Day 19 - Glen gets back

We are very excited this morning as we are heading to the airport to pick Glen up at 9:30am.  The plan is to pick Glen up, go and get the van out of storage and head for Fitzroy Crossing.  It sounds like a very simple plan right!!!!......................  Wrong!!!!!!  Meeting Glen at the airport is great.  He sprayed 1800ha in 3 days so he is pretty exhausted but glad to be back in the warm weather.  We head to the van storage place where we paid extra for power to ensure the fridge was running the whole time, well guess what, the fridge has been off since day one!!!!  Not pretty!!!  Everything in the fridge is ruined, not happy little campers!!!  But we soon come to realize we have a problem with the fridge, so decide to book into the Cable Beach Caravan Park for the night to access some experts the next day....Monday.  The park is great and the kids inform us it has the best pool and ablution blocks they have seen so far, so nothing to do but relax by the pool.  A great chance for Glen and I to catch up.

Day 18 - Broome markets and mini golf

Today was a fairly slow day, filling in time while we wait for Glen to return.  We went to the Broome markets which was great.  I could browse around these for hours and the kids love all the little handcrafted stalls.  They enjoy the live music and the "hippy" characters and Shannae and Cody could have stood for ages watching the glass blowing.  It was a lot of fun, very cheap entertainment for the whole family.

Afterwards, we had a game of mini golf, which was the sole reason Cody was looking forward to returning to Broome!!!!  Last time we were here he was only 3, but somehow, he remembers the mini golf, so we had the obligatory game, which was quite a laugh!! Tori won!!!  The rest of the arvo was spent by the the pool and getting ready to meet Dad tomorrow.  We are very excited about that.  I can't wait to get back to the van, as I feel like we have been living out of a suit case for 4 days!!!! 

Day 17 - Back to Broome

Hi  Everyone...............I have just learnt that it is a bit of a nightmare to post comments on the blog as you have to register and all that, so if you don't want to go through all that rubbish, we are still accessing our normal sheoak email address, which we check regularly, so feel free to just send us emails as per usual.  The kids have started emailing their friends, both through their edu addresses and through ours, and they are just loving hearing from their friends.

Anyway, where were we, oh yeah.........we pack up our little log cabin, which the kids have just fallen in love with, and we say good bye to "odd", "jimmy" and their frog mates!! I check all the essentials on the car and we head off down the beaten, or should I say "bashed", track!!!!!

 

We have an uneventful drive back to civilization, stopping to have a look at Beagle Bay.  There is a beautiful church there that is famous for its shells.  The second time Tori has been in a church so she informs me, poor child!!  

We also have a look at the local school and the kids get a kick out of seeing the massive "school truck" parked out the front.

So we check into our budget accommodation, which is all that is left in Broome, while we wait for Glen to come back on Sunday.  I am not too excited about paying $400 a night for a two bedroom apartment so we manage to find one room left in this great little place across the road from the Cable Beach resort, which has a huge pool, a fantastic bar/alfresco area over looking the pool, with music playing all the time, a theatre room, very reasonably priced meals and lots of young people and a few young families.  A bit different to the grey nomad scene at the caravan parks!!!, don't get me wrong, the grey nomads are great, and they just love the kids,  but it is a change of scenery.  However, I am very much looking forward to getting back to "Big Bertha" and having the "whole" family intact once again and getting on the road!!!! It feels like we haven't seen Glen for a week, we are so looking forward to Sunday.

Day 16 - Mud crabbing and One Arm Point

We get an early start today to go mud crabbing with the locals at Mundu, which is about 20km from where we are, 12km of this is off road, some "gnarly" tracks, the only word to describe it!!!  I allow about 45 min to get there as I know it is going to be a challenge.

  

Off we head into the swampy mangroves armed with metal hook and sneakers.  We poke around in numerous holes for a couple of hours and get two nice sized crabs.  In addition to this, we meet a baby croc sun-baking, much to the surprise of the locals, and we also see an octopus who has missed its ride out with the tide.  

                                                              

It was a great experience for us all, but, I don't think we will lining up to go mud-crabbing again in the near future.  I really wanted to the kids to experience what really goes on up here and not just see the "glass bottom boat and fishing" tour that you can do anywhere in the country.  

Yummo....tea!!!

In the afternoon we drive out to One Arm Point and go out to the Trochus Hatchery.  They have a thriving business growing these shells, as well as reproducing clown fish and anemones for aquariums.  This place is great for the kids as they have a touch pool and they can feed the turtles and the barramundi.  

Then back to our humble little abode with all creatures great and small.  I am getting used to it now and have a much better sleep tonight!!!!

Day 15 - Cape Leveque

A sick feeling in our stomachs this morning as we take Glen to the airport.  Glen gives me a run down on the two spare tyres, the winch bar, the snatch strap and the X jack to be attached to the exhaust, for when we get a flat.  We have heard many stories and warnings about the road to Cape Leveque. We put Glen on the plane and I head north with the kids wondering if I am doing the right thing or not.

So, as expected it is a slow bumpy ride. After the first 20km I am thinking about turning back, but nowhere else to stay, so we keep going.  We average about 60-70km an hour and I stop and re-tighten everything on the roof rack about 4 times, as everything just shakes loose after a while.  After about 100km, we see in the distance a bitumen road......is it a mirage?????? we thought we had 200km of this.....no it is not............I just about get out and kiss the ground!!!!.... there is a god!!!  So the last 100km is just beautiful, Tori, my co pilot, and I chat away happily, until we hit the last 5km to Cape Leveque, which is just sand and sand and more sand, thank goodness for 4 wheel drive.  We have a laugh at the "speed bumps" in the last 100m, who could possibly be going that fast in this sand!!!

So in Cape Leveque you have the option of bringing your off-road camper trailer, tent or booking into the up market "Safari Tents" or the "Log cabins", they are all very basic but very expensive, designed for the overseas tourist to enjoy Australia in the "wild".  We check into our "open air" log cabin, no fly screen just fly nets over the beds and, not a good sign, three over-sized tins of fly spray.  We share a toilet and shower with the people in the cabin next door, and later in the evening we also learn we are sharing it with 20 beautiful green tree frogs!!!!!  They only come out at night, so needless to say, I didn't drink a drop after 4pm, as there was no way I was heading up there with them all!!!

Washing dishes with the frogs looking over the top.

We walk down to the beach, which is just lovely but, I am also very conscious of the fact that there is a thriving salt water croc habitat 5 km around the corner at Hunter Creek.  The reception staff assure us that it is safe to swim at the "swimming beach", I wonder if they have notified the crocs about that, however, I have heard a lot lately that the crocs have had a huge breeding season after the big wet and are spreading further afield in search of new territory, so the kids just wade in the shallows, much to their disgust at their over protective mother. 

We cook tea on our barbi and listen to the various creatures skittering past in the bushes and the geckos making their way into the cabin.  With our nets over our beds and my torch under my pillow, I think I manage about 3 hours sleep, hearing every noise that everyone and everything makes, within a 20m radius of the cabin!!  The kids just love it, especially Tori.

Day 14 - Glen goes home to spray

Having good mobile service in Broome has meant that Glen has learnt the extent of the fungus on the wheat at home due to all that lovely rain!!!!  Unfortunately, we have to make the very difficult decision for Glen to fly home for four days and spray, as contracting options are limited and too difficult, and expensive, to organize.  So this day is spent booking flights for Glen and organizing further accommodation for the rest of the family.  We already had 2 days booked in Cape Leveque for the 3rd and 4th of August, in one of the few accommodation options available up there, so I decide to keep that booking and put the van in storage as per the original plan.   There are no vans allowed up to Cape Leveque, the road is supposed to be an absolute nightmare and accommodation is very scarce in Broome at present, due to the race round.   I manage to find a cheap hotel for us in Broome for when we get back, while we wait for Glen to return on Sunday.  We all feel a bit flat at the thought of splitting up, but take comfort in the fact that it won't be for long and it is for the "greater good"!!!!.

Day 13 - Pearl Lugger tour

Today we did the tourist thing and had a look down Johnny Chi lane, the kids bought some souvenirs.  We then headed to the Pearl Lugger tour.  Very interesting, a history of pearling in Broome, however, it was actually the mother of pearl that was the initial attraction as only one in 5000 oysters had a pearl in it.  The divers certainly took their lives into their own hands with every dive and we couldn't believe that they stayed under the water from sun up to sun down.  The number of lives lost was phenomenal.  Of course the end of the tour took us to the show room.  Just lovely, but unfortunately, I couldn't convince my husband that I needed another pearl.  The kids held a $120 000 pearl.  I was a little bit nervous that Cody might think it was a nice big marble!!!

The weather is so nice now, low 30C's.  Back at the park the kids played in the pool all afternoon with their new friends.