19 - 21 July 2016 - Days 108 -110 - Wickham

The boys said goodbye to the cows and we drove down into Port Headland for a look.

On the way into the town we drove past the Rio Tinto Mineral site and saw the massive pile of salt, it was huge.  We then drove to the harbour and looked at the big cargo ships in the harbour.

We met a lovely family Craig, Donna, Alyssa, Mia and Emily at Manning Gorge on the Gibb River Road and they invited us to drop into their house on the way down the coast.  They live at Wickham which is just south of Port Headland, so we dropped in for a visit.  We had planned on staying 2 nights but with not much persuasion we ended up staying 3 nights as we were all having so much fun.

When we arrived Craig took us for a drive to Pt Sampson and also showed us the Rio Tinto site that he drives trains for.  He delivers Iron Ore from the mines around Tom Price up to the port at Wickham. The whole operation was very impressive.

It was lovely to see Donna and the girls when they got home from school.  Donna drives the school bus which is a coach, we found it very funny when she came driving down the street.

That night Donna and Craig made us the best pizza's we have ever tasted in their pizza oven.  We now want to put a pizza oven in at home.

The next day we went out on Craig's boat and had a great day.  We travelled 60klms off shore and couldn't see land at all.  I thought I would have been scared not being able to see land but we were having so much fun it didn't bother me.  On the way out we saw dolphins, whales and lots of sea snakes.  We had a great day fishing and bought home some big fish including the two 15kg Mackerel that both Craig and Michael caught.  The boys enjoyed hitting the fish over the head with a baseball bat to kill them once they were in the boat.

That night we went to the Tavern for a yummy dinner.

In the morning we sadly started to pack up the van and Michael and Craig got talking and the next minute we are staying another night.  Everyone was happy.  That day we drove to Dampier and visited the Red Dog statue.  Then we met Donna in Karratha and had a coffee before the boys headed out in the tinny mud grabbing.  They bought home 2 grabs and Donna made a really nice chilli sauce to have on the grabs with fried rice.  It was the best meal we had had in a long time, it was beautiful.

The next morning we packed up and sadly said goodbye.

We look forward to having Craig, Donna and the girls stay with us in Sydney.  It's amazing how you can meet a family and you feel like you have known them forever.

Thanks again for a great few days.

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