Broome 3 - 17 July

We left Kununurra with no real plan on where we would travel to for the night. The drive was quite spectacular with lots of mountain ranges and interesting landscape. We were soon passing the morning tea set and stopped for lunch just past the turn off for Purnululu National Park, the home of the Bungle Bungles. A stop at Halls Creek for fuel and we were making good time so decided to push on. We thought we might stay at Mary’s Pool (will stay when we return) but still had a far amount of daylight so continued on to Fitzroy Crossing arriving about 5.30pm. The Fitzroy Crossing Lodge was full so we ended up staying out near the old tavern (the Crossing Inn) which we soon discovered was the ‘locals’ favourite drinking hole. The annual rodeo was scheduled for the coming weekend so it was especially busy. It didn’t really matter as we were both very tired from the long day’s driving and were asleep in no time.

Fitzroy Crossing is the gateway to Geike Gorge and we will definitely be visiting on our return but in the meantime we are on a mission to get to Broome. The drive to Broome was not as interesting as the previous day, a lot flatter and not as many trees although the boabs certainly are growing in girth.

We arrived at Ali and Dave’s about 2.00pm. No sign of the occupants so we followed their instructions and set ourselves up in the back (horse) paddock. We finally manoeuvred the van between the trees and made ourselves at home. A trip into town for a quick look and then home for dinner and to watch the Collingwood/Essendon game. At half time there were lights in the drive and our hosts appeared fresh (or not so fresh) from the Mitchell Plateau where they had spent the past 10 days hiking and camping. Time for a chat then they were off for a shower and a good night’s sleep. Stephen and I watched the rest of a very good game – Magpies winning of course. What a shame we weren’t at home to gloat!!

Saturday we spent the day reacquainting ourselves with Broome, did some hydrotherapy in the pool and watched a bit of footy. We had dinner with Ali and Dave and reminisced about our trip on the Great Escape last year and chatted about their recent trip to Italy. There was no shortage of conversation. Sunday we spent the afternoon on Cable Beach, as one does, and arranged some accommodation in Derby for a corroboree next Thursday night, the 9th of July. We also booked 3 days at Middle Lagoon camping on the Dampier Peninsula which we were very lucky to get as it is WA school holidays.

We have spent our days hobbling out to Gantheaume Point which has the most beautiful sandstone rocks with so many different colours and textures, buying a fishing rod for someone whose name starts with S and seems to have visions of catching fish, meeting with Catherine and Kevin in our cars on the beach for sunset drinks then eating out at a Thai restaurant, swimming in the pool and organising our camping gear for our few days at Middle Lagoon next week. Life is sooo tough!!

Ali has very kindly been looking after my rehabilitation and sent me to have some ultra sound treatment from a colleague. The foot is gradually improving and hopefully won’t take too long to heal.

Thursday morning up bright and early for our trip to Derby. On arrival we ‘did’ the township, took all of about 10 minutes, and then headed out to the Mowanjum Art and Cultural Centre. The corroboree was being held in a circular area outside the Centre so we set up our chairs and waited for dark. For some time we watched the Mowanjum children play in the dust on the arena. They were all decorated with ochre and special tribal clothing but still acted like all kids touching each other and then running off to be chased or jumping around the fires and making the adults worried while all the time not giving a tinkers cuss about the danger. The first ‘act’ was a group from One Arm Point (north of Cape Leveque). They were brightly decorated and very professional. Apparently they are off overseas next year to perform. There was a young boy of about 12 years of age that was terrific. The second group to perform were from the Tiwi Islands and let’s just say they weren’t as good as the first group. Finally the Mowanjum tribe performed and brought the house down (only there wasn’t one). There was lots of dust kicking, singing and stick clapping and many encores. We felt very privileged to attend (along with about 250 others) as it is the only corroboree to which white folk are invited but it is also the largest aboriginal ceremonial gathering in WA. The final dance everyone was invited to join in. I hope you will enjoy the photos of this event because it was quite spectacular.

We arrived back in Broome late on Friday where we spent the next few days getting prepared for our trip to Middle Lagoon. We also managed to squeeze in a few trips to the beach and some drinks with friends. We also took a drive up to Quondong Beach and Price's Point. Price's Point is very in the news as the WA Premier is keen for some big company to come and build a gas processing plant in the middle of the Kimberley. He is trying his best to not get reappointed for another term. Everywhere you go there are people asking you to sign petitions to stop him.

I should also point out that we now have a second camp site in the ‘back paddock’ at Ali and Dave’s. A family from Kangaroo Island are now sharing with us. On Sunday morning Dave had a big ‘cook up’ of bacon and eggs for all of us which lasted for most of the morning before we headed back to the van to pack.

Monday morning we left for the Dampier Peninsula. We stopped at Beagle Bay where we visited the church which has a beautiful pearl shell altar built by German priests before WW2. The same priests were to be interred during the war but the nuns who were working with them and the aboriginal communities said they would leave if the government did this so the government sent a guard to watch them at Beagle Bay instead. Who said women don’t rule the world?

On arrival at Middle Lagoon Stephen went into the office to find out which site we had been allocated. Not that easy!! No booking, no site. What!!! I had rung 10 days ago to arrange a site and the fellow had rung me back to confirm. Not happy. His reply to this was, “just find a spot somewhere over there and set up camp”. Hmmmm. I should point out that all of the camping areas up this way are run by the local indigenous communities. We found a spot “somewhere over there” and set up our tent. The area we were in had 3 sites and by the end of the day there were six camps on the 3 sites. Very cosy!! We had paid by card but several of them had been told cash only. He might sound as though he doesn’t know what he is doing, but I think he knows quite well. 3 sites at $15 per head would normally be $90 but he was making $180. No power, cold water and only a cleaner to clean the ablution block. This guy is making a killing with about 60 “official” sites on the property.

Enough of that, we stayed for 3 days and apart from the wind, which was howling for the first two days, we had a lovely time. We got the opportunity to test our camping gear and work out any kinks for our trip up the Gibb River Road. The beach was beautiful and Stephen got to try out his new fishing rod, unfortunately not with any success. We met a lovely couple from Mansfield and a d***head from Tweed Heads who had been a jet pilot one minute and a real estate salesman the next. He called Stephen ‘Pete’ for 3 days so we referred to him as ‘Dick’ for obvious reasons. It takes all sorts; I just wish they wouldn’t camp next to us!! On Wednesday we packed up then drove further on to Cape Leveque. We had a look around and then headed for the beach and a swim. A very beautiful beach although there were lots of rocks in the water at low tide which was a shame. We are thinking we might try and come back after our trip up the Gibb. After our swim we arrived back at our car to find Catherine and Kevin loitering around the ‘blue lux’. Our car is very distinctive and people are beginning to put notes on it saying they know we are nearby. We arranged to meet Catherine and Kevin at Divers in Broome for dinner that night.

We are off fishing on a charter tomorrow morning and no doubt will have so much fish on our return that we will be able to set up a stall at the market in Broome on Sunday morning.

Congratulations to our darling niece Justine and her husband Adrian who are now the proud parents of Mitchell Leonard ‘John’ (the saint’s name that needs to be included in all Hede children’s names) a bonnie 9 pounder who joined the clan on 12 July. Congrats also to Grandma Mary and Poppa Brian who are grandparents for the first time.

Happy birthday to Meg, our niece and, of course, the one and only Catherine Maree Hede (oops Foster) who also had a birthday this week. Sorry we weren’t there to join in the birthday fun but we did send a good present.

To finish this episode I will give you some important statistics which we have gathered during our trip just in case you might one day attempt such a journey.

• It takes 3 months at a leisurely pace to travel 14,000 kilometres pulling a caravan by car/blue lux.
• The largest road train we have seen, so far, has had 82 wheels.
• There are 96 white road lines and 4 white posts per one kilometre of road (yes, we counted).
• There is a repeater station approximately every 4 kilometres.
• An average of 4 'Wicked' vans per day.
• 100s of swooping kites (birds), road kill, tyre kill, abandoned cars (or temporary homes depending what race you are!) and dry creek beds.
• No clouds - ever
• 1,000,000s of termite mounds
• We have used 4 bars of soap, two tubes of toothpaste, but are still on our original shampoo and conditioner bottles (obviously the hair is becoming feral).
• it is too embarrassing to tell you the number of bottles of wine we have consumed since we left home, we'll just leave it in the 'many' category.
• Very little beer - not!!
  

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Timber Creek to Kununurra 21 June - 2 July

On arrival in Katherine we realised that not only was it a Saturday but also school holidays so a visit to the School of the Air was just not on. It was interesting to see the temperature of the pool had decreased by about 10 degrees since the last time we were there, it is winter after all!! We spent the rest of the day restocking with the essentials – food, alcohol etc and Sunday we had a big washing day. We gave our next door neighbour from Strathmore, Gary, a call and arranged to catch up with him while travelling from Katherine as he was heading there from the west.

On Monday we were up very early to Skype Maggie for her 4th birthday. I had forgotten how exciting birthdays are when you are four. We are missing our babies and were very sad we couldn’t share her day.

We headed off along the Victoria Hwy not sure exactly where we would go. About 100 kms west of Katherine we saw a white ute (think Murdoch / Falconio) flashing its lights at us – Gary. We pulled over and stood by the side of the road catching up. He had caught a good size barra while at Timber Creek and gave us a sampler from his freezer. He also suggested we stay at Timber Creek overnight and told us the best place to camp. All the morning tea caravans whizzed by us but we knew we would soon catch up to them when they stopped for their 2 hour lunch break. We are amazed by the nomads that get up at the crack of dawn and head off before we have gotten out of bed. They always stop for m/tea by the side of the road, get their table and chairs out, put the kettle on and have tea and cake for about 45 minutes. Why would you do this when you can stay in bed for an extra hour? We zoom by them as they are sipping their tea and orange cake. We stopped for lunch at Victoria River and were not very impressed by the roadhouse caravan park (very red and dusty) so continued on to Timber Creek. We noticed that they had a 4.00pm cruise up the Victoria River so we booked in then headed to the pool. Stephen managed to get in but I settled for dangling my feet in – too cold. The cruise up the Victoria was good value with lots of birds and prehistoric critters along the way and then a very pretty sunset before heading back down the river in the dark.

Up late as usual and off to Kununurra. The drive from Katherine to Kununurra proved to be quite interesting with the landscape changing quite a lot. It was not long before blue gums, boabs and kapok trees soon became the main flora and the flat land gave way to mountains. We were finally in the Kimberley. On arrival in Kununurra we booked into the Discovery Big 4. Not the best of sites, right next to the ‘dump point’, but very grassy (must be all the fertilizer). We really had no choice as the place was full. We drove into town to replenish our fruit and vegies as you cannot bring these into WA when you cross the border. We also ventured over to the Argyle Diamond shop to try on whatever was on display. Lots of very pretty pink diamonds. Tried on a little treasure which I thought looked quite lovely on my petite hand. It was a brown pink diamond with a lovely emerald cut diamond on either side. I obviously have very good taste as it had a price tag of $29,000. After Stephen dragged me out of the shop yelling and kicking we crossed the road where we ran into Carol Stanesby from Winchelsea. Carol and Ken camped next to us at Kennett for many years and we had not seen them for quite some time. We arranged to have dinner with them the following Thursday evening.

Wednesday we mooched around, reading and swimming, as the temperature had crept up to about 35 again. Wednesday night the management of the CP runs a “happy hour” for the camping ground so we joined in the fun. We caught up with Kevin and Catherine who we have also met along the way. Thursday we ‘did’ the local attractions and the galleries and we also commenced our “best mango smoothie in Kununurra” competition. We had dinner with Carol and Ken and the ‘crap-o-meter’ was running very high with stories of our days camping together. Stephen very kindly allowed me to drive home that night.

Just as we were leaving on Friday morning to drive to Wyndham our new best friends (Janet and Rob) arrived. We took the drive to Wyndham via the Ivanhoe Crossing dirt road. At the Wyndham end of this 70 kms stretch is Parry’s Lagoon, a wonderful wetland area. We were once more overcome by the beauty of the wetlands. We saw your Brolgas, your Rufus Night Heron, your Comb Crested Jacana, your Radjah Shelduck and of course your very large crocodile among loads of other beautiful fauna (Stephen’s commentary this time). We treated ourselves to a counter lunch at the Wyndham pub of barra and chips before driving to the port and then to the lookout over the five rivers. Friday night at the Big 4 is hamburger night and we queued up with all the other campers (pensioners) to enjoy our burger. We were joined by our new best friends, Rob, Janet, Kevin and Catherine for a drink after. We have for many years realised that you always surround yourselves with older friends, that way you are always the young ones, no matter how old you may be.

Saturday morning we rode our bikes to town for the Kununurra market. More mango smoothie tasting and some vegies and fruit cake purchasing. We also ran into Carol and Ken as they were heading off to the Bungle Bungles to go camping. By the time we rode home the temperature had climbed quite dramatically so we headed for the pool. After lunch we drove to the Stonecraft gallery to pick up a pendant I had ordered and to try their mango smoothies. They are leading the competition at this stage. The rest of the afternoon we watched the Magpies slaughter the Dockers on the telly. Saturday night a troupe of Gurkha from Nepal were camped in the grounds. They had been to Bradshaw Station training with the Australian Army. They put on an impromptu concert of Nepalese dancing and singing for the campers. One guy even did some Nepalese rapping??!! All in all, a great day.

Sunday Stephen drove for 2 hours there and back to Wyndham, as you do, to take 4 photos of the 5 rivers at high tide. I stayed at home and alternated between reading and swimming in the pool for the day. We watched some new neighbours set up their van, always good sport if tempers are short after a long drive. Sunday evening we had booked to go to a restaurant, the Pumphouse, with the ‘4 new best friends’. They have a wood fired pizza oven outside on the deck and we had some delicious pizzas for dinner washed down with some Crownies and a bottle of red. Stephen and I were keen to go to this restaurant as last year when we were in Kununurra it opened on the night we left so we hadn’t a chance to eat there. We all had a very nice evening, no shortage of chat.

Monday we ventured out to the ‘little Bungles’ or Mirima National Park for a walk to the lookout. We had only gone 600 metres or so when I walked over a rock and fell twisting my ankle. There was a loud crack and all was not looking too good. Fortunately the path ran parallel to the road so Stephen went back and got the car then carried me to the car, quite comical if my foot hadn’t hurt so much. We drove straight to the hospital where an x-ray revealed torn ligaments and fortunately no break. The doctor recommended I stay off it for two to three days then no bushwalking for 2 – 4 weeks. Groan! Our trip to the Gibb River Road looks like it could be in jeopardy. Unfortunately we had booked to go on a flight on Tuesday morning over the Bungle Bungles and a cruise on Lake Argyle in the afternoon so both were cancelled and our money was refunded, which was very lucky. After a long sleep in the afternoon (good drugs!!) we were joined for dinner by our friend Scott from Kununurra. Scott is a tour guide for Kimberley Cruises and we met him a couple of years ago when we did a 4x4 course in Melbourne and again last year when we were in Kununurra to go on our boat trip. He is a lovely young man and we spent a very pleasant evening with him.

The next two days we spent hanging around the van and pool as I wasn’t in very good condition to do much else. One good outcome was that we got to use the ‘disabled’ bathroom – no sharing. We had numerous discussions on what we might do and have decided to leave on Thursday and head for Broome where I will convalesce. Once I have fully recovered we’ll tackle the Gibb River road with the tent. This will be “real camping” not the wusses version in a van.

For when you next visit Kununurra the results of the mango smoothie competition using the following criterion in the judgement: flavour, consistency, size, ambience and cost were:

1. The Salad Bowl Café
2. Stonecraft Gallery (yes they produce zebra stone as well as smoothies)
3. Ivanhoe Farm Café

We also had a very exciting phone call from Ken and Maree to announce the early arrival of their first grandchild, Archer Henry. Rachel, Vin and bubs all well. Congratulations to the Maher family.

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