready to head toward Karratha.  We drove about 30Km’s on dirt road then joined the sealed road.  We re-joined the Number 1 Highway and drove past Karratha and headed to Cleaverville Beach.  We’d been given a tip by Kevin and Trina (whom we met at Point Quobba) that Cleaverville was nice so we thought we’d give it a try.  When we got there, we did a very brief setup (but left the car hooked to the van for a quick getaway the next day) before we went for a swim.  The tide was low and the water was really really shallow, so all we could do was wade around in the shallow water.  Just before dinner, the boys went for a walk to the top of the hill behind the beach and watched the sunset.

Our setup at Cleaverville Beach, not far from Karratha

Sam at Cleaverville Beach

The sunset from the top of the hill behind our campsite

Sturt's Desert Pea which was growing on Cleaverville Beach

On Saturday morning we went for another swim.  This time the tide was very high and we got to have a good splash around.  We saw heaps of sea turtles poking their heads up out of the water and swimming along close to the beach.  After a nice swim, we packed up and drove to Point Samson.

Along the way to Point Samson a road train threw up a rock and chipped the windscreen, so we added the job of fixing that to quite a long list of things we needed to get done while we were in the Karratha area (a major hub for this part of the world).  We had originally rung a caravan park in Point Samson (the cheapest in the area) but when we arrived, we did not like the look of it.  They hadn’t taken a deposit, so we booked into another caravan park for a week and cancelled our original booking.  Once we’d got the van ready for a long stay (a week) we went to Woollies in Wickham to do a food shop.  After we were all stocked up with food, we went down to the beach for a walk before dinner and bed.

An afternoon stroll along the beach at Point Samson