Gladstone Camping Area

After leaving Red Bluff we headed back down to Carnarvon it was a school holiday for the queens birthday over here so we didn't know if anything would be open. Turns out the woolworths was, so we grabbed a few things & then filled our water tanks at the water tap at the information bay near town (there is limited drinking water south of here for a while) & kept going south as it was only lunchtime.

We had heard of a couple of free camps just south of carnarvon called Bush Bay & New Beach. We called into both, they were both okay for free spots & were right on the water. They were in areas where the water is really shallow though & amongst the salt flats & mangroves, nothing like our time at Red a Bluff so we decided to keep heading south. 

There was another campsite called Gladstone which is right on the beach on Yaringa Station. The cost was $5.50 per person per night & it had flushing toilets, but no other facilities. 

Gladstone 

We drove in & found a nice little bay area with lots of spread out campsites. The area does have bollards & designated sites, but they were big & spread out. 

Campsite above & below

There is rock wall that leads to an old jetty that used to be used for wool & timber, but it's old & rickety now & you can't walk on it. The water goes a long way out here as well at low tide, but it still had lovely blues & green colours in the water. The water is very shallow though. 

Old jetty with lots of cormorants resting on the end

We set up camp, it was pretty windy. We ducked back out down the road to cut some firewood. We cooked up some marinated chicken wings & veggies in foil for dinner & had to eat in the tent as it was so windy our dinner would of been cold in 2 seconds. It got pretty chilly as well, so we tucked ourselves in bed & had an early night. 

Old jetty

The next morning the wind had died off & it was a lovely day. We went for a walk to explore the rock wall & jetty & around the shoreline. Mat went for a fish (no luck though) & I caught up on some blog posts & took some wildflower photos with the macro lens on my camera. 

The wind picked up again in the afternoon but not as bad as the day before. Dinner was sausages & roast veggies & we packed up a bit of gear to leave the next morning. 

Gladstone was a pleasant camping spot. Good for an overnighter or a couple of days, more if you had a boat. It was pretty quiet. The road in was okay but they have had some rain recently so the track was a bit cut up, I don't think you would want to get stuck in there if it rained. Might scare off a few caravaners though! 

We stayed on the 29-30th of September 2014. 

One of the locals