Frozen mango and heavenly strawberries in Carnarvon

School holidays were approaching and the crowds were closing in on us as they flocked into Denham and Monkey Mia. So we waved goodbye to beautiful Shark Bay and hit the road to Carnarvon. We hadn’t heard anything particularly exciting or bad about Carnarvon but when we arrived we were pleased to find plenty to see and do. We checked into a caravan park in order to do our washing and, see the sights and prepare for a bit of an inland adventure. After setting up we were in need of a feed so we went to the Old Post Office for what they claimed were ‘one of the top 5 best pizzas in the world’. Hmmm big claim but maybe. They were pretty good. Next day we did a tour of a banana and mango plantation called Bumbaks. It was interesting to learn about how they grow and harvest the different kinds of fruit. Zara was particularly taken with some baby bananas hiding under the banana plant's leaves. The tour guide told us that supermarkets buy 1 box of tree ripened mangos (that smell magnificent) for every 20 boxes of chemically ripened mangos (which hardly smell at all) to give off that enticing mango smell and trick all us stooopid consumers into buying more mangos. Humph. So always give a mango a big hard sniff before you buy it. Or better yet, don’t buy mangos from horrible evil supermarkets. At the end of the tour we gulped down magnificent mango smoothies and frozen mango icecreams before heading off to the various plantation stalls to stock up on fresh food. Most notable were the super-sweet strawberries (we kept going back) and the frozen mango (not in season).

Next day, we hopped on our bikes and rode to the local satellite dish which assisted the first dudes to land on the moon. We had missed Buzz Aldrin by a couple of days – seriously, he had opened the little space museum next to the satellite dish. Shame, he would have been disappointed to have missed us… Then through town and over the park lands, stopping regularly at hardware stores so Bill could fondle various camping lights, springs and whatnot. We lunched at the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and checked out the gallery before hopping back on our wheels and heading for the famous one–mile jetty. We were all a bit exhausted after a long bike ride but walked to the end of the jetty in the driving wind so Bill could chat to the fisherfolk, Zara could play with a bounding dog and Sash and Kate could try to stop eachother from being blown off the edge. Exhausted we arrived home and prepared the ingredients for tofu skewers (Kate and Zara) and kangaroo skewers (Bill and Sash) but then realized we didn’t have any skewers so had to settle for a big pile of mush with rice. 

Dorky family photo in front of bananas in Carnarvon