Before we continue our look around Horrocks Beach and beyond, a short note about Max for those who are following the adventures of the ship's cat. Max was very happy at Horrocks. He roamed far and wide around the park on the end of his lead and even took to the tree on our site on one occasion, for reasons best known to himself.
But a few hours in the great outdoors is usually enough for the Black Panther....this patrol work is tiring stuff particularly after standing guard at the window for a good part of the night.
So let's leave his nibs at his repose whilst we venture further afield. A short distance to the south of Horrocks Breach, the Bowes River empties into the sea, well sometimes! This is an area famed for its surf break and beach fishing. It was time to take a look.
A well graded gravel road which meanders alongside the river bank off the Northampton - Horrocks road provides beach access.
As we drove along the river flats through which the less than mighty Bowes makes its way to the sea, an oddly large and obviously well guarded establishment came into view. Our later enquiries revealed that this is the country fun parlour of a well know and particularly nasty WA bikie gang....one which shall remain nameless in this epistle for obvious reasons. I have no confirmation of this advice, but my passing and limited observations did nothing to give me cause to challenge what we had been told.
As I noted at the beginning of this offering, the Bowes River does not always flow into the sea. As we saw on our visit, the volume of water in the Bowes would have to increase dramatically before the blocking sands of the river mouth would be breached.
Away to the north a track through the sand hills leads to many small nooks and crannies where the evidence of past camp fires supported our understanding that this area is much favoured by surfers from all over the country when the reef break is at its best.
There was a small swell creaming over the ledges near the river mouth on the day of our visit, but not of a size to excite. Nor were there any here casting a line in what is purported to be another good spot for tailor and mulloway which are known to cruise the inshore channels.
I had previously chatted to a couple of folk from our caravan park who had made a real effort here at Bowes with poor results. That was enough for me. We came, we saw, but we did not conquer.
Despite my unrequited quest for fish, we did enjoy our stay at Horrocks apart from one major impediment to the quality of my life in particular.....
no good Internet access. Even mobile phone reception was marginal. This is the bane of my life and puts me miles behind with these missives as well as severely limiting our electronic umbilical chord to the rest of the world, a connection which, as I have mentioned before, assumes a real significance for those 'on the road'. We managed to find one small spot in the annex where at least two bars appeared at the top of the connection screen, and things seemed slightly better at night.
Liz did take advantage of that while 'Mr Morning Person' had retired for the night. After all, she is much younger!
Despite this annoyance camp life went on. After pumping up the air bags in the rear coils, I found that my compressor decided it had had enough. Those of you who know your correspondent well would be sitting there thinking "well that would be the end of that". Liz was certainly less than entirely encouraging or complimentary when I declared that I would fix the problem. Ah, the sin of cynicism! A loose connection discovered and remedied and my little compressor was grunting away again with gusto.
The camp kitchen at Horrocks is large and more than adequate. We took advantage of the facilities for a group BBQ on more than one occasion. Why use one's own gas when it is included in the camp fee? John and I beavered away over a hot stove
and in no time we were hoeing in to assorted barbecued meat, onions and potatoes, cooked mushrooms and zucchini and a fine salad. This was a good night.
And then it all came apart. One of those forgettable 24 hours I have occasionally bemoaned. Firstly the weather turned on us....the fine days of the previous week were transformed overnight. A westerly front descended on the coast with its attendant strong winds and bleak skies.
And as if rocking and rolling all night was not enough, our in-house toilet cassette, which had been the subject of concern for some time, finally gave up the ghost, but not before it jammed in the open position. Without going into what would be a lengthy explanation of the operation of these things, the critical fact was that we could neither close the aperture nor, more importantly, extract the cassette unit from its housing in the side of the van. This was not good. All I got for my efforts to extricate the damn thing was a badly gashed finger.
We were due to pull out the following morning for Kalbarri where we had already made a booking. After weighing up the various options we decided to return to Geraldton and have the whole unit removed and replaced.
There are those few occasions when one lies in bed wondering just what on earth makes people rave on about how good this lifestyle is! But things usually seem brighter in the morning.....not today. The heavens had opened overnight and our campsite was sodden.
There is little in this lifestyle to match the misery of packing up in the wet. If you have never before seen a faux smile, you are now looking at one.
A liberal application of RP7 to all the electrical fittings before we hitched up was of the essence this morning. I was just so glad I had pulled everything else in the previous afternoon. At least we were not having to deal with wet canvas.
And then problem number two. The external TV aerial would not lower. We had never had this problem before. This was just what we needed this morning! Even after pulling the internal mechanism to bits and lubricating where necessary, it still stubbornly refused to budge. I gave up and went on with the outside jobs and was pondering alternative solutions when 'The Inside Girl' stuck her head out and gleefully announced that this wretched bit of kit had, for reasons as inexplicable as its failure, decided to perform as it should.
By now we hoped the oddly named 'CountryTime' caravan repair shop in Geraldton would be open. Our first bit of good news....."yes, we'll be able to fit you in if you can make it be here before 9.30, and, yes we have a new cassette in stock. See you then". A ray of sunshine in my otherwise bleak world. I had previously had visions of potentially having to spend the entire weekend in Geraldton whilst parts were sourced from Perth.
With our travelling companions primed to alert the Kalbarri park that we would potentially be late arriving, we hitched up and retraced our steps along the Brand Highway to Geraldton rejoicing. Things seemed to be on the up and up.
Silly boy, had you forgotten that these things always come in threes? This time it was Max. For only the second time in all his travels around the country he disgraced himself in his cage. We had noticed that he seemed a touch off colour the previous day....all the tension and drama must have been too much for him. With an uncommon stoicism I accepted Liz's assurances that she had clean bedding available and that she would restore order once we arrived at Country Time. Good enough. "Max, sit at the front of your cage and don't move!" He did.
I suppose if a part malfunctions it may as well do so with style. Our newest best friend at Country Time, who had the devil's own job to free the jammed cassette slide and remove the offending canister, did comment that in all his years in the industry he had never seen such a totally buggered mechanism.
So, after half an hour, and with both toilet related problems solved for a surprisingly modest $250.00 (caravans are like cars.....if you built one from spares alone it would cost twice as much as a new one) and a very much more relaxed atmosphere in both the front and back of the cruiser, we once again pointed our nose northwards along a stretch of the Brand we had, by now, come to know intimately. Horrocks was now behind us and Kalbarri awaits.....could it possibly be as good as we have been led to believe?
no good Internet access. Even mobile phone reception was marginal. This is the bane of my life and puts me miles behind with these missives as well as severely limiting our electronic umbilical chord to the rest of the world, a connection which, as I have mentioned before, assumes a real significance for those 'on the road'. We managed to find one small spot in the annex where at least two bars appeared at the top of the connection screen, and things seemed slightly better at night.
Liz did take advantage of that while 'Mr Morning Person' had retired for the night. After all, she is much younger!
Despite this annoyance camp life went on. After pumping up the air bags in the rear coils, I found that my compressor decided it had had enough. Those of you who know your correspondent well would be sitting there thinking "well that would be the end of that". Liz was certainly less than entirely encouraging or complimentary when I declared that I would fix the problem. Ah, the sin of cynicism! A loose connection discovered and remedied and my little compressor was grunting away again with gusto.
The camp kitchen at Horrocks is large and more than adequate. We took advantage of the facilities for a group BBQ on more than one occasion. Why use one's own gas when it is included in the camp fee? John and I beavered away over a hot stove
and in no time we were hoeing in to assorted barbecued meat, onions and potatoes, cooked mushrooms and zucchini and a fine salad. This was a good night.
And then it all came apart. One of those forgettable 24 hours I have occasionally bemoaned. Firstly the weather turned on us....the fine days of the previous week were transformed overnight. A westerly front descended on the coast with its attendant strong winds and bleak skies.
And as if rocking and rolling all night was not enough, our in-house toilet cassette, which had been the subject of concern for some time, finally gave up the ghost, but not before it jammed in the open position. Without going into what would be a lengthy explanation of the operation of these things, the critical fact was that we could neither close the aperture nor, more importantly, extract the cassette unit from its housing in the side of the van. This was not good. All I got for my efforts to extricate the damn thing was a badly gashed finger.
We were due to pull out the following morning for Kalbarri where we had already made a booking. After weighing up the various options we decided to return to Geraldton and have the whole unit removed and replaced.
There are those few occasions when one lies in bed wondering just what on earth makes people rave on about how good this lifestyle is! But things usually seem brighter in the morning.....not today. The heavens had opened overnight and our campsite was sodden.
There is little in this lifestyle to match the misery of packing up in the wet. If you have never before seen a faux smile, you are now looking at one.
A liberal application of RP7 to all the electrical fittings before we hitched up was of the essence this morning. I was just so glad I had pulled everything else in the previous afternoon. At least we were not having to deal with wet canvas.
And then problem number two. The external TV aerial would not lower. We had never had this problem before. This was just what we needed this morning! Even after pulling the internal mechanism to bits and lubricating where necessary, it still stubbornly refused to budge. I gave up and went on with the outside jobs and was pondering alternative solutions when 'The Inside Girl' stuck her head out and gleefully announced that this wretched bit of kit had, for reasons as inexplicable as its failure, decided to perform as it should.
By now we hoped the oddly named 'CountryTime' caravan repair shop in Geraldton would be open. Our first bit of good news....."yes, we'll be able to fit you in if you can make it be here before 9.30, and, yes we have a new cassette in stock. See you then". A ray of sunshine in my otherwise bleak world. I had previously had visions of potentially having to spend the entire weekend in Geraldton whilst parts were sourced from Perth.
With our travelling companions primed to alert the Kalbarri park that we would potentially be late arriving, we hitched up and retraced our steps along the Brand Highway to Geraldton rejoicing. Things seemed to be on the up and up.
Silly boy, had you forgotten that these things always come in threes? This time it was Max. For only the second time in all his travels around the country he disgraced himself in his cage. We had noticed that he seemed a touch off colour the previous day....all the tension and drama must have been too much for him. With an uncommon stoicism I accepted Liz's assurances that she had clean bedding available and that she would restore order once we arrived at Country Time. Good enough. "Max, sit at the front of your cage and don't move!" He did.
I suppose if a part malfunctions it may as well do so with style. Our newest best friend at Country Time, who had the devil's own job to free the jammed cassette slide and remove the offending canister, did comment that in all his years in the industry he had never seen such a totally buggered mechanism.
So, after half an hour, and with both toilet related problems solved for a surprisingly modest $250.00 (caravans are like cars.....if you built one from spares alone it would cost twice as much as a new one) and a very much more relaxed atmosphere in both the front and back of the cruiser, we once again pointed our nose northwards along a stretch of the Brand we had, by now, come to know intimately. Horrocks was now behind us and Kalbarri awaits.....could it possibly be as good as we have been led to believe?
Very hard to read your story mate. Grey writing on a black background???
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