Lazy Days on Cable Beach

27^th - 30^th July

What can I say?  Our last 4 days have gone something like this.  Wake up, breakfast and usual chores, and then load up the car ready for the beach for the day.  Drive the 34 odd km into Broome, stop at the Supermarket and buy a couple of French sticks, cheese and dips, and something for Cameron’s lunch, have a bit of a drive around town to see the sights, then off to the beach. 

At the end of the road, we join the queue of cars waiting to get down onto the beach. For some reason only the local authorities can answer, there is a single lane concrete driveway leading from the end of the road down onto the beach.  Naturally this becomes a bottle neck, and sometimes patience is required with cars trying to negotiate the driveway from both ends.  With something in excess of 2 to 3 hundred cars using this access way each day, you would think the local authority would do something about it, like putting traffic lights up, or widening the road to allow two way traffic, but I guess that’s just a bit too difficult for Aussies to work out.

Never mind, once on the beach we drive along it for about a couple of km, park the car, and that’s us for the day. 

The hard part is having to walk about 200 m to the water when the tide is at its lowest, but we have managed to handle that.   

Cable Beach is about 22km long, and is pretty much the same for its entire length.  Every day we have been there, there have been cars dotted all along it.

Lots are fishermen who drive down close to the water, open the rear door of the car, chuck out the rod, and then pull out a camp chair and a couple of beers and that’s them set up for the day.  Their biggest hassle is having to keep moving their car as the tide moves in or out.

The tidal range here varies from about 2 m to about 10 m.  With the beach being so flat, that means the water travels a long way from high to low tide.  Like I said it’s been a tough life, but we are managing to hang in there.

No day on Cable Beach is complete until you have watched the sunset over the Indian Ocean, so Thursday night we hung around a bit later than usual to enjoy this spectacle.  It was amazing how many extra cars came down on to the beach just before sunset to also take in the sunset.  We weren’t disappointed.  It was beautiful.  Again, one picture is worth a thousand words.

Cable Beach is home to Broome’s well known Camel Train Rides, especially the sunset ride, and each day as we lay suffering on the sand, the camels would come plodding along with tourists clinging to their backs.  Cameron decided we had to do it, but Christel and I weren’t that keen.  Never mind, when in Rome etc, etc.

There are three different camel tour operators working on the beach, the blue, red, and yellow. They keep their camels on scrub land just behind the beach, and bring then down on to the beach each day.  They all offer the same rides, morning, lasting about 40 minutes, afternoon, lasting about 30 minutes, and of course the famous sunset ride lasting about an hour.

We decided 30 minutes would be ample time, as it didn’t look all that exciting to say the least.

What can I say, we handed over our $80, got on the camels, they groaned, farted, snorted and complained, and then stood up.

Then we were off.  Our big mistake was we didn’t bring a book each to read as we plodded up the beach for quarter of an hour and then back again.  The camel attendants did their best to make it interesting by walking beside us telling us the name, personality traits, likes and dislikes, and history of the camel we were riding.  Cameron’s camel was called Harley, so now he can say he has ridden a Harley along Cable Beach, and ours was Matilda.  Did you know there are more wild camels in Australia than there are people?

So there you are - the great camel ride.  Cameron enjoyed it ("So did I!" - says Christel).  Before we had the ride we spent some time talking to one of the attendants. As you do when you are in the company of camels, we got talking about the fact that we had tried Camel jerky, and somehow this lead to whether or not we had eaten kangaroo.  The attendant told us that Coles Supermarket in town sold a lovely marinated kangaroo steak, and we should try it before we left town.

So, Friday night’s dinner was marinated kangaroo steaks.  They were lovely.  Quite a rich flavour but very tender and tasty.  Christel and I had one piece each.  Cameron cleaned up two and was looking for more.  I have a sneaking feeling he thinks he will be able to jump higher now!!

Broome is a very new looking town. A bit like Queenstown or Rotorua, with hundreds of flash motels and accommodation places everywhere.  It is obviously growing at a fast rate with lots of evidence of new subdivisions and new infrastructure being carried out.  It certainly has the feel of being a boom town just starting to boom.  A great place to invest in real estate I would imagine.  We checked out a couple of real estate offices, and found the average 3 bed house was for sale for about 5 to 6 hundred thousand dollars, and 4 bedroom places starting at about 8 hundred thousand and going up.  I would imagine that within 5 years these prices will have more than doubled.

They have got a lovely High School here, just wish I knew a Maths Teacher who would like to live here.  The town has apparently grown around the airport, because it is literally right in the middle of town.  I walked out the doors of one shopping centre we were in, and found I was looking right at the runway of the airport.

So after a very enjoyable 6 days lazing on the beach, tomorrow we must continue our journey south towards Perth.  Unfortunately we will be following the coast for most of the way, so we’ll probably have to check out a few more beaches as we go.  Such is life.

Road trains

Tuesday 26^th July

Roebuck Plains Roadhouse, where we are camped, is right at the junction where the main coastal road from Perth to Darwin meets the side road out to Broome. As such it is a vital stopover for traffic heading in either direction, especially Road Trains.  The Roadhouse is ideally set up to cater for these giants of the road with a huge turning and parking bay at the rear and loads of space by the diesel bowsers.

During the day there is an almost continual stream of these giants pulling in to refuel both truck and driver, and Cameron has a ball going over to photograph the trucks and chat with the drivers.  Occasionally he gets invited to sit in the cabs, and undoubtedly the highlight for him so far was to sit in the cab of a Kenworth pulling 4 trailers loaded with cattle.

On this particular occasion we were both there with him, and we got talking to the driver. He told us he was carrying 155 head of cattle, half of them scrub bulls.  These are bulls that have grown up in the wild, and are only able to be mustered by helicopter.  Up until this time they have had absolutely no contact with humans, and by the time they are eventually mustered into cattle yards, they are understandably quite irritable.

They are loaded onto the trucks with the aid of long handled cattle prodders, operated from outside the rails.  If you got into the pen they would kill you. The rails of the cattle yards have to be made from railway lines or a similar material, as these bulls charge on sight, regardless of what is between you and them, and wooden rails have proven to be not strong enough to hold them.  

He said the bulls averaged between 750 and 800 kilos and where either Brahman or Brahman/Hereford cross.  We climbed up onto one of his trailers, and he showed us two of the bulls who were just short of 2 meters tall at the shoulder.  He estimated that all up, his gross weight was over 100 tonnes, and his Road Train was 53.5 meters long.  That’s one heck of a lot of truck to have belting along the road at about 100kph.

He was originally from Invercargill, but had been over here in Australia for 18 years, and had spent all that time driving Road Trains.  The season for carting the cattle runs from March to October, and when he first started 18 years ago, he was earning between 80 and 90 thousand dollars for the 8 months work.  What he is getting now he didn’t actually say, but we would imagine it’s probably close to twice that.  Not bad for 8 months work.

He told us that for about every 7 cattle road train drivers, 6 of them would be kiwis who come over here each year, earn the big bucks, then go home for the summer.  Not a bad lifestyle.  Mind you they put in long hours.  Our driver had to get his load to Perth, over 2200 km away, by the following night.  He told us he would be driving 17 hours today with a half hour break every 5 hours, and then 14 hours tomorrow.  That didn’t leave a lot of time for a bit of sleep as well!!  Truck driving is now high on Cameron’s list of what he’s going to do when he gets older.  Can’t say I blame him.

Broome

Sunday 24^th July

Fitzroy Crossing to Derby.

We had managed to book a site at a camp ground in Derby, so there was no rush to be away early.  The drive was quite boring with nothing but long flat straights with thick scrub right to the roads edge completely blocking any view of the surrounding countryside.  At one stage we saw smoke from a bush fire in the distance, and as we got closer realised it was quite a big fire, and not far from the road. 

After we got past the smoke we travelled for about 20 km through burnt out scrub where the fire had obviously been burning not very long before.  Luckily by the time we had got there it had moved away from the road.

We got to DERBY at about lunchtime and after setting up camp and having lunch, went and had a look around the town. Derby is basically a town serving a Port through which firstly cattle, but more lately Ore are exported.  It is famous for its tidal extremes of up to 11 metres. 

We drove out onto its wharf and met a couple from Ashburton, who are now living in Australia in Narrabri, where we had stayed on our way to see Ron and Leanne.  He works in the cotton industry, so we were able to find out all about how cotton is produced and processed, something we had wondered about ever since we first saw it away back in Bourke.

There was a fish shop/restaurant at the end of the wharf advertising all sorts of yummy seafood dishes, so we decided we would go there for tea.  On the way back to the van we went and had a look at another Boab Prison Tree, like the one at Derby, only this one was bigger. 

Close by was the Myall Bore and Water trough.  The Bore was put down and the water trough built away back in the late 1800s, to water the thousands of head of cattle that were brought into Derby from the surrounding Cattle Stations, for shipping out through the port.  The trough is 120 meters long and is apparently the longest cattle trough in the southern hemisphere.

Back at the caravan, Cameron jumped on his bike and took off for a tour of the grounds.  He was soon back pushing his bike.  Another bloody puncture.  Apparently there is a type of grass that grows around here that has a very prickly seed head that is deadly on bike tyres.  We had been warned that it could go straight through your jandals.  Obviously Cameron had found some.

OK, I said, I showed you how to fix the last one, this time it’s your turn.   By the time I got out the tool kit, he had his bike upside down ready to take the wheel off.

I stood by ready to help, and was amazed at how well he did.  He basically took the wheel off himself, and then peeled the tyre off the rim before pulling the tube out. Then he set about trying to locate the leak just as I had shown him.  Once that was located he got the repair kit out, and again without hardly any help, patched the tube.

On testing that his patch had sealed OK, he found another leak, so that had to be patched as well. Next he put the tube and tyre back on the rim and the wheel back on the bike.  Again with very little help from me.  I was extremely proud of his efforts, and he was also obviously pleased with himself for what he had achieved.

Cameron took off on his bike again, and we had just sat down for a cold beer when a couple came over for a chat.  They had been walking around the park and saw our NZ Flag.  They were from Waiheke Island and doing a 3 month holiday in Aussie, seeing parts they hadn’t seen on previous trips.  Talk about Kiwis everywhere.

By the time we got down to the wharf for our meal, the sun had just set, but we still saw the beautiful red sky that follows the setting sun. 

We had a lovely meal accompanied by an Aboriginal guy on a guitar who provided the live entertainment.  At one stage he got Cameron to go up and accompany him on the didgeridoo.  The less said the better, but Cameron was pretty proud of his efforts, and got a round of applause from the other diners.

Monday 25^th July

Derby to Roebuck Road House.

As usual, one of the first things we do each morning is check our emails.   Christel’s mum and dad had just sent through some photos they had taken that morning of the snow around their house in Stratford.  We found they were still online, so Skyped through to them.  Using their computer camera they showed us the snow falling outside on their lawn. Unbelievable, and here we were planning to travel through to Broome today to go to the beach.

We had managed to book ahead, and got a site at the Roebuck Roadhouse, about 30kms out of BROOME, right on the turnoff where the road heads south towards Port Hedland.  Because we knew getting accommodation in BROOME was almost impossible, Christel had spent quite a bit of time on the phone trying to find us accommodation. 

She finally managed to get us Monday night at the Roebuck Roadhouse, Tuesday night at a camp in Broome itself, and then Wednesday night back out at Roebuck Roadhouse.  A lot of shifting and messing about, but knowing how hard it was to get any sites around Broome, we were more than happy. 

We arrived at the Roebuck Roadhouse and were soon set up.  We decided we would use this as our base while we enjoyed everything Broome had to offer, so went to the office and booked a couple of more nights.  It is a 35 km trip into Broome from here, but we are only paying $30 a night, compared with $47 in Broome itself.

After setting up camp we had some lunch, and while we were doing that, two three trailer road trains, carrying Liquefied Natural Gas, pulled in to the road house to fuel up. 

Cameron and I went over to take some photos of these giants of the road, and as usual Cameron got chatting to one of the drivers, and ended up being invited to sit in the cab.

While he was doing this, I watched intrigued as the dials on the diesel bowsers spun around. The truck had two fuel tanks and he was filling both at the same time. I took a photo of the pumps once he had filled up. 

Wouldn’t want to pay his fuel bill!!!  Just as a matter of interest, the driver told Cameron his road train was 53.5 meters long.

After lunch we drove the 30 odd km into Broome, and immediately headed for the famous Cable Beach.  We had read and heard a lot about this beach and were keen to experience it for ourselves.  If it lived up to its reputation, we planned to spend the next 4 or 5 days making the most of it.  One of its most well known attractions are the Sunset Camel Rides that take place each night along the beach. I’m sure you have all at some stage, seen the photos of the camel trains, loaded with tourists, plodding along the beach with the sun setting in the back ground.  Magical stuff.

We parked the car and walked down on to the beach. That’s when we found out we could actually drive down onto and along the beach. I went back and got the car and as we drove onto the beach we could see cars parked in various spots along the beach, as far as the eye could see.

We drove along for about 1½ km then parked the car and that was that.  Sand and surf as far as the eye could see.  Beautiful white sand and crystal clear blue sea with gentle waves flopping on to the shore.  Life can be hard sometimes can’t it?  We stopped for a moment and thought of those of you in Taranaki currently experiencing some of the heaviest snowfalls ever. But only for a moment.

After a lazy afternoon swimming, throwing boomerangs, and sunbathing we drove back along the beach past the camels getting ready to do their thing. Then it was back to camp for tea.  Unfortunately we are going to have to do all this again tomorrow.

Tunnel Creek National Park

Saturday 23^rd July

Tunnel Creek is the name given to a National park created after a creek was discovered running through a tunnel in some several million year old ranges.  Back in the bad old days when white men were killing Aboriginals for sport, one of the local Aboriginals by the name of Jandamarra, took exception to the white man’s so called sport, and retaliated by killing a white policeman. 

As can be expected, the white man didn’t like this, and decided that Jandamarra had to be brought to account.   Jandamarra, realising that there was a price on his head, decided to do what he could do best.  He went bush.  He knew about a creek that ran underground, and hid out there for over a year before the white man’s Aboriginal trackers finally found him and shot him outside the entrance to his hideaway.  And so Tunnel Creek was ‘discovered’ by the white man, and soon became a tourist attraction.

Tunnel Creek is 115 km from Fitzroy Crossing, on a road that leads through to the Gibb River Road.  To get to it from Fitzroy Crossing, we first of all had to travel 45 km along the main road towards Broome, and then 70 km on a rough metal come dirt road, recommended for 4WD only.

As seems to be standard for any road in Australia that is not sealed, it was full of corrugations.  Absolute bone jarring, tooth rattling nightmares of things.  Again, how to attack them was the big problem, but like our last experience, we were soon rattling along at about 80 kph and hoping for the best.

Some stretches were reasonably smooth, but others were so bad you just had to hang on and hope the car didn’t shake itself to bits before it got through.   However we finally got to Tunnel Creek and joined about 20 other 4WD’s in the car park.

The walk through the tunnel is about 750 meters long, and we had been warned that there were several crossings that could be up to waist deep, and to bring sturdy shoes and a torch. We came prepared with our togs as well, and were glad we did.  

What a fantastic experience, entering the tunnel by walking along the stream bed, and then following the stream as it wound its way underground.  It had scoured out huge caverns and in places the roof had caved in leaving openings to the daylight above.

Once through to the other side we sat down and had our lunch and then retraced our steps to the start.  Then it was back into the car for another bone shaking 70 km back to the main road.

About halfway back we came across a campervan stopped on the side of the road with a puncture.  We stopped to give them a hand as they were having trouble getting their jack under the car. Very soon a couple in another car also stopped.  We got talking, and next thing we find out they used to live in Taranaki, he was from Hawera, and she was from Oakura, but now living in Aussie.  What are the chances of that?  Away out in the bush, miles from anywhere, in the outback of Aussie, and you meet someone from Taranaki.  After helping to get the tyre changed, we carried on rattling and banging our way out to the main road.

Finally to our relief we hit the sealed main road and headed back to Fitzroy Crossing.  There was another tourist attraction, called Windjana Gorge, further along the road, but we weren’t prepared to subject our car to any more punishment.  It’s a pity that most of Australia’s best tourist attractions are so hard to get at, because of the road conditions. Because we must rely on our car to get us the rest of the way around Aussie, we just can’t afford to subject it to this sort of harsh treatment.  Already we have had to give the Gibb River Road and the drive in to the Bungle Bungles, a miss, for this very reason.

Fitzroy Crossing

Thursday 21^st July

Kununurra to Mary River.

We were away from Kununurra at a record 7.45 am, heading for HALLS CREEK about 380km away and maybe even further if we felt like it.  We knew there was nothing much of interest between Kununurra and FITZROY CROSSING, a distance of 650km, so we planned to get to FITZROY CROSSING as quickly as possible.

The road was quite interesting passing through some dramatic escarpment country, and before long we pulled into WARMUN or TURKEY CREEK as it is also known, for fuel.  There was quite a bit of other traffic on the road, going in both directions, and at one stage there were six caravans in line ahead of us. 

We had to wait in line to get fuel as everyone was like us and making use of the few fuel stops along this piece of road.

The road for about 50 km either side of WARMUN was pretty rough, and for once we were thankful to be following other traffic.  A large truck and trailer unit pulled out from the fuel stop in front of us, and we were resigned to following him until we got a chance to pass.  About a kilometre out of WARMUN he suddenly slowed down and then started breaking hard, causing us to do the same.  Suddenly he swerved and bumped violently as he crossed an exceptionally rough washout in the road. He must have been familiar with the road and knew it was there because there was no way you could spot it before you were right on it.  I can’t imagine what damage we would have done if we hadn’t been behind the truck.

Between WARMUN and HALLS CREEK the road gradually improved.  We saw Wild Buffalo, Wild Horses and Brolgas in the scrub on either side of the road.  At HALLS CREEK we again joined the queue of caravans waiting for fuel, only this one was longer as one of the pumps had broken down.

We pulled off to the side of the road just out of HALLS CREEK  and had lunch before continuing on to a free Road Side Camping area called Mary Pool, about 100km past HALLS CREEK.  Access to the camping area was across the old main road ford through the Mary River. 

The camp area itself was about 20 acres set among trees.  There must have been about 60 or 70 caravans, camper trailers, tents and campervans there when we arrived just after 2.00pm, and they kept rolling in to well after dark. 

The area was still by no means full and by nightfall there would have been upwards of 100 of us making use of this free camping area. The only problem was there was only one working toilet, and boy was it working. 

Friday 22^nd July

Mary Pool to Fitzroy Crossing

We were away again by 7.45 heading for FITZROY CROSSING about 180 km away.  We wanted to get to FITZROY CROSSING early as we had heard it was quite hard to get into a caravan site there.  We arrived at about 9.30 and luckily had no trouble getting a site.  By 10.00 we were set up and having a cuppa.

The road from Mary Pool to Fitzroy Crossing was in complete contrast to the previous day, with long flat straights, and dead flat land either side of the road for as far as the eye could see. 

Away in the distance we could see the hazy blue outline of ranges.  Occasionally the flats would be interrupted by an escarpment that would rise out of nowhere and then just as quick be gone again.  Quite dramatic scenery to be driving through.

Our camp at FITZROY CROSSING is probably one of the flashest ones we have been in, in Aussie.  There is actually grass on the sites, almost unheard of in the outback, and smooth concrete drives leading to all the sites.  As usual these days, as soon as we get to a campground and Cameron has done his job of putting down the jacks on the caravan, he jumps on his bike and that’s the last we see of him.  When he does turn up it is usually to tell us that he’s met so and so, that we last saw somewhere further back up the line.

 Actually it’s quite amazing how often we bump into the same people time and time again, while we are all travelling in the same direction.  After our cuppa we drove into town to visit the Information Centre and get some groceries.  FITZROY CROSSING is only about the size of Midhurst, but because it is on the only road through the area and miles from anywhere, it has two petrol stations and two supermarkets to cater for all the tourists passing through. 

Ninety percent of the population are Aboriginals, and unfortunately the town reflects on their rather no hope attitude towards life.

We wanted to visit the GEIKIE GORGE which had been highly recommended to us, and also check out the road conditions for access to TUNNEL CREEK NATIONAL PARK, another must see according to those who had been there.

GEIKIE GORGE was only about 20km out of town along a sealed road.  The gorge has been cut over millions of years by the mighty Fitzroy River, and it’s main attraction is a boat cruise  through the gorge where, among other things, there were many freshwater crocodiles to be seen.

We caught the afternoon cruise and enjoyed a very pleasant hour cruising about 3 km up the river passing along under the spectacular cliffs and spotting dozens of freshies sunning themselves on the river bank or swimming in the water. 

We also saw hundreds of the mud, bottle-shaped nests of the Fairy Martins, stuck precariously to the overhanging cliffs above the water.  Fairy Martins are little birds much like our swallows.

Back at camp, Cameron took off on his bike again, but soon came back pushing it.  He had a puncture.  I took the most of the opportunity and carefully showed him how to remove the wheel, repair the tube and replace the wheel again.  Next time he’ll be able to do it himself.  Yeah right.