Around Carnarvon we started our day at the Gascoyne Growers’ Market, include picking up our next coffee (Ningaloo Roast). Our last, and most important, stop before heading to Shark Bay is the Space Museum.
The dish here was designed for relaying communications, including the first live broadcast from the UK to Australia, and the Apollo 11 moon landing! For the moon landing they tracked all kinds of data, including recording Neil Armstrong’s heart rate on a paper monitor.
It has been decommissioned since 1987 and now serves as a museum to all things space. The resident cat introduces himself on entry and we explore the analogue hardware terminals (some returned to the museum as families discover them in grandpa’s shed, taken while the station was disused).
It has a quirky, community-run vibe; but also, an impressive life-sized replica of the lunar lander.
On the drive out of Carnarvon we begin to meet our first real road traffic of the trip. It’s the start of school holidays in WA and everyone seems to get their boat or caravan and head north. I start sensing other cars are having that family road trip turned pressure-pot experience, and people are starting to make some bad driving decisions (see this little dashcam below of a car-caravan getting back into his lane only a second before we pass!). Our relaxed time frame puts us on a different planet to these fellow holiday-ers, and it’s great!!
We arrive in Shark Bay in the mid-afternoon and have dinner going by sunset.
