Last day in Broome and then heading south

Well as I told you in the last blog, we went down to Cable Beach and parked on the beach to watch the camels heading off with their passengers for their sunset ride. There are three companies who do camel rides on the beach. Apparently quite recently they had a falling out and came to blows on the beach. So off to court they went and the judge said that from now on they were not to come within 150 metres of each other. So now they all leave from different areas of the beach. They all wear different colours and never even look at one another.

Red camel train on the move

Cars on Cable Beach watching the sunset

Cruise boat, kayaker and a wave on Cable Beach

Blue camel train ready to go

We then headed to Barn Hill Station which is about 130km south of Broome. Barn Hill is a working cattle station which runs 8000 head of cattle for the live export market. It is 43,000 acres and stretches 85km along the coast between Broome and Port Hedland. It is right on Eighty Mile Beach and they have set aside a huge area to accommodate all sorts of caravans, motorhomes, campervans, tents etc. They bake fresh bread and rolls, vanilla slices, lamingtons, pizzas each day. It is a great spot. We are camped in the unpowered with generator area. It is a big camp site and from our awning and back window, you look straight out on to the Indian Ocean.
The sunsets are fantastic with beautiful red sky just after the sun has gone down.

We walk down to the beach each day. The sand stretches for miles and the rock formations are extraordinary.

We have had a young family beside us for the last couple of days who also have a Bushtracker. They are from Newcastle and have sold up and have been travelling around Australia all of this year. They are heading north towards Broome.

Last night about 6.30pm I was on the way back from the toilet using the torch as there are no lights. I saw a movement near my feet and quickly jumped sideways. It was a small snake and he wasn't too happy to see me. I called out to a man in a tent nearby and he came over to have a look. It was a whip snake, which is only small but venomous. He touched its tail to see what colour it was underneath and its head reared up angrily. We left it to go on its way and I decided for the rest of the toilet visits I would be very careful where I walked.

This morning after breakfast I was just looking out to sea when I saw whales blowing and breaching. They were quite a way out to sea but you could see them quite well through the binoculars. Mother and calves have started their journey down the coast back to cooler waters after giving birth in the warmer waters to the north, so we expect to see more as we head south.

Today is Saturday and we leave on Monday to head down to Eighty Mile Beach Caravan Park for a couple of nights and then to Pardoo Station which is nearer to Port Hedland. We are not staying in Port Hedland as it is too expensive, about $65 a night for a powered carvan site. We are heading out to Indee Station which is on the Great Northern Highway and from there we will head back into Port Hedland for the day. We have been told there isn't much of a signal between here and Port Hedland so hopefully when we get to Indee Station there will be a signal and I can keep you up to date with our adventures.

Broome

We are now in Broome but a few things happened in Derby before we left. I told you we caught a mud crab and had him for lunch. Well here is the photo of him just after he was caught and put in the bucket.

Did I tell you before that it was delicious. Well,it was.

On our last full day in Derby, Ray got a text message from his mate Rick, who we have known for years and years. He said that he and Lorraine had just arrived in Derby. Now they didn't realise that we were still here, and they were in the same caravan park. So we wandered down to see them and had a great reunion. They came around and had dinner with us that night and we had a great catch up. They were heading back to Kununurra on the Sunday to pick up their van. (They had tented across the Gibb). We headed to Broome the next day, Saturday. We will probably catch up down the west coast somewhere.

Saturday, we arrived in Broome. We had a bit of a juggle to get into our alloted space at Palm Grove Resort but after much shuffling we settled. Broome is packed. There are heaps of people everywhere. The overflow areas of the caravan parks are full and threre is even overflows off the overflows. All of the apartments have the "No Vacancy" signs up.

On Sunday we had booked a tour of Willie Creek Pearl Farm for 9am, so we left camp about 8am to drive out there. It is off Cape Leveque Road and on the way we passed the protestors who have set up camp on the corner of Cape Leveque Road and Manari Road. They are protesting against the Gas Plant, Woodside is going to build at James Price Point. They are very well organised and are drumming up support all around the area.

Anyway, back to Willie Creek. We had a talk about how pearls are formed and then we went on a boat ride out onto the creek and then back to the pearl shop.

$8500 worth of pearls

Oyster cleaning boat

Willie Creek Pearl farm

Pearls

 But the highlight of our morning was that we went on a helicopter ride. We flew up to Quandong Point and back. It was amazing.

Entrance of Barred Creek from the air

Entrance of Willie Creek from the air

Looking south towards Broome

Willie Creek

Willie Creek Pearl Farm from the chopper

We then went back to town and organised to meet Tony and Chris ( a fellow I used to work with at Boral, and his wife, who also own a Bushtracker Van) at Zanders bar at Cable Beach. Cable Beach was very crowded. The backpackers camp in the car park at the beach and no one moves them on. We watched the sunset for a while had a couple of drinks and caught up and then went home.

Cable Beach looking south

On Monday we went for a drive down to the boat ramp and walked out on to the jetty. I have never seen a sea so blue. It really is beautiful with the contrast of the white sand.
There were several people fishing from the jetty but catching nothing. We saw a sea snake swimming alongside the jetty but he dived before we could get a photo.

Broome boat ramp

Broome wharf and jetty

Looking south from jetty

Rocks beside the jetty

The area around Broome is really lovely but Broome itself is so busy. There is a lot of residential building work going on and the town is packed with tourists. I know that we are tourists also and the town would suffer if there weren't any. The town just doesn't seem to have any atmosphere.Also everything is very expensive. We went into the town centre yesterday to get some lunch and just went to a local fish and chip shop. We had golden snapper and chips for 2 and a bottle of coke and it cost $32. A normal hamburger is $14. But those prices were the same at Derby so the prices in the area are high.

We are going down to Chinatown today and down to Gantheaume Point for a look. Gantheaume Point is at the south end of Cable Beach. The north end of Cable Beach, just beyond the main beach is a nudist beach and you can see all sorts of older bodies which need ironing, but we didn't go there.
Gantheaume Point was a real surprise. The red rocks contrasting with the bright blue sea was amazing.

Fishing boat off Gantheaume Point

Rocks at Gantheaume Point

Looking back at Cable Beach from Gatheaume Point

Maura on the rocks

Gantheaume Point rocks

 We then drove down on to the beach and watched the fishermen launching their boats into the water straight off the beach.

Ray and Effie at the beach

Cars and trailers lined up on the beach

Next stop was the Japanese cemetery. There are 900 Japanese buried here dating back to 1896. They are mostly pearl divers who lost their lives after diving and getting the bends. Many also died in cyclones in the early 1900's.

One of the Japanese graves. They are kept in good condition

This grave was for Mrs Sakamo who died in 1926

We then went and had a look at Chinatown, which is really the town centre. Although there is not much evidence of the Chinese being there, the centre has been renovated to look like a Chinese town. There are heaps of pearl stores and the usual eateries, clothes shops and souvenir shops. We bought some T shirts for Bailey, Emma and Ashlee and I bought some beads. I am going to design and make a necklace which reminds me of The Kimberley, with red ochres, blues and stone colours.
I bought a couple of books on the history of Broome, as it is quite colourful.
We have decided the part of Broome which we don't like is Cable Beach as it is just too busy.
We are going to head down to Cable Beach later on and take a few photos of the camels. I will put that in the next Blog.

Adventures in Derby, WA

Derby

I forgot to tell you a few things. On our trip from Fitzroy Crossing to Derby we got held up by a fuel tanker which had rolled over and they were transferring fuel from one truck to another. They originally said we would be held up for 4 hours but it turned out we were only held up for about an hour or so.  The following photo shows the line of traffic but all we could do was chat and wait.

Long line of traffic waiting for road to open

Now, the afternoon we got to Derby we went to Woolies Liquorland to get some wine. There are some restrictions here. You can't buy any alcohol in casks and you can't buy any fortified wine, e.g. Port, sherry etc. So what does the indigenous guy in front of us buy. Two bottles of bourbon and a large bottle of coke. I ask you, which does the most damage!!!!

The next afternoon we were relaxing at the caravan park. I was inside working on the last blog and Ray called out, we have visitors. It was Bob and Helen, friends we made in Brunswick Heads last year. We knew they were travelling up here but hadn't realised they had caught up with us. Bob had been looking at every Bushtracker van he saw and looked to see if an F250 was towing it. When he came into the caravan park he saw us. So we arranged to go down to the restaurant on the jetty for lunch the next day.
We have been going down to the jetty trying to catch mud crabs. We have got a few but they were undersize until yesterday when we caught a legal size one which we have cooked and put in the fridge for lunch today(Thursday 21st). And it was delicious.

We went down to the jetty on Friday night to watch the sunset and decided to have take away for tea while we were there.

Sunset from the jetty in Derby

Just to give you an idea of the prices. A burger with the lot, bacon and egg etc. $14.00 take away. And
that is fairly normal up here. So you don't have take away too often.

Over the weekend we had some disturbed nights sleep as the local indigenous young people like to party in the marshes at the back of the caravan park and like all young people get a bit noisy after a few drinks. But they usually quieten down by about 4am!!

We went for a drive out to The Prison Boab Tree which has a lot of history. It was quite impressive and about 1500 years old.

Prison Boab Tree, Derby

Then we went for a drive to the wetlands to see what birds were there. It turned out to be at the local waste water facility, in other words the sewerage plant. So we didn't stay there for long. I wondered why there only appeared to be brown birds there.

When we went down to the jetty on Friday night, unbeknown to me I got bitten by sand flies. No they don't usually bother me. I am a mosquitoe type of person. But get me they did. I ended up having to go to the chemist and get some anti histamines and some antiseptic cream. They are just starting to ease off now although I still have some angry red spots on my legs. Ray, who is loved by sand flies got off scot free. I reckon it is because he is not drinking Tooheys New at the moment and is drinking Tooheys Extra Dry. The sandflies don't like the Extra Dry.

Horizontal Falls Trip

On Tuesday 19th July we went on the trip to Horizontal Falls. We got picked up at the caravan park at 2.15pm and were taken to Derby airport, where we boarded a sea plane which flew us to Talbot Bay.



The sea plane

 On the way we flew over the sand flats which surround Derby. These vary in size as Derby has the second highest tides in the world. Anything up to 11 metres difference. When the king tides come the flats are completely covered.

We landed at a pontoon attached to a huge house boat, a fast boat, a large kitchen and eating area boat, another large fast boat and a smaller cruise boat as well as a variety of other small boats.

Our destination from the sea plane

 We were shown to our cabins and then we went for a swim in a shark cage also attached to the pontoon.

 Ray was in first and the  crew attracted these big lemon sharks to the side of the cage about 5 cm from Rays face.

 There was also a huge 200kg groper which came for a look and a feed of fish.

The groper in the process of pulling a fish off the rope

 I did eventually go in also.

The fast boat

Next up we boarded the fast boat. It has 2 x 300hp motors on the back and holds 10 people and the driver. We travelled up Talbot Bay to Crystal Creek to have a look at the accommodation some of the crew sleep in at night.

While there the boat driver showed us some of his pets which they feed.  Batfish, which he lifts out of the water and guests feed bread to. Amazing.

Next we headed to Horizontal falls at top speed as the sun was starting to set.

Aerial view of Horizontal Falls

The Horizontal Waterfalls are caused by a narrow gap at the mouth of a large inlet in the Bucaneer Archipelago. At high tide the inlet fills and as the tide turns the water begins to drain out through the gap. During spring tides the rate at which the water can escape from the inlet cannot keep pace with the falling tide so a horizontal waterfall is produced. There are actually two gaps about 300 metres apart. The first one, the wide pinch is about 20 metres across. The second one, the narrow pinch is about 12metres across.
We went through the wide pinch first. The differing water levels was only about 50cm so the ride although a bit bumpy was quite mild.

Next we went across to the narrow pinch. The difference here was about 1 metre so the ride through was a little rougher. Just like being in a washing machine.

 The inlet on the other side was breathtaking. Beautiful and calm and the sunset on the McLarty Ranges around the inlet was beautiful.

 We admired this for a little while and then the driver took us back through the gap, chucked a fast U turn and came hurtling back through again and then quickly back out again. It was the ride of your life.

We then went back to the wider gap and actually went through it backwards. It had got a bit rougher by now. We then did another run through and back again.


Then back to the houseboat for drinks and dinner. We had barbequed fresh barramundi with salads and the beautiful desserts. There were only 8 overnight guests on the boat plus some of the crew so it gave you a chance to get to know everyone. We had an early night as breakfast was at 6.30am and back on the jet boat for another go at the falls at 7am.

So we went back up to the wide falls and went through. It was pretty turbulent with lots of big whirlpools. Then over to the narrow falls. Now at this time the water level on the other side was about 2.5 metres above the level we were on. The driver went to the edge of the water and although we were stopped the speedo on the boat still showed that we were doing 40kph. We didn't go through as it was too high but we just sat and watched it for a while.

You can see the difference in water levels

We then went back to the wide gap and powered back and forth through there and back to the mother ship to be picked up and taken back to civilisation.

The sea plane picked us up and flew back over the falls and then over the Bucaneer Archipelago, down King Sound and back to Derby.

The circled object is the fast boat sitting in front of the narrow gap. You can see how turbulent the water is

Isolated aboriginal coastal village on Bucaneer Archipelago. No apparent access by road although they do have cars

Barramundi Farm in the archipelago. Apparently needs to expand as the demand for Australian barramundi is getting bigger

Bucaneer Arcipelago Islands.

Sandy Inlet

Such blue water

Ray was the co pilot on the trip back which enabled him to take some good photos. So now not only Captain Ray but Co-Pilot Ray.

Derby jetty from the air

Our caravan park from the air

We got back to the van at about 9.30am after the most thrilling trip we have had. The pictures in the Blog really don't show it like it really was. It is a trip I would recommend everyone do. The scenery was magnificent and the area is so isolated there are places no human has ever been to. It is idyllic.

We went crabbing when we got back and caught a keeper and then went and had "Happy Hour" drinks with another couple we met on our horizontal falls trip, Maria and Stan who are from Perth.
We only have a couple more days in Derby before moving on to Broome on Saturday.