Regional Visit

As part of my work as a hospital pharmacist I have to travel the smaller remote siteswithin our region (The Gascoyne) and conduct a 'regional visit'.  I was lucky enough to be able to co-ordinate this with mom this time as she needed to go up there to for her work.  We drove up on the Monday, a four hour drive north from Carnarvon to Exmouth.  What is interesting is passing through Learmonth and seeing all of the communication towers and runways and signs saying "Do not enter' in the middle of nowhere about 50km before you get into Exmouth.  I have heard all sorts of stories about what used to happen here, that because of the soldiers stationed here from the US they used to ship in brands of US food, that there is a duty-free wet mess and they used to be able to invite friends in to drink for cheap and that there are all sorts of buildings there that you can't see from the road! I don't know how much of it is true or how much is just a good story but it certainly makes that last half hour of the drive pass a little quicker!
When we arrived in Exmouth it was lunchtime so we went to Kailis http://www.exmouthwa.com.au/accom_result1/exmouth-fish-co/ for lunch.  They catch tiger and king prawns in the gulf there so we bought a beautiful box of fresh steamed prawns with seafood sauce and a warm bread roll for lunch.  There would have been photos but I figured it wasn't a good idea to operate my camera with prawny hands! Before lunch we took a quick detour over the road from the big prawn to Charles Knife Gorge, just beautiful.  One of those places where pictures don't do it justice.

After lunch there was some work involved.... After work we went to dinner at Mantarays Restaurant at the Noveotel Ningaloo Hotel, it has won all sorts of fine country dining awards and we could both see why.  One of the nicest dinnersI have had in ages :) Beautiful setting, great service and really, REALLY good food. http://www.novotelningaloo.com.au/eat.html

The next morning (after a bit more work!) we drove onto Coral Bay nursing post, via Pebble Beach.  As the name suggests, it is a beach made entirely of really cool looking pebbles! Perhaps not so good for jogging on (rolled ankles galore) but very pretty all the same...

It really is a beautiful place where we live!