After Derby we spent 4 nights at Cable Beach Caravan Park in Broome. This was about 3 night too long for Daz and I but we just had to suck it up as we had a few running repairs that needed our attention. After the Munja Track the remaining Cooper STT tyres were absolutely wrecked so we got them replaced as well as tried to hunt down new shockies for the trailer. We failed at this mission because the size of the shockies on our camper are really unusual (so it turns out) so we decided that we’d make do with the existing ones (have a little faith in Dazza Coight’s welding) to hopefully get us back home. We also lashed out and bought a laptop as we were fed up with trying to do things on smart phones and tablets that are still really limited (we need a new laptop for home anyway) – did you notice that the blogs suddenly look a whole lot better? This is thanks to the laptop. Other than that it was little things that we need such as tools and groceries etc.
While Broome itself is a pretty nice place, unfortunately Cable Beach Caravan Park made it a pretty unpleasant experience by gouging us for $60 per night for a TINY camp sight right next to a pool with a waterfall that went all freakin night, and filled up with old women doing aqua aerobics at 7am to Boney M music!! Argh!! Also it was really cold when we were a Broome (Yeah I can hear you southerners saying “poor you”) and since there was nothing but shade and you couldn’t light a fire there we spent much of the time f.f.f. freezing our butts off. Also for some reason no one in this place would talk to each other or even look you in the eye! Really weird…..we hated the place and were happy to get out of there.
On the last night before we left we headed over to Cable Beach and went on a camel ride. While Matilda was a little nervous to begin with we soon had her up on a camel and she was loving it. We did a sunset ride so got to watch the sun going down over beautiful Cable Beach while plodding along on our camels and listening to the kids speculate about the intricacies of how the poo bags on the camels work…just beautiful!
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| Camel Rides on Cable Beach |
Next day we headed up to Middle Lagoon (part of Cape Leveque). The road turns into red bulldust after a while so of course is corrugated in places and in one spot has what I can only describe as corrugations that are about 2 meters from crest to crest. So instead of getting the usual judders the car starts to bounce if you drive it too fast. But also the road is really wide – maybe 3 times the width of a normal road and is kind of dug down so it’s like you driving along a wide creek bed made of bulldust.
When we got to Middle Lagoon we were given a choice of a few places to camp. One spot was on top of the sand dunes with beautiful views over the ocean. The drawback was that there was no shade and you had to slot in between other caravans – right next to them like at Cable Beach….no thanks. We kept looking and found a great spot that had plenty of space, shade, ocean views and most importantly……isolation. The drawback of this place? The ground was soft white sand – great for the kids to play in – also great to sink the patrol into up to the axle….which we did right away! The problem here was that we needed to turn around to position the camper but this meant chucking a tight U-ey. In the confined space and fine sand the front wheels turned into ploughs and down we went. When deflating the tyres and trying to drive out failed we unhooked the trailer and were able to drive the truck out…..hmmm but what about the trailer? This was going to be difficult and we were both a bit stumped. The best option (of a bad bunch) was to attempt to winch the trailer towards the truck at a 90 degree angle. We made a ramp for the jockey wheel but when we started winching all that happened was that the jockey wheel sunk in the sand and then got bent out of shape. Really at our wits end we had to jack up the front of the trailer, rest it on a spare tyre, fill in the sand, jack up the front again, fill in more sand, reposition the tyre…..and so on until the front of the trailer was high enough to hook back on the truck on a 90 degree angle and try again to drive it out…..hurruh! it worked! The kids wasted no time in jumping in the holes left by the tyres and wallowing in it like pigs in mud!
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| Bogged at Middle Lagoon |
Anyway with a now damaged jockey wheel we set up camp and (at long last) got a campfire going. Daz spent a large portion of the next day trying to bend the jockey wheel back into place and he thought he did a pretty good job of (just ask him!).
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| Middle Lagoon |
We spent the next few days swimming, fishing, collecting shells, and husking green coconuts and mixing the milk with rum. We even made coconut shell cups and sipped rum and coconut milk from them as we swung in the hammock and admired the view. Forget Hawaii….Middle Lagoon is the spot! Daz and Jess landed a few nice whiting off the beach and Jess almost landed a decent Golden Trevally after fighting it of a good few minutes and getting it to within about 3 m of the shore. She absolutely loves fishing!
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| Nat - Champion Coconut Shucker! |
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| 80 Mile Beach |
Regretfully after 4 days we left Middle Lagoon and headed down to 80 mile beach (south of Broome). This beach is famous for its sea shells and they’re not wrong. We drove along the beach for about 15 km and Daz tried to fish while the Kids and Nat collected shells. By the end of the day we had no fish but two buckets full of sea shells – many of them as big as your fist. Frustratingly there are huge chunks of shells that, if unbroken would be bigger than your head….but they were all broken. It Didn’t matter – as it is we’re hard pressed fitting in the shells we collected (having to bring enough home for the kids to give one shell to each school friend was undoubtedly cheaper than buying presents but did give us some packing challenges!) 80 Mile beach also boasted absolutely magnificent sunsets – especially when the tide is out…check it out:
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| Sunset at 80 Mile Beach |
After 2 nights at 80 Mile Beach we packed up to head for Broome again. Of course it was Nat who narrowly escaped getting her foot mangled when the jockey wheel collapsed while she was hooking on the trailer (nice one Dazza Coight) but luckily no harm was done other than scaring the bejesus out of Nat. We headed back towards Broome and found a trailer repair place that sold us a new jockey wheel and then we headed out of town about 30km to stay at a different caravan park. While not as beautiful as Cable beach the facilities here are great , the campsites large, and we met some really nice people from the sunshine coast!
Next day we stocked up on groceries, and then went to the Malcolm Douglas Wilderness Park. I was surprised by how good this was! We got to cuddle snakes and baby crocodiles and watch from up close as they fed some bloody big salties (some were about 5 m long) with names like ‘Maniac’, ‘Bullet’, ‘One eye’ and ‘Santa’. It was great.
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| Jessica with a Worma Python |
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| Nat & Matilda cuddle the Worma Python |
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| Nat chowing down on a croc |
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| A Croc called 'Bullet' |
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| Bullet getting fed |
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| The eye of the Bullet |
After that we went into Broome and watched the phenomenon
called ‘Stairway to the Moon’. This is when the moon rises above the tidal
flats and lights up the tidal flats. It’s really beautiful…but I think that it
might be somewhat ‘over-marketed’ given that the caravan parks in Broome seem
to overflow when the conditions are right. After having dinner at a café to
watch the moonrise we went back to camp to the news that QLD had just won
another State of Origin! Hooray! (BTW if you go for the blues and think no one
cares about the State of Origin apart from QLD or NSW you’d be wrong. The
Western Australians take it pretty seriously too – I have no idea why)
Anyway – after a broken night (thanks to Jessica’s vomiting
stint) we packed our bags and finally turned out heads east again. From here on
we’re heading for home….but first things first. Next Stop Winjana Gorge, Tunnel Creek and the
Bungle Bungles.
