DAY 54 – Minilya Roadhouse (Exmouth)

Good Morning Minilya!
 
Low 4°c (39°F) – High 25°c (77°F)
493km
 
An absolutely freezing cold morning this morning and no-one wanted to brave the elements and get out of bed!  Eventually though it was a case of have to and as ridiculous as it might sound I filled a couple of hot water bottles to sit at our backs while we had a coffee to warm up and wait for the hot water service to heat up.  Bad backs and cold weather – what can I say!
 
After some housekeeping of floors etc we loaded a reluctant puppy in the car and headed off for a daytrip to Exmouth – hoping that the 225km would be worthwhile.  It was.
 
The trip up was pretty uninspiring scenery wise, and despite Exmouth and surrounds being on a peninsula, you really don’t see the water until you are just out of Exmouth.  Coming from an area near the Great Ocean Road, this makes no sense to me when a boring trip could be enhanced by ocean views but someone at some point decided the road should be boring for 200km and set it inland.  Thankfully a few undulating hills well into the trip changed the drive up a little, but it was pretty much the same all the way, more huge termite mounds, and surprise surprise – wind!  At one point around 2/3 the way there was a massive cloud of red dust right across the horizon.  We obviously drove through it as it cleared but we couldn’t help but wonder how bad the conditions must be working around the mining areas where they are breathing that in every single day.
 
Exmouth, on the tip of the North West Cape was established in 1967 to support the nearby United States Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt.  Beginning in the late 1970s, the town began hosting U.S. Air Force personnel assigned to Learmonth Solar Observatory, a defence science facility jointly operated with Australia's Ionospheric Prediction Service.  The town is served by Learmonth Airport.  In 1618, Dutch East India Company ship Mauritius, under command of Willem Janszoon, landed near North West Cape, just proximate to what would be Exmouth, and named Willem's River, which was later renamed Ashburton River.
 
The location was first used as a military base in World War II.  After the retreat from Java in March 1942, Allied naval forces had need of a forward base for replenishing submarines, then the sole form of offensive warfare against the Japanese.  Both Darwin and Broome were too exposed to air attack, so a 500-ton un-motorized lighter (a type of flat-bottomed barge used to transfer goods and passengers to and from moored ships) was placed as a refuelling barge near the mouth of Exmouth Gulf, where the Allies were already maintaining a seaplane tender (a vessel that is used to support the operation of other vessels).
 
Code-named "Potshot", the spartan base was also developed as an advanced base and rest camp for submariners using the tender USS Pelias.  An airfield (now RAAF Learmonth) was constructed to provide fighter defence for the base. Z Special Unit used Potshot as a staging base for Operation Jaywick, a raid on Japanese shipping in Singapore Harbour, in September 1943.
 
The town relies more on tourism than the station for its existence. At the 2016 census, Exmouth had a population of 2,486.  At the height of the tourist season, the population swells to 6,000 and is popular for diving and snorkeling. Some of the most famous snorkeling spots include Turquoise Bay and Oysters Stacks.  There would be not much snorkeling or even swimming happening around Exmouth at the moment as all of the beaches and jetties were covered with hundreds of red jellyfish and they could be seen everywhere in the water as well.  No doubt that will be a disappointment to the thousands of people visiting for the school holidays however on a positive note – Exmouth has waves!!!
 
The Exmouth Gulf is recognised as one of the best-managed sustainable fisheries in the world today, producing about 900 tonnes annually of prawns.  The “Big Prawn” sculpture now stands at the site where Cyclone Vance made landfall in March 1999.  It was originally located at the entrance to the MG Kailis Gulf Fisheries factory at Learmonth.  MG Kailis owns and operates 100% of the available licences in the Exmouth Gulf Prawn Fishery, utilizing a state of the art, purpose built fleet of trawlers and having fished Western King Prawns since 1962.  The sculpture was commissioned by MG Kailis, stands 7 meters high and weighs 2,000kg and was donated to the town of Exmouth by the Kailis family in 2013.  It is put into storage over the cyclone season every year from the start of December to the end of March.
 
As I was photographing at one of the jetties I could see a large dark patch underneath and assumed it was just seaweed, however on closer investigation it was a massive school of small fish each roughly around 15cm (6 inches) long.  A couple of birds made the most of the easy fishing as the fish sought refuge under the jetty flowing in and out with the waves.
 
Exmouth itself is a bit like two towns in one.  There is an obvious effort to produce a very up-market side of town to the south with million dollar homes, every one with a back yard facing a section of the marinas that wind through the area with access to Exmouth Gulf.  The majority of those homes also had their own jetty with equally expensive vessels moored.  A lot of works are underway around the beach areas where the foreshore will no doubt be spectacular to visit in a few months time.
 
A solid rock wall was providing a few photographic opportunities as waves hit the rocks and sent water flying into the air.  We wondered how spectacular this sight must be during a storm.
 
On the other side of town there is a different look altogether, where you could easily imagine the humble holiday homes having been handed down from generation to generation, with lots of stories to be told about cyclones survived and where once again – lawn mowing isn’t considered a weekend sport.
 
We were keen to get back to camp before nightfall as even though we haven’t seen much roadkill and zero wildlife, we aren’t keen to be driving these roads in the dark.  Given we have another day before we can do any shopping and we’re running low on a couple of things, we stopped in at the local IGA for some fresh fruit, milk, bread etc.  Exmouth has your typical seaside resort shopping centre but what isn’t really typical is the fact that they have two IGA supermarkets opposite one another.  We went to the first one we saw, but then noticed another one as we were leaving.  Having stocked the basics, purchased a pie and some dessert from the local bakery, we headed back to Minilya, stopping off on the way at the “Operation Pot-Shot” memorial which also offered quite a view of the surrounding area.  We also spotted some Stuart Desert Peas growing on the side of the road and had to stop to photograph one of the termite mounds for some size perspective, meanwhile Bertie BT-50 (our car) did his best Shrek impersonation to amuse us.
 
Back at Minilya we drove over the bridge adjacent to the roadhouse to have a look at the free-camp on the other side of the river.  Holy Cow it was packed.  If anyone had driven in at that hour they would have been hard pressed to find a spot anywhere despite it being quite a large camping area.  A nice spot – but not with 50 odd caravans, vans, motorhomes, campers etc all squashed in so tight that there wouldn’t have been room to even put an awning out.  You would have to pray your next door neighbour didn’t snore too loudly.
 
In anticipation of a cold night ahead it was hot water bottles to the rescue.