22/7/13 – We are now on roads we have not travelled before 🙂 we had a good night sleep, traffic was minimal during the night and despite being full everyone was quiet by 9.30pm.
We were on the road by 8.20am. The Peninsula Development Road (PDR) is sealed to Laura and a very good road, better than the HWY 1 up the coast.
Hann River Roadhouse and we had a Peacock come and say hello.
It’s worth a stop at the Palmer River Roadhouse; there is a small museum of fascinating memorabilia with a whole wall dedicated to the old gold town Maytown. Do have to watch out for unfenced cows close to the Palmer River Roadhouse.
James Earl Lookout is a good spot for morning tea, plenty of others thought the same. There is a toilet, bin can even get mobile phone reception with a view north across the valley seeing the road down we would travel on.
Blink and you would miss Laura, couple of stores and a camping ground. Memorial park across the road with steps leading to nowhere, not sure what the go is with them, also some toilets.
Thought we would add some steps to the trailer 🙂
The old goal held up to 18 people at one point, it’s not very big.
Start of the dirt on the PDR (Peninsula Development Road), Chris is letting the air down in the tyers. And we put tape or sticky dots on any locks.
The PDR hasn’t been too bad with corrugations, a few bad patches that took its toll on our CB aerial with it snapping, second time we have done this on corrugated roads. Have to upgrade to a much stronger aerial than this Dick Smith one, Chris had 3db aerial we could use. The road is very very dusty there are some areas of tar, which we used to our advantage to pull off and have lunch and not have dust thrown up at us from passing traffic.
Musgrave Station Roadhouse was a hive of activity. Diesel was $1.89 L, Chris filled the main tank. There is also a camping area $10 per adult
What an awesome spot, The Bend camping area 4km outside Coen, very popular one too. The water is lovely we just had a paddle in the heat of the day we would be having a swim. Clear water, can see the bottom. There is even a beach other on the other side with some rapids, awesome.
Click on the link for a larger version in Google Maps of our travels.
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