Day 2 Meekatharra to Newman

This morning began in a positive way. We all had a good night's sleep despite the noise of the road trains passing. Rob spent a good deal of time on the phone to Jayco in Melbourne and Perth as well as a caravan repairer in Broome. To have a new door made and shipped up north would have taken 4 weeks but the repairer in Broome looked at the photos we emailed and said he could replace the hinges and re-hang the existing door. It will only take a day! So we can continue on as planned without having to miss out on Karijini.

The drive from Meekatharra to Newman was shared and uneventful. We did have a minor moment when the police car overtook us with lights flashing, but they had more important business than our lapse in adherence to the speed limit in the road works zone.  There was a rollover approx 50km up the road, and we saw an ambulance heading back to Newman.  Fingers crossed that the occupants are ok.  Plenty of road-kill including cows, complete with feeding Wedge Tailed Eagles - beautiful birds. Termite mounds reappeared much to Rowan's delight and we saw plenty of very large road trains including two parts of a house that we had the pleasure of passing twice and  a four-trailered one at Capricorn Roadhouse - an enormous truck stop development.

The countryside up here is ever changing as usual.  I have now seen it green with foliage, completely red and devoid of foliage, and as it was today with an endless covering of yellowy spinifex and grasses. 

We had our photo-op at the Tropic of Capricorn, then arrived in Newman by the early afternoon. Plenty of time to check in at a nice caravan park with awesome ablutions and go to check out the Newman Visitor Centre. The kids loved getting up close to the big trucks (little haulpaks) and old mining machinery including the bucket from a large digger/loader which the climbed in to. Ashley and Emma made their first birthday-money purchases (polished iron ore and bookmarks) which they loved doing all by themselves and getting change!

We finished off the day with a trip to Radio Hill lookout over the town and having a barbecue at a local park and playground where the kids ran amok until the sun set.

Poor Rowan was so tired he could barely draw a picture in his journal but the other two are writing theirs enthusiastically and with so much detail - I am very proud.

All of us are looking forward to our Mt Whaleback Mine tour tomorrow morning with possibly a sleep in and a cooked breakfast.  Best of all, we should be at Karijini just after lunch which has been a feature of this first week for all of us.  No posts for a couple of days though, can't see the wifi hooking up in Karijini