Broome

Alexander's alarm was set to 5:30AM and we got up before 6AM, packed up and left just as the sun was rising above the horizon to greet the new day.

The track out of Barnhill Station is a bit slow with some badly corrugated areas, speed humps and 3 gates. After the 10km track we were back on the bitumen highway heading for Broome - the last destination on our journey before we turn around to come home.

Listening to the radio on the way we heard that this week is the busiest week of the whole year in Broome.

Three factors are responsible for this scenario:

1) best time of year, dry and warm but not too hot.

2) middle of school holidays in W.A. and N.T.

3) Staircase to the Moon visible Sat, Sun and Mon.

All caravan parks are fully booked for weeks so we went to Broome Caravan park on the outskirts of town which had been recommended to us by other travellers. The has a number of sites which can be booked but others which they don't book at all.

We lobbed up at the park just after 8AM and were second in line. As other people packed up and left they those sites became available to us. It didn't take very long and they showed us a site where other people were just pulling out. By 9AM we were parked and as luck would have it Alan and Judy got the site next to us.

We set up a great little camp with a communal area between out two vans. Although the site is not directly shaded, it does have shade from nearby trees in the afternoon. The park has a great swimming pool - kids are very very happy.

The first job in Broome was to visit Kimberley Camping (shop), then the jetty and then Woolies and Brumbys. It was mid afternoon before we got back to the caravan. After a bit of a rest we were off to see the Dinosaur footprints at Gantheaum point which are only exposed at low tide.

On the way there we picked up Caitlin (here for 12mth) and her sister Melissa (visiting for 1 week), both from Kiewa, as they don't have their own transport.

Gantheaum point was busier than Burke street - it seemed everyone in Broome was out there watching the sunset. We walked out to the footprints and admired the sunset then drove to the jetty and walked out to the end chatting with the fishermen (and woman).

Back at the caravan we had a quick, late dinner and then joined a friendly group of neighbours playing guitar and singing until late in the evening.

Rest & Recreation

Another fresh night (16DegC) gave way to a glorious day with blue sky and sunshine. The caravan next to us moved out and I immediately alerted Alan who was on an unpowered site at the other end of the park. As soon as the office opened (9am) the changed their booking and moved into the shaded and powered site next to us.

Mornings are quite busy with queues at the office for site changes and at the shop for the fresh bread which arrives at 9am. School holidays means the place is buzzing with people. Many of the long term holiday makers from Perth have their sons and daughters with grand children staying here for the holidays.

Apparently Broome is also very busy as this coming weekend people can see the Staircase to Moon for about 3 nights. Caravan sites are very scarce but we will try our luck tomorrow morning and see if we can find a spot.

Most of our day was spent around the caravan as the phone signal was very good all day which allowed me to do some work on the computer. Although it was rather warm in the afternoon, a slight breeze kept us very comfortable.

For the evening we went back to the beach again admiring the sunset before retiring back to our caravan for dinner, packing up and then of to bed so we can have an early start tomorrow morning.

Barn Hill Station

We had a few spots of rain overnight and the red dirt has become even stickier than before. Now that we've been in the red (so to say) for nearly a week everything has a red tinge. The red dust from the road even penetrates the caravan windows and sits on the inside of the van. We're using our annex matt under the awning to give us a "clean" area before we enter the caravan.

This morning started out overcast with a few raindrops but by 8am it was partially sunny as we drove the 20km dirt track back to the highway. Back on the highway we headed North, towards Broome, for another 15km and then turned West onto a 10km dirt track into Barn Hill station.

Barn Hill is fairly small station with only 43,000 acres where they run about 5000 head of Brahmen destined for the live export market in Indonesia. On the 10km track into the station we saw many caravans heading out. When we arrived at the caravan park section, just on 9am, we expected plenty of sites but to our surprise we got the only available powered site! Alan, who was just behind us, had to take unpowered and ended up right on the other end of the park. Powered sites have only 6 Amps available, just enough to run the basics but no Kettle or Aircon.

We've stayed at Barn Hill on our last trip and I seem to remember that it wasn't anywhere near as large as it is now. I'm not sure how many sites they've got, but I'd say between 100 and 200. The unpowered areas have generators in use and ca be a bit noisy at times.

Typical Broome weather now with 30 DegC during the day and nice warm evenings. Although yesterday was a bit cool with only 25 DegC due the cloud. The close proximity to Broome (about 100km on the road) also means that we can get patchy phone reception in certain area. Back at Port Smith I had to drive to a small hill and stand on car to get phone reception but here it seems to be quite good near the beach.

We got freshly baked bread from the station for lunch and spent the afternoon lazying around - can't do too much in this heat!

Later in the afternoon we ventured to the west facing beach and admired the glorious colours of the sun setting over the indian ocean.

Fishing Spots

Tonight was a bit cool and we woke to an overcast sky. We lazed around for most of the morning and every now and then a few spits of rain fell on the awning but the ground never got wet.

After lunch we drove to the lagoon and once again launched Alan's inflatable so him and Judy could go for paddle out to the lagoon mouth.

The time was very near low tide and the lagoon has nearly emptied and only a few deep water holes are left.

We crossed an outrunning channel in a shallow area and walked out along the edge of the lagoon. From the oyster covered sandstone cliffs we could look down in the water and see the fish. We spotted a few turtles a few large fish with their dorsal fins out of the water.

A few fisherman were catching Travelly and Mangrove Jack. We found the remains of a shark on the beach. He was caught about an hour before we got there. Once a shark is caught the fishermen immediately remove the fins and head, apparently this is to prevent ammonia from the fins going into the flesh.

We manages to get back over the channel before the tide got too high and walked back looking at the big fish chasing the little ones on the incoming tide. This area is really fascinating, just walking along the edge of the water can provide hours of entertainment.

We returned to the caravan park where I refuelled the car at $1.95/lt before staring the pickup process. The sky was looking very ominous and I didn't fancy packing up wet tomorrow morning.

At 5pm we went to a Bush Poetry performance in the caravan park. One of the long term guests, Roger Cracknell, presented some very funny and well presented yarns and tall stories which had us laughing for about over an hour.

Later in the evening we could hear a little bit of rain on the caravan roof. I just hope we don't get too much rain as this would turn fine red dust on the road into a soupy slurry.

Sailing

The nights are very temperate in this climate and around 3 or 4am a little breeze kicks in and with 15DegC its almost cool in the early morning hours.

By 8am the sun has warmed things up to 20DegC and today we reached 29DegC in the afternoon.

Life revolves around tide times and we left an hour before low tide to get to the lagoon. Yesterday we inflated Alan's kayak and this morning we launched it and explored the lagoon. The wind was keeping the temperature very nice but made the paddling a harder. I was very much hoping that we wouldn't find any crocs during our exploration or any other large marine life such as sharks which could easily sink the inflatable.

After a bit of paddling Alan had the great idea that we could rig up sail on the kayak and use it to cruise around the lagoon with the wind helping us. As we are both sailors it didn't take long to produce a makeshift spinnaker using a paddle for a mast and broomstick as a pole to hold up our poly tarp sail. A bit or string to hold it all together and to be used for sheets and we were off.

Although our plan was to sail on a beam reach across to the other side some unforeseen technical issues with the rig meant we ended up somewhere downwind and no way to sail back. We pulled down the rig, got out and pulled the kayak back to where we started. Although the mission was declared a partial success we decided to abort until some improvements to the rig could be made.

The kids did a bit of paddling, some swimming and lots of exploring in the sand but the turning tide soon reminded us to go back before were cut off.

We had a late lunch, meet some people from Albury, had a bit more of chat and the day was over.

When I returned to the caravan Alexander had been missing for some time and was last seen heading to the toilets. Just as I set off to search for him, he turned up and told us that he was locked in a toilet/shower cubicle with the door jammed and couldn't get out until someone else came to open the door.

There are quite a few Kangaroos living in the caravan park and they apparently are not scared of going into caravans to find food.

The Port Smith area is also home to an Aboriginal community located just south of the caravan park It is said to be one of the largest communities in Australia with a population between 1000 and 5000 depending on the time of year and what's on. They have no shops in the community, just a takeaway and a police station.

Tidal Island

Sunday morning is always great as we lie in bed listening to Macca on the radio. We slept all night with windows wide open and nice breeze coming through to keep us at a nice temperature.

After a fairly late breakfast and the usual morning chat with others around us the time got away and we arrive a little bit late at the lagoon to start exploring on foot. The lagoon is big and has a mostly sandy bottom with tidal channels where the water rushes in and out. A mangrove covered island is located on the northern end and can be reached by crossing a couple of tidal channels.

As we walked out onto the sand the tide was still running out and we (Alexander, Alan and I) decided to explore the island. We had to cross water but it was only ankle deep. Once on the island we found a track through the mangroves and came out on the other side where we found deep pools surrounded by rock.

The whole island was covered in oysters. They were even hanging of the mangrove leaves. The rocks were covered in oysters all over and therefore very very sharp. I'd hate to fall over or slip on these rocks - servere cuts would be guaranteed.

As we explored along the island we saw a number of turtles with some coming up very close and playing happily in the shallow water. A blue spotted sting ray (photo) made an appearance and showed us his brilliant blue colours.

We slowly made our way back to the land side of the island by climbing along the rocks. When we finally caught a glimpse of the sand flat we used to get across we found the sandlot gone. A reasonably strong tide had been running in for some time and we didn't notice the tide turning as we frolicked on the other side of the island.

Once we realised the error of our ways and decided that we didn't want to spend the night on a mangrove island, we got a move on across the remaining rocks and then picked what looked like the shallowest water to walk back across (photo) in a rather hurried pace due to the continuously rising tide. We made it just in time but got a little bit wetter than anticipated. Just as well the tides a low at the moment, if they were any higher we'd have been "swimming against the tide".

When we got back to the caravan we booked another two nights so we'd have more time to explore further. After late lunch and a rest we went to the evenings entertainment which was provided by a couple singing and playing Ukelele. It turns out the entertainers come from Wangaratta but we've had to travel to other end of the continent to meet them!

Port Smith Lagoon

After another late night we packed up reasonably early but then got talking to a few people before we finally got going after 9am. We did invite the German globe trotters to visit us at home when the they reach that part of the country - very interesting people full of hands-on knowledge about the world. Here is a link to their [very interesting] website.

Our first stop today was Pardoo roadhouse, only 45 kms from Pardoo station, where we refuelled. We battled into a strong headwind and fuel consumption was over 26lt/100km. The landscape has now changed from the undulating Pilbara to wide plains covered with low trees and shrubs. We've also seen large patches that have been hit by bushfire recently.

It seems strange that we are well into the tropics here yet with rainfall totals of 300mm/year this area is a lot drier then Albury - and I always thought tropics are wet.

However, this area is actually classified as "tropical-arid" which seems somewhat of an oxymoron.

Now that we have seen a few cattle stations I realise that out here some of the century old skills are still in high demand. A man who can ride a horse and muster cattle can always get a job in the bush around here, just like a hundred years ago.

We saw a few mobs of cattle by the side of the road and they seemed to be chewing on the small trees which are very green and plentiful. The temperature is now well up with 32DecC today but the air is fairly dry. The soil is orange-red and ground up into very fine dust which penetrates every little crack of caravan and car.

After driving 140km from Pardoo roadhouse we arrived at Sandfire roadhouse around lunch time and topped up with fuel again before continuing on for another 170km before turning onto a dirt road. The road took us another 20km to Port Smith Lagoon caravan park where we set up camp.

The park is quite nice but grass is a rare commodity and most sites at just red dirt. The water in this park comes from a bore 5km up the road and is very nice with no salt whatsoever.

A short trip down the road is the lagoon which is suitable for swimming - they tell us there are no crocs here. I'm not sure if I should believe that so I'm not likely to try it.

Here is the link to today's travel map