Broome June 1

Broome/Cable Beach June 1^st (Tuesday)

We were a bit in shock on arrival at the caravan park - bit like the Rosebud foreshore in the 60’s.  Man, we were crammed into site #73 with little room to spare and wondered how we would go for the next 10 days.  This brings into discussion caravanning etiquette.  Noel and I are particularly mindful of human behaviors in caravan parks, as we were in the dim past, frequently travelling by aeroplane.

          Privacy - work out how screens and window coverings can protect you, but more importantly, from shocking the hell out of your neighbours;

          Audio - keep the noise down at all times - one’s voice, TV, Utube, radio and social media.  Prefereably nothing before 8am or after 10pm.  Clearly, one’s domestic bliss factors into this equation - if you have to have a domestic, go to a deserted beach, by which time you have forgotten what the disagreement was about;

          Washing - don’t have your camp looking like a Chinese doss house with washing and other stray items lying around;

          Presentation - following on from the previous note, keep chairs, table, BBQ and other outdoor items to a minimum and always neatly arranged, including a daily (if not more often) sweep of one’s surrounds.

          Rubbish - any display of rubbish is totally unacceptable.

          Accessability - at all times one should be accessable to either a neighbour or passer-by who needs to know more about your tug (tow vehicle), van setup including, but not limited to, electrical wiring, plumbing, solar set up, towing setup, fuel consumption, are you heading ‘up’ or ‘down’, where are you from (hometown) and are you going back there in the near future? and lastly,

          Tolerance - of everything and everyone, luck would have it that you will probably never see the person again so why pick a fight!

Myth #5 - caravanning is an escape from the norm - untrue - refer above.

We did wonder how we would go for the duration as we quite like to keep to ourselves and don’t encourage over-social habits whilst we are travelling.  If we are in the same spot for a few days, yes, we chat and probably get to know a neighbour, but that’s about it.  Notwithstanding, we have met some truly lovely people and you know almost immediately if you have anything in common.  In Broome, it was Bob and Rita from Albany, WA, who were set up opposite us for the next three months and do so in the same spot every year.

After setting up and catching up with lots of washing, we really didn’t do too much the first few days in Broome.  We have been here before, a couple of times, so knew a bit about the town, but it has expanded enormously since our last visit, some 10 years ago.  Suburbs now surround the airport, so we constantly had planes and helicopters flying overhead. The orginal Broome, now a suburb called Chinatown, was pretty tired and a huge amount of money is being spent on redoing the streetscape, footpaths, curbing, etc…..we can only hope High Street Mansfield gets a makeover one day.

Cable Beach

Morning walks

Every day the same.

Thursday we had a new windscreen fitted to the Prado and Friday we had our second AZ covid shot, with no side affects whatsoever.  We support the vaccine program and feel that we are making every effort to protect others and ourselves.  Will probably get a flu shot somewhere along the way as we travel south.  West Australians are incredibly slack with regard to covid regulations - very few people use the signin app and even less use the sanitiser - we sign in and sanitise everywhere and people look at us and say “you must be from Victoria?”…..my response is merely “you try lockdown for 6 months”.

Saturday we went for a drive on the Cape Leveque Road to Coconut Well and drove across the dunes to a beautiful beach with only half a dozen people in sight.  The Pindan soils of this region are beautiful.  Redder than the Pilbara, fine red sand, high clay content and very few nutrients, so any flora in the Broome region is not much to speak of. 

We weren’t able to book any tours or flights to the horizontal falls near Derby as all had been booked out long ago, so I spent time reading and Noel continued his work on the TV (this has become a source of irritation to me and to him!!).  I love it that he can fix anything, but it does come at a price (it is now June 20 and it’s still not working!)

We ate at some lovely restaurents nearby, so treated ourselves during our stay, including a purchase at Kailis Pearls.  And, finally, a haircut.

A momento of Broome

You would have loved that!

Each morning we walked along the beach to our brunch spot and walked back, so plenty of exercise and the weather was perfect - top of 30 degrees, low of 18 overnight.  Would love to stay longer to enjoy the perfect weather, just wish it wasn’t all so crowded.

By the end of our eleven days it was time to move on and start to head south down the coast for the next chapter in our adventures.

Along the highway we had pulled off to change drivers and next thing there was a police car, lights flashing, pulling over a traveller with a large tow vehicle and 5^th wheeler - and his slider hanging out in the middle of the road!  The CB radio was all go!  Not sure what the outcome of that was as we continued on our way - now I’ve seen everything.

We decided to meet Murray and Hazel at Cape Keraudren again, so we had nearly 470km to cover in the day and arrived close to 5pm, ready to park up.  As we arrived Murray had kept a spot for us and made mention that the people in the next van along were quite unpleasant, which surprised me as this is certainly not the norm when free camping.  Anyway, we set up and poured a wine when we turned around, there was Doug & Ann George from Mansfield (Langtons Sauces, Bus Stop Café) - I was lost for words….and they were the people in the van next door, LOL.  We had a pretty big night catching up with lots of laughs but we were all attacked by sandflies so badly that the next morning we all decided to get the hell out of there.

Sandflies!!

Continuing only 80km down Highway 1, we FC overnight at the De Grey River.  Quite a large FC area, lots of vehicles of all description and plenty of space, so we enjoyed a walk along the river before sunset.  We stayed here for two nights as it was so peaceful after the hussle of Broome.

De Grey River

We had been keeping in contact with Doug & Ann (Murray & Hazel had returned to Marble Bar) so we decided to head to Port Hedland and stay in the FC overflow at the racecourse with Doug & Ann for 2 nights.  So glad we did; I had not intended to go to Hedland, but as always there was plenty to see and interest us.  The port and nearby Dampier ship iron ore out to China non-stop.  Looking to the horizon there were 29 ships sitting waiting to enter port, with 6-8 ships already being loaded.  The ore is railed in the long ore trains (2.8kms) that we had seen leaving Tom Price and surrounds.

The Information Centre had some interesting details on the various ores mined - Manganese - one of the Earth’s most abundant elements, Australia produces 25% of the world’s supply, 90% going into steel production, used for its strength and abrasion resistance, eg. Railway tracks.

Port Hedland also has extensive salt evaporation ponds. It takes 18-20 months before the salt is ready to harvest and it takes 60 million tonnes of salt water to produce 1 million tonnes of salt.  70% goes to chemical production (caustic soda, chlorine, detergents, plastics, glass, road de-icing) and 20% is used in food processing and the remaining 10% Other uses.  Most of the salt is sold to Asia.

Salt

Tuesday, 15^th June we headed for Karratha.  Noel had been here many years ago in a work capacity and could not believe the development.  It is now a modern, well serviced small city and was a great stay in the FC overflow for two nights. 

Our second day we drove back to Roeburne and out to Cossack.  This town, now abandoned, was where the pearling industry began, not producing the pearls of today, but rather pearl shell for buttons, until a massive cyclone in 1898, following which much of the industry relocated to Broome, and hence began the Broome pearling story.  The National Trust oversees much of the activity in restoring the buildings, which as you can see from the photos, were very substantial, and actually built as the town was in decline. 

The other claim to fame of Cossack is that there was a leper colony here, gazetted in 1910.  The first case was a Chinese cook who had worked at several pastoral stations and subsequently, more cases developed at these locations, many of whom were aboriginal.  The colony was located within mangroves and marshes, so I have no doubt the mosquitoes and sandflies would have added to the extreme discomfort.  The colony was closed in September, 1931, and the remaining 17 patients were relocated to Perth.

Cossack - great museum

Cossack

Cossack

Moving on again, we travelled just 100km south of Karratha on the Fortescue River for a rest stop, lunch and a coffee then continued for the night to FC on the Yanarrie River.  Again, a beautiful spot - lots of other free campers all a respectful distance away, a walk along the river before nightfall and the lovely sounds of the birds both in the evening and particularly in the morning.  The landscape has changed significantly over the last day.  The red soil has diminished and replaced by sand, no trees to speak of and mainly flat grassy plains as far as the eye can see, with the Hamersley Range running N-S to the east.  As I am often the passenger, I love watching the birds, small hawks I think, just floating on the wing.

Yanarrie River

We pulled off the road at Bullara Station just before midday.  What an amazing spot - I think I had mentioned previously that a lot of the remaining stations offered either free camping or stays at minimal cost.  This Station was well and truly set up.  A great café, where we enjoyed lunch chatting to a couple from Deniliquin on a three month trip.

We use an app called Wikicamps to research/locate many of the places we travel too or through.  It provides marvellous information, updated daily by users, which of course is always in the eye of the beholder.  I just read a comment from a visitor to Bullara Station which was not complimentary - check in everywhere, even large caravan parks are extremely busy and it takes time.  Today at Exmouth, Tracy in the office said it was chaotic this season and people could be quite difficult (me reading between the lines).  Not sure why people are so difficult - let’s face it, they have all the time in the world really.

For those wondering what we have actually been living in for the past three months, I have attached a few photos of our humble abode.

Regret that some of the formatting is erratic, but it's a pretty basic program and the layout seems to have a mind of it's own depending on what type of device you are viewing on.

We hope this note finds each of you well and hopefully another Covid hurdle jumped in Victoria.  Life rolls on - our youngest grandchild turned 4 today and we do miss you all.

Love from Mum & Dad, Nana & Poppy, Maz & Noel....