Second day

I slept well for the first few hours but then woke because I felt as if I was burning up!I had a headache. But unlike at home, there was no nice recliner chair for me to go and relax in. I needed to go to the loo, so I took my torch and ventured outside. It seemed very strange to me to be walking around the caravan park in the middle of the night but I realised I'd better get used to it. The only sound was the crashing of waves onto the beach. When I went back to bed I did eventually sleep again. I can't blame the bed for my disturbed night. I think it's just how I am. In the morning I showered and the ablution block was very nice. There was a row of showers but I discovered that 3 of them were actually bathrooms, with toilet, shower and basin. How lovely! I had more space in one of these bathrooms than I had in the whole of our caravan! The date was 22nd July, Manfred's birthday! We met up with our friends at the big service station, "Drummonds", just north of Geraldton where we topped up with fuel. Norma and I were checking out the fresh produce for sale which was on a little stand just outside the entry door to the shop where we would pay for the fuel. Manfred called out the pump number to me so that I could go in and pay. I picked up some tomatoes and cucumber and went through the door. Suddenly, the girl rushed out from behind the counter, started running around and calling out to another woman and they both quickly passed me and headed outside. I wasn't really listening to what they were saying at first but then I realised that she thought Manfred was doing a runner without paying! After he had called out the pump number to me, he got back in the car and started driving away from the pumps. I assured the girl that he was just moving the car and caravan so that someone else could use the pump and that I was paying for the fuel. She was so relieved because people leaving without paying happens way too often and her pay gets docked to cover the loss! We headed north through beautiful countryside. There were so many flowers blooming. There had been plenty of rain recently in this area so the fields were green and the sheep were even quite clean and white! We passed through picturesque Northampton, such a pretty old town with many historic buildings. We were very tempted to turn off the main highway and head to Kalbarri, one of our very favourite places, but no, we must go on, so many more new places to see. We stopped for morning coffee at a rest area near the Murchison River. Norma said she had never before seen so much water in the Murchison River. The weather was good and there were a lot of people with caravans and mobile homes free camping there. We drove on and later stopped at the Overlander Roadhouse to refuel and have a toilet stop. There was a beautiful Major Mitchell Cockatoo there but I felt so sorry that he was in a cage. There was also a very interesting stone building across the road from the Roadhouse. After we left there we had to drive through water which was right across the road. Luckily it wasn't very deep. We continued on and followed Dave and Norma up to a lookout where we had our sandwhiches for lunch. The place overlooked a vast plain of flat land with lots of water, evidence of the large amount of rain that had fallen recently. Looking towards the horizon, we could see as far as Shark Bay. There were unusual flowers here too, flowers I'd never seen before. We still hadn't seen any wildlife. Manfred told me he thought is was because there had been plenty of rain and the animals have enough food and water without needing to come to the road (where they would feed on roadkill). Dave is very hopeful that we will see a wedge-tailed eagle. We travelled on and the landscape gradually changed from the lush green bush with flowers and undulating fields of livestock to very flat, scrubby land with not really anything very interesting to see. The only 'wildlife' we spotted was one cow and 2 goats! We reached Carnarvon in the late afternoon and coincidentally we were given caravan sites side by side. We had no sooner got organised than it started to rain! The four of us went out for dinner to the Carnarvon Hotel to celebrate Manfred's birthday. We had very nice meals. The Carnarvon Hotel is apparently famous for an incident involving Wilson Tuckey and an Aboriginal patron. Tuckey was Shire President at the time and also proprietor of the hotel. Wilson Tuckey was later fined for assaulting the patron, and he also ended up with the nickname, Ironbar. When we left the hotel it had stopped raining and there was just one twinkling star which gave us hope for a fine day tomorrow. Manfred received lots of text messages for his birthday.