The Parfitt Family Web Page

  Highway Robbery Well this gave a whole new meaning to the old saying "Highway Robbery". On the main Highway (heading north) almost at the turnoff to Tom Price is a Roadhouse called 'Nanutarra'. We had been warned by plenty of travelers that this place is expensive but we certainly didn't expect this. Firstly the fuel was the most expensive we have seen yet. Even on the Nullarbor the dearest diesel was only $1.70/litre compared to this place at $186.9 cents / litre. We worked out exactly how much diesel we needed to get to Tom Price and that was all we bought. As it was close to lunch time we stayed at the roadhouse and had something to eat in the van. In that 15 minutes we saw most cars pull up, look at the price and drive off. The only people who paid this ludicrous price were those who had no other choice. Even in Tom Price which is 355kms inland we only paid $153.5 cents/litre. That is 33.4 cents /litre cheaper. While we were having lunch a car towing a nice...

  Jurien Bay Continued Well as has become commonplace with us we ended up staying a few days longer than we planned in Jurien Bay and saw a few more sights. Our first visit was off to Lake Thetis to see a couple of stromatolites. This is one of the few sites in the world where living stromatolites can be found, occurring as domes of limestone around the edge of the lake. These guys are formed by the activity of microbial communities trapping and binding sediment and precipitating calcium carbonate from the water. Interesting hey. The dominant microbes are known as blue-green algae. These stromatolites are very slow growing and these are more than 1,200 years old. As you can imagine this was the highlight of the kids day. The adults on the other hand found it all very fascinating. Next stop was off to Sandy Cape which is only about 10 kms north of Jurien Bay. The kids were more excited about this part of the day because we were going to try out Wayne's sandboard on some of the dune...