We finally made it back to Broome, and I never thought I would say this, but it was good to be home (in the van!!!) after 3 weeks in the tent. Had lots of stories for Ali and Dave.
It was Tuesday and we headed straight for the bank on our return as we had been having a problem with our credit card for the past week – it wouldn’t work. We soon discovered the bank had cancelled it, some story about our number being in the public domain which is not good, however it would have been nice if they had informed us before they had cancelled it as we were now left with no credit facilities at all. We had intended to leave Broome on our return from the GRR but now needed to stay until new cards arrived by Thursday/Friday. When they hadn’t arrived by Friday we were then told Tuesday. Poor Ali and Dave, we were so embarrassed to be still at their place after they had been so kind to take us in, in the first place.
However I must say we enjoyed our extra week in Broome. We met up with Bill Wilding and took him up to Cape Leveque, a mere 200 kms north, for the day. If you were at home and decided to travel 400 kms on a day trip people would think you were crazy but when you see how vast the land is up here, it is nothing. We had a great day swimming and lying in the sun. Stephen and Bill bored me silly in the car talking about electronics and telecommunications, although I must admit I finally learnt about what Stephen does at work after all these years. We stopped at the Beagle Bay bakery for morning tea, then the church and spoke with the local hermit Irish priest who lives in the community. Then it was onto Lombardina where we also visited the very unique church. I was interested to read in the St Kevin’s Newsletter this week that they now have a connection with the primary school there and have some of the local kids coming down to Melbourne later in the year. Unbeknown to us, the Head of Glendalough, Peter Finnigan, and some of the boys from SKC were at the Lombardina primary school on the day we were there. All in all, a great day. Bill very kindly cooked dinner for us the following evening and it was shared with Shane and Barclay who live in the Brothers' house in Broome – what a hardship that must be!!
We took time to visit the Willie Creek Pearl Farm which was very interesting. We caught up with Richard and Sandra at Cable Beach one evening for a drink and nibbles and heard Richard’s tale of woe about going on a fishing charter and losing his wallet and keys overboard. We tried to not laugh but that just didn’t happen. Other than that we spent quite a lot of time at the beach swimming and enjoying the weather.
Finally on Tuesday we got our new cards and bid Ali and Dave a fond farewell on Wednesday morning. We would like to thank them for their hospitality and the use of their ‘horse paddock’.
The 300 kms to Eighty Mile Beach could only be described as very boring and it appears as though most of the trip down the coast will be the same. Unfortunately the road is about 10 – 20 kms away from the sea most of the time so you never see the water.
We had to spend one night on an unpowered site. A quick walk on the beach with the tide so far out we couldn’t reach the water, dinner and early to bed as we had no TV and I could hardly expect Stephen to speak to me after all these months away. The next morning we moved to a powered site then spent the next 4 days sitting on the beach reading, fishing and walking along the sand. With 80 miles of it you don’t run out of sand to walk on. We also gathered lots of shells for Maggie and Frankie. Stephen had a great time trying out his new fishing rod and he provided dinner on 2 nights with some lovely fresh from the sea; threadfin salmon. The evenings were quite weird with sea fog rolling in and wetting everything inside and out of the caravan. We just had to put up with wet things as it was far to warm to close the windows and door. On the last night we rolled up the awning, took up the mat and stored the table and chairs away before they got wet, so naturally, the wind was blowing and there was no fog – Murphy’s Law. All of this, of course, made for an early get away the next morning. Eighty Mile Beach was very nice but there is no swimming and I certainly understand why because we watched the fishermen reel in little and big sharks on a regular basis. Even if you could swim there you wouldn’t be able to, as it is wall to wall fisherpersons and you would end up with a hook in a place I can’t mention. I was amazed at the number of women fishing, all ages and all sizes.
The drive to Port Hedland was as boring as the drive from Broome but just as we reached the town things started to get interesting. It was a miracle!!! Stephen’s head began to swivel far more than it had since his accident last year. There were cranes, trucks, trains, boats, salt flats and mound after mound of black and brown iron ore. At one stage his eyes were popping out of his head so I offered to drive the rest of the way in so that he could take it all in, and also because I feared for my safety. This seemed to snap him out of it as that would never do. One doesn’t allow one’s wife to drive the van into the caravan park, it’s not very macho. We were so lucky to have the help of the gardener/maintenance man to assist with the backing in of the van. After 20 minutes of trying to follow his directions and nearly wrecking the car and van I was very tempted to tell him to naf off as we have previously had no trouble at all with this task. We finally settled in and found our NVONBFs (now very old new best friends) Janet and Rob. The last time we saw them was at Windjana Gorge on the Gibb River Road, and only very briefly, so we had lots of catching up to do. We invited them to dinner and had a wonderful night chatting and telling stories of what we had been up to.
Janet and Rob left the next morning for ??? somewhere - they’ve gone now so who cares (of course I say this with love and affection), but we will catch up with them at Karijini or Exmouth in a week or so. Stephen and I spent the morning watching a ship dock and fill up with iron ore at the port. I once had a similar experience watching grass grow. The afternoon was spent catching up on emails and phone calls.
We woke at 6.00am (yes that’s correct we are two hours behind y’all) to ring Fynn for his birthday. After talking to him and hearing how many figurines he had got for his birthday we went outside to find the van covered in dew. The fog was back. From now on we will have to take this into consideration as we move further south. After drying everything off, we moved onto Karratha. We sang happy birthday and watched Fynn cut his cake on Skype later in the day. I am starting to desperately miss the kids.
You are nobody in Karratha if you don’t wear blue denim overalls with a yellow safety shirt and steel capped boots or drive a Toyota 4x4. We felt very out of place with our shorts, tee shirts and thongs but fitted into the Toyota category quite well. We were here to go on the port loading facility tour but had a day to fill in before this so decided on a drive to Millstream - Chichester NP. We were pleasantly surprised by this little trip as the scenery was fantastic with rolling hills and majestic mountains with iron ore trains weaving in and out much to Stephen’s delight. He even got a blast of the train’s horn from one of the driver’s as he was scrambling to take a photo of this enormous train with 230 carriages and pulled along by 3 locomotives. Also the wildflowers are beginning to come out and make the roadside much more interesting.
We visited the homestead which is now an information centre then walked to the nearby river which had been badly damaged in the last wet. We had lunch by Crossing Pool and Stephen even managed to fit in a kip after lunch before we returned to Karratha.
The next morning we spent doing the tour of the port which frankly was a bit ho hum (Stephen’s words not mine). We decided to move to Point Samson where the caravan park was right on the beach and we could swim and then get eaten by the sand flies. The pub was next door and a little café called Moby’s which sold great fish and chips. We also took the opportunity to visit Wickham – boring – and Cossack which was the original port in the area in the late 1800s. It is now a heritage centre and was quite interesting. The beach here was quite spectacular and we watched a guy kite surfing.
We are now off to Karijini for more red dust and hopefully lots of wonderful walks and gorges to keep us busy.
http://picasaweb.google.com.au/stephen.hede/BroomeEightyMileBeachPortHedlandKarrathaPointSamson?authkey=Gv1sRgCKDbtY3xx8DxJg#
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