NIGHTS 154 & 155 - ANDREW’S
PLACE, LEANYER, DARWIN
Shana and I went to Uni with Andrew in the 90s. Shana and Andrew were making films as
communications undergrads; I was studying various movements within literature
and learning how to structure a paragraph without embedding a swearword within
it. (Everybody peppered their speech with ‘fuck’ in the ‘dirty realism’ of my
upbringing). We never kept in touch with
Andrew after we graduated.
Many years later Shana and I had retrained as primary school
teachers and moved to Newcastle. One
spring morning we laid out our towels on Newcastle Beach and Andrew and his
wife Louise where lying next to us, a body length away. Andrew said “hullo” in his deep, booming
voice and, in answering our shocked “What are you doing here?”, told us that
he’d also retrained as a primary school teacher and moved to Newcastle. The similarities were too strong. This time the connection must be
maintained.
Facebook had helped maintain knowledge of Andrew’s movements
through the years. We knew he was living
in Darwin and we knew he’d like to see us.
We hoped, however, that he lived on a street wide enough to house a
motorhome for a night or two.
Turned out that he did.
Undoubtedly time had grabbed each of us and given us a good
shaking. We all had our own ‘war’ stories to
share. Then Andrew gave us insights into
Darwin over coffee or wine and we in turn entertained them with stories ‘of the
road’. Some people hate the word ‘nice’
but not me. In the peaks and troughs of
existence ‘nice’ smiles comfortably from the middle. It’s a viable place to spend time, recharging
and asking for little. We had a nice
time with Andrew and Louise over a couple of days. We hoped to see them again before we left
‘the territory’.
NIGHTS 156 - 169
- LEANNE’S PLACE, BATCHELOR.
Old friends and new friends.
We’d known Andrew for years. With
him Darwin was about reconnection. We’d
met Leanne once before in Brisbane and after our second meeting she’d
volunteered to look after Morrissey for nearly 3 weeks. It was our turn to repay the favour. We volunteered
to housesit and look after Shelley (her red kelpie) while she went away for ten
days. It’s in Leeanne’s nature to be
friendly. She left us with the run of
the house and the keys to her ute.
It takes a while to get used to the unfamiliar, and we had
no initial familiarity with Batchelor at all.
For example, in Batchelor there is a distinct “thwack” that
is made when a palm frond hits the ground after falling 10 mtrs from the top of
a tree. We’d never heard this sound
before. But both the front and the back
yards at Leeanne’s contain many tall palm trees. It ended up that we heard this ‘thwack’ a
lot, each time thankful that when the frond landed there was neither human nor
dog beneath it. Everyone collects their
fallen palm fronds in stacks along the footpath. There’s a stack in front of most houses. There’d be very few residents of Batchelor unaquainted
with the palm frond ‘thwack’, (and very few dogs not continuously, and
nervously, looking up).
Similarly, there is a
particular growl that a dog makes when he/she feels something has invaded
his/her territory. This growl rarely
occurs during the day in Batchelor when it’s too hot for most creatures to do
anything besides lie in the shade and continue breathing. This growl occurs in the wee hours of the
night. It rouses you from your sleep so
that city paranoia starts picturing rogue snakes or stealth cane toads lurking
in the yard and looking to poison unsuspecting dogs. You yell to the dogs from your bed, “settle
down…quiet”, knowing that it’s futile. You must go outside to soothe them and check
that they’re not curled up in a poisoned heap.
You’re now awake. Eventually you
drift back to sleep, but not deeply. In
another hour the growl erupts again. You
try to ignore it this time but know you can’t.
(Thank you to Shana for this anecdote.
She heard the growl. She rose to
walk the night. I slept through most of
it most of the time. I did wake up once
and was a bit tired the next day).
After a few nights we decided to let the dogs sleep in the
house. We didn’t really know what else
to do. That way they (and Shana) got a
better night’s sleep.
Also, something happens in Batchelor after 10pm. I’m not sure of the reason why but, after
10pm, televisions and music become louder.
Before 10pm all is fairly quiet.
You could sit out on the front step and hear very little. Then, as if by town consensus, once 10pm
rolls around, virtually every house starts vibrating like a large speaker, a
jumble of voices and musical notes knotting the air like stormclouds. It’s a bizarre thing.
We stayed in Batchelor for a couple of days after Leeanne
returned, her and Shana quickly becoming newby besties. We left vowing to see each other again soon.
Morrissey was keen to get back in the ‘bago but he was a
pathetic sight. It was with the most
melancholy of doggy expressions that he left his girlfriend. Who’s ear would he
nibble on now after breakfast? With whom
would he now share his food? He entered
the ‘bago and slumped down into his travel kennel. Sad eyed and brave, he didn’t look back.
NIGHT 170 - LIMESTONE
REST STOP, VICTORIA HIGHWAY
To get from Batchelor across to the Western Australian coast
required retracing our path back as far as Katherine. It is from Katherine that you turn onto the
Victoria Highway and head westward.
So, we drove past Speedy’s where we picnicked among the
stromodolites, past the Adelaide River pub where we went to a market and saw
the stuffed bull from Crocodile Dundee, past the turn-off to Robin Falls and
the long dusty drive to the Daly River, past the turn off to Mt Bundy Station
with its cluster of semi-working grey nomads, past the turnoff to Pine Creek
with its pub made from termite mounds, past the turn-off to both Pussycat Flats
with its reheated frozen meals and the Kakadu Highway, past the turn-off to
Edith Falls with its deep and large coolwater rock pool and little fish that
bite at your toes, past the turnoff to the Katherine vet that ignored Morrissey
for a day, and, after a two hour journey, into the Woolworths carpark at
Katherine, one of the most frantic Woolworths on the planet.
Here we shopped carefully.
There is a quarantine station between W.A. and the N.T. that confiscates
fresh foods. We figured we’d take three
days to get there so we needed enough fresh food to last three days only. We didn’t want to throw stuff out. Then, after the quarantine station, we
intended going to Lake Argyle, which is just across the border and before any
opportunity to shop again. We needed
food to eat whilst there, but food that wasn’t fresh. There we were, evaluating and comparing
microwave versus boil-in-the-bag in the frozen meals aisle. Ah, the joys of travel.
Shopping completed we drove the 70ks west from Katherine to
the Limestone Rest Stop, back to the realities of life on the road again. At
Limestone we found a flattish place to park and became re-aquainted with the
stench and squalor of a rest stop pit toilet.
My nifty new little compass showed us where best to park so, with shade
assured, we took out our chairs and opened a fresh packet of Mint Slice
biscuits.
I give the Limestone
Rest Area 1 ½ stars out of 5. I’m back to being a harsh marker. You wont impress me by offering a pit toilet
and a tree or two.
NIGHT 171 - BIG
HORSE CREEK REST STOP, VICTORIA HIGHWAY.
Part of me wasn’t looking forward to the long drives with
nothing much in between that lay before us again. No doubt my mind kept trawling through
memories of the Barkley Highway; to the long straight stretches of road with
nothing much on either side, the scenic equivalent of a Uriah Heep CD. But the Victoria Highway is nothing like the
Barkley.
In the roughly 250km we drove today, the scenery changed
markedly three times, and each change brought with it ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ of
appreciation. It started off scrubby,
the palms and ferns of Batchelor giving way to the greys and yellow greens of
your iconic Australian bush. It was
familiar looking and, as such, comforting.
It could have been anywhere – western NT or western Sydney. It was not exactly the same of course, but it
strongly reminded me of the scrub of my boyhood.
Then, as we approached Victoria River, sheer rock faces
began rising from the ground, looming above the height line of the scrub. The faces were vivid red, contrasting
energetically against the clear sky blue surrounding it. Each twist in the road offered a glimpse of
an upcoming range. We stopped at the
Victoria River Caravan Park to take it all in.
Parking there was like parking in a crater, surrounded completely by
walls of vibrant red rock. I took lots of photos but all failed to capture the
tingles of awe that swept through us. Breathtaking.
Maybe 40km further west the scenery changed again. The composition of the rock faces altered. Vibrant red gave way to a muddy grey but each
face had at least one streak of darker grey slashing across it. The darker grey was a type of natural
terracing that gave the hills a look as if humans had terraced it, similar in
feel to pictures I’ve seen of Machu Pichu. The tallest ranges had terraces just
below the tops of the ridges. From a
distance these slashes of dark grey looked like the tide line of a once great
flood. Now I’m no bible scholar, but has
anyone looked for an Ark in western NT?
In all that water and confusion who knows where Noah got swirled along
to.
We stopped at Timber Creek, the closest thing resembling a
town we’d seen for hours. After a brief
rendezvous with civilisation we drove to ‘The Big Horse’, where there were boab
trees everywhere (see separate entry) and a boat ramp into the Victoria River. The boat ramp saw people not catching fish
and we allowed Morrissey a quick if dangerous dip. He was sooo hot and I guess we rolled the
dice against a saltie prowling nearby.
We got away with it. He immerged
from the water with all his limbs and organs, but he was only in for about a
minute. Still, it was the longest minute
I’ve experienced for a while.
I give the Big Horse
rest area 2 stars out of 5. It’s a well
laid out rest area that cost $3.30 per person per night, (the GST component sending
us scrambling around looking for loose change).
The toilets are diabolical though.
They are hybrid long drops. I’m
not sure what that means but they smelt the worst of any toilet I have been in
and, to make matters worse, we were parked directly downwind.
NIGHT 172 - SADDLE
CREEK REST AREA, VICTORIA HIGHWAY
I’m not going to rave about the constantly changing and
gobsmacking scenery any more. Let’s just
take it for a given that, until I say otherwise, driving along the Victoria
Highway and through The Kimberleys is a visual feast. If you ever get the chance to do it then do
so. You don’t even need to go into the
National Parks to be overwhelmed. Just
driving along is spectacular.
Okay, changing topic, has anyone heard of an explorer with
the last name of Gregory? We hadn’t, but
so what. A long time ago he carved his
name on a boab tree and that very boab tree was only 3 ½ kilometres off the
highway along a dirt road. We love a
boab tree and so turned right off the highway and bounced along what turned out
to be a corrugated and unwelcoming track.
We were becoming boab buffs.
Gregory’s tree was pretty cool actually. Mr Gregory himself didn’t carve his name into
the tree. His exploration team included
an artist and this artist carved calligraphic lettering announcing the date
they arrived at the site and the date they left (October 1856 and July
1857). They’d made virtually a small town
on the site complete with stables, veggie garden and forge. They also had a fence to keep the crocs away.
It’s all gone now though. Nearby there was another boab tree and they’d
carved the words ‘letter in forge’ into the trunk to inform anyone arriving at
the camp where they had gone, etc. It
was pretty interesting actually. We’ve
decided that history is much more interesting whenever boab trees are included.
Saddle Creek campground was set beneath an escarpment that
glowed red in the setting sun. There
was a cool breeze blowing and there were no mozzies at all. We spent the night outside at our own open
air cinema, watching episodes of ‘Orange is the New Black’ (thank you Andrew)
on the laptop and eating all the fresh foods we had in the fridge. Tomorrow we’d cross the border.
I give Saddle Creek
Rest Area 3 stars out of 5. The
escarpment was spectacular, the toilets clean, the chocolate at the movies
cold, hard and crunchy.
NIGHT 173 &
174 -
LAKE ARGYLE CARAVAN PARK, WESTERN AUSTRALIA.
“You’ll have to go back.
You can’t bring dogs into Western Australia”.
With these words Shana, for a millisecond, saw our trip
flash before her eyes. It was said by an
older guy, serious in tone and with the right look of someone official. We were
at the quarantine station and the guy turned out to be just a bloke waiting in
the line, having a joke and doing it well.
Shana saw through it quickly but, for that millisecond, …
The actual quarantine guy didn’t take long. He didn’t ask to look in any of our outside
hatches or under the van like we’d seen him do with others. He looked through all our internal storage
spaces and went through our fridge. He
found a lemon which he confiscated.
Jokingly, Shana said she should have hidden it in her bag. She likes a gin in the afternoon and lemon is
a vital ingredient to her mix of choice.
He didn’t smile at the joke. On
the NT/WA border, fresh fruit is not a topic for humour.
As soon as we drove away from the quarantine station 1 ½
hours disappeared. The Earth stayed at
the same point in its rotation and the sun never altered its position in the
sky but instantly time vanished. We
drove into the quarantine station at approx. 10:30am and we drove out, about 10
minutes later, at 9:10am. Now I’m well aware of the different time zones and
how crossing them alters time but it’s a surreal thing to happen when
driving. When you’re in a plane it makes
sense. ‘Jet lag’ is a well known
phenomenon that exists as part of the ‘exotica’ of international air travel. You fly from Australia to, say, France, and
you expect the time to be different. You
know you’ll have to adjust. It is easily
reconciled in the mind. For it to happen
when looking at the same scenery and driving 100mtr is less easy to
reconcile. When you lose time just
because someone has confiscated a lemon, well, that’s a freaky thing.
The Lake Argyle turnoff is not far from the border. We’d been told to go there several
times. In fact, one day when we were at
Batchelor we met a woman in the information kiosk who’d done ‘the lap’ more
than once. Naturally she was full of advice. We asked her to name her favourite place and
she didn’t hesitate in saying “Lake Argyle”.
She insisted we go there, that we’d regret it if we didn’t. Well, it was on our way. It was easily accessible. We had the time so we heartily followed her
advice.
But we didn’t care much for Lake Argyle.
We are not being
deliberately contrary in saying this. We
are not just going against popular opinion to position ourselves as
‘outsiders’. ‘Lake Argyle’ the lake is
beautiful to look at. It is man-made - made
by damming the Ord River - and has filled the Argyle Valley to become the
largest fresh water lake in Australia.
On a clear day the water reflects the surrounding hills and looks like a
picture. However, ‘Lake Argyle’ the lake features little in the experience of
‘Lake Argyle’ the resort.
The resort ‘Lake Argyle’ sits high above the lake
itself. The main feature of the resort
is the ‘infinity pool’, a swimming pool that has a ‘disappearing’ back wall so
that, if you frame it perfectly in a photo, it looks as if the pool itself
becomes part of the lake. In such a
picture the lake serves as a spectacular backdrop for the resort, which is
equally true of the place in general. It had a restaurant, a bar, a shop, live
music and movie nights; in other words it was self-contained. Once there, once you’d had enough of the
view, entertainment was laid on.
You could access the
lake itself. Mainly people go on boat
tours of the lake, spending an hour or two tracing the shores of the many coves
and bays. A big selling point is that,
when on a cruise, you can have a nice swim in the lake, presumably somewhere
deep and remote. You can swim in the
lake without going on a cruise, as Shana, Moz and I did, but it’s not a
pleasant experience. While in no way
frowned upon, the infrastructure of the place doesn’t encourage it either. If you want to swim in the lake (without
taking a cruise) you can use the floating jetty, but you have no easy way of
getting back onto it. No stairs or
ladders from the water are provided. You
can enter from the shore but the only accessible place is the boat ramp. We swam there and got moved along as there
were boats launching. And boat ramps by
definition continually have boats, often with petrol and oil spilling into the water
etc. As such, swimming in Lake Argyle
was disappointing but, with a change in focus by someone with clout, it could
easily be fantastic. I’m just not sure anyone
is much concerned though. And, judging
by the comments of those we met previously, many nomads like it just fine as it
is.
I give Lake Argyle
Resort 2 ½ stars out of 5. Flat sites
and clean amenities are important to a comfortable stay, and the resort had
those, but to be exceptional requires a more inclusive relationship with the
surrounding environment than having it merely providing a pretty background. Or
at least it does for us.
NIGHT 175 - KUNANURRA
SHOWGROUND
A few times we’ve been denied access to a caravan park
because we have a dog. At times we’ve
argued with caravan park owners that allowing dogs entry based solely on how
much they weigh is a ridiculous concept.
Kunanurra Showground, however, gives us the opportunity to thumb our
noses at these places. You see, at
Kunanurra Showground, you MUST have a pet to be allowed to stay. Take that people travelling without pets –
you must go elsewhere.
People without pets missed nothing. Kunanurra Showground offered very little –
dirty encrusted toilets and filthy showers.
It also seemed to house those in the local area who were ‘down on their
luck’ because, beside us, there were five people living in a tent. They had a kitten so they met all the
requirements.
The people beside us yelled at their children often. The children didn’t like getting yelled at
and so cried often. The parents yelled
at the children to stop crying. Not once
did it work, but the parents continued with the strategy. Shana and I closed the door of our sweat box
‘bago. We started watching the series
‘Orphan Black’ (thanks again Andrew).
The show was okay but the night was generally unpleasant.
We give the Kunanurra
Showground 1 star out of 5. We still
like the idea of getting one up on those uppity non-pet owners but the reality
was that it sucked.
NIGHTS 176 & 177
– SPRING CREEK REST AREA, GREAT NORTHERN HIGHWAY.
At Spring Creek braman bulls wander unchecked. They’re large creatures and they’re prepared
to pass within metres of your campsite. It’s scary at first. They have horns and beady eyes and bull
brains that you can’t predict. When they
first walked towards us we tried to act cool.
I told Shana I’d shoo them away if they passed a certain rock. They passed the rock, I made a shooing
motion, they chewed the cud and ignored me completely. I didn’t know what to do so I did nothing. The
bulls took to chewing leaves off a tree beside the van. Morrissey watched but was confused into
inaction. He’d never seen other dogs
this big before. He laid in his bed
staring at them, not even growling. I
know how he felt.
The bulls obviously belonged to some nearby cattle
station. They hung here because Spring
Creek still had several largeish pools of water where most everywhere else was
dry. One of the larger pools was
directly below where we were camped. Not
only did the pool attract bulls, but thousands of birds came and went during
the day, either diving into or drinking from the pool. Shana began twitching (meaning bird watching
- she didn’t develop uncontrollable body movements).
Shana twitched so happily during the morning that we decided
to stay for another day. It was
great. The rest area cleared out and,
with less people around, even more birds appeared. We didn’t have to go anywhere to have a
relaxing couple of nights and Shana’s bird book is now covered in the semi-coherent
scrawl of the blossoming twitcher.
We give the Spring
Creek Rest Area 4 stars out of 5. It had
no showers and primitive toilets but the birds liked it. Who are we to disagree with the birds?
NIGHT 178 - MARY POOLS REST AREA, GREAT NORTHERN
HIGHWAY
Driving allows lots of time for the mind to wander. The scenery through The Kimberleys has been
spectacular and we talk often about the things we are seeing but, even so,
there’s still hour after hour left to the whim of the mind. We passed through Halls Creek today, stopping
to refuel. It made my mind spend the
following hours thinking about supermarkets.
Or, more to the point, is it a good thing that supermarkets
now own petrol stations?
One side of me says yes, another side says no.
It certainly seems to make fuel cheaper.
For example, before
we got to Halls Creek, we drove through a place called Turkey Creek. There’s not much at Turkey Creek. There’s a roadhouse/ caravan park and an
Aboriginal community. (There could also be a police station but I didn’t see it). Anyway, being the cautious gent I am, I
pulled into the roadhouse to top the fuel up.
They were charging $2.13 per litre.
Outraged, our quick calculations projected we had enough fuel to make
Halls Creek. We drove straight back out
again. Until now we’d never seen fuel priced
above $1.99 per litre.
As we drove into Halls Creek we couldn’t believe that the
servo was a Coles Express. The fuel was
$1.84 per litre, before the 4c Coles docket discount. That’s still expensive, but not by ‘outback’
standards. It turned out that the servo
was also a Coles store, although it was the smallest supermarket I’d ever
seen. It didn’t have trolleys or
anything. It didn’t have a wide enough
variety of stock to warrant them. It did
sell some groceries though and, if you spent enough money in one transaction,
you earned your 4c discount on fuel. But
is that a good thing?
There is another grocery store in town but they can’t offer
any petrol discount scheme. It’s a bit
unfair having a massive behemoth like Coles stride into town. But, in the Coles/Woolworths supermarket war,
Coles have captured Halls Creek. I guess it makes it cheaper for the people in
the area and, anyway, we used a docket and saved 4c per litre on fuel. I think I’d have rather spent the 4c per
litre extra though. It might have set my
mind wandering somewhere more pleasant.
Mary Pools rest area is large and, according to what we’ve
read/heard, it is normally crowded. There weren’t many there though. We’d been wondering about this. It seems that our house-sit in Batchelor had
the unforseen effect of putting us behind the main pack of nomads. We’ll
see. It allowed us our choice of sites
though.
Mary Pools is a series of small rock pools containing what’s
left of the Mary River (der!). The pools
weren’t big enough for us to sit or swim in but Morrissey threw himself in over
and over. All we could do was watch,
feeling a tad jealous.
I give Mary Pools Rest
Area 3 stars out of 5. It was here that
we first encountered Bikini Pants Guy (see separate story). For that it will always remained burned into
our retinas.
NIGHT 179 – FITZROY
CROSSING CARAVAN PARK
Fitzroy Crossing is a large town in these parts (like Halls
Creek it also has a Coles Express service station). It houses a large and swanky new resort – The
Fitzroy River Lodge. It looks beautiful
in the brochures - new amenities, green grass, the river shimmering below an a
la cart restaurant with people sitting on the deck sipping wine. It’s on the eastern river bank, just before
you cross into town. It doesn’t accept
dogs.
On the western bank, as you cross the river on the edge of
town, sits The Fitzroy River Caravan Park.
It is a caravan park rather than a lodge. It accepts dogs. It probably has to.
The Fitzroy River Caravan Park complex incorporates the
Fitzroy River Hotel, which is the oldest pub in the area. The Lonely Planet recommends you go there for
the experience, but only once, and not for long. That’s because most of the patrons are blind
drunk at 3pm in the afternoon. After
that they start swearing loudly at each other, usually along gender lines. The drunken women swear and puff themselves
out at the men; the men swear back louder and clench their fists into a
weapon. It was neither pretty or pleasant,
and we were camped only 100mtrs away.
While there we learnt a new word – ‘humbugging’. We saw it first as part of a sign that said ‘No
spitting, no fighting, no humbugging’. I
knew the word ‘humbug’ from Dicken’s novel ‘A Christmas Carol’; it’s the word
Ebenezer Scrooge used to dismiss Christmas, as in “bah humbug”. That definition didn’t make sense in this
context though. I’m sure people weren’t
being warned against spitting, fighting and dismissing Christmas. Turned out that ‘humbugging’ means something
like ‘bludging off somebody’. If someone
comes over to you and persistently asks for money, or for you to buy them a
drink, or to give them a cigarette, and they wont let up, then they are
humbugging. It is banned because it
pisses people off and causes fights.
The caravan park complex also housed Fitzroy Crossing’s picture
theatre. It was in an old tin shed and
played only on the weekends, unless a special event occurred. We were there on a Wednesday but we lucked
out in that there was a special event on that night and we were invited to
attend.
Some local schoolchildren, teachers and support staff were
having a viewing of the movie ‘Satellite Boy’.
We’d never heard of it but found out that it was a movie made in the
area and starring local kids. It was
made by the ABC and mainly starred… It
was a contemporary take on the Aboriginal experience, made last year.
It was a fantastic experience for us. We were welcomed, a bit warily at first by
the kids, but when the lights went down it didn’t matter. The movie was interesting and well-made and
the kids, all of them boys between maybe 12 and 15 years old, laughed and
carried on with each other as you would expect.
They weren’t naughty though. The
teachers brought around popcorn (we were offered some but declined) and drinks
and we watched as on the screen two similarly aged boys enacted an adventure
from the outback to the city (well, Wyndam to Kununurra anyway). To be in a tin shed watching a movie about
young Aboriginal boys while with a group of young Aboriginal boys was something
we hadn’t expected. We hoped the respect
and privilege we felt was fully expressed by our smiles and our sincere
gratitude. It was one of those
experiences that came from nowhere and resonates long after it is over.
We give The Fitzroy
Crossing Caravan Park +5 and -5. +5 for
the theatre experience and the cool, cool croc free river. -5 for everything else, including the
brightest flood lights I’ve ever seen – surely prison grade. They burned all night long, placed inside the
caravan park. We could have been in
Finland because it seemed that daytime never went away.
NIGHT 180 - NULLIBUBBICA REST AREA, GREAT NORTHERN
HIGHWAY.
Infamous for the great Bikini Guy standoff (see separate story)
but not much else. A red dirt rest stop
along a long, long road.
I give the
Nullibubbica Rest Stop 1 ½ stars out of five.
It provided a place to poo that had a flushing system but had little
shade.
NIGHTS 181 & 182
– BROOME’S GATEWAY CARAVAN PARK
We drove past it on the way to Broome. We knew it was there but rejected it as being
too far away. It was 28km out of
town. Unfortunately the only caravan
park in Broome that would accept dogs was profiteering by charging too much for
a site and then adding a ‘dog surcharge’ on top. Shana and I rebel against stuff like
that. We surprised the woman by
rejecting her overpriced park and walking away.
I’m sure she thought she could pretty much charge what she wanted.
We spent the day in Broome before we drove back out. Our first glimpse of Cable Beach brought
tears to our eyes. It is beautiful, with
water a deep turquoise sea green, a colour I’d never seen before. We were soon in the water and, even better,
dogs are allowed on the beach as well.
You have to walk 200mtrs or so from the flag area but we didn’t
care. Like us, Morrissey ran to the
water with excitement, holding his head in the air as he hit the first
breaker. We drove back to Broome’s
Gateway satisfied and exhausted.
The next day brought for me a change. Normally I say to people that there is
nowhere else I’d rather be than where we are, doing the trip. I mean it when I say it. But today is Todd’s birthday. I don’t like missing Sam and Todd’s
birthdays. Sam managed to join us on her
birthday this year. Todd couldn’t make
it though. He has TAFE commitments. So,
today, there is somewhere else I would rather be. I’d rather be with Todd, singing happy
birthday out of tune and making him cringe with my poorly thought through
jokes. We’d probably be at a skatepark
somewhere. I’d be watching a little boy
still tentative on a skateboard while everyone else saw a grown man; confident,
competent and a more capable rider than his father ever was.
I give Broome’s
Gateway 2 ½ stars out of five. It’s a
long way out of town, and the sites are non-powered, but the showers are
massive and new and have a seemingly non-ending stream of hot water. There was a nice fenced run for Morrissey to
play in. It’s only new and, although the
red sand is soft underfoot, it will be better as more grassed areas grow in.
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