No more dirt roads- yee ha!!

Hello Family & Friends,

Well, we are currently heading South, after having a very busy week in Broome. And we are now on bitumen- yay!! (Tribal Dance) “No more dirt roads, yippee, yippee, no more dust in everything, hip hip hooray!!” (you can sing along if you like!!)

At the end of my last blog, we were about to visit Mornington Wilderness Camp. After chatting with someone at Charnley River Station, and the fact that the road into Mornington is 95 kms long and we were a little bit worried about having enough fuel to get to Broome, we decided not to go there. Instead we headed for Mt Hart Station.

Mathew Gorge

Sunset at Mt Hart

Recently Mt Hart was taken over by APT Tours, so we were actually a little bit hesitant about visiting the place. But the camping area is situated away from the Lodge and is actually very nice. After booking in for 2 nights, we decided to stay for another 2. The staff here were just lovely and again we had a meal in the restaurant (they don’t do Homestead type meals here. Due to the APT guests on 'packages', it is more like a proper restaurant). We did visit the gorges and the Big Boab on the property. One of the gorges, Mathew Gorge, was just beautiful and we went for a lovely swim here. We also watched a gorgeous sunset from Sunset Hill.

While we were at Mt Hart, we planned the next part of our trip. We really should have booked into Broome earlier as we were really ‘killing time’ at Mt Hart and for the next few nights. Oh well, when we booked our Broome caravan park back in December 2012, having done a rough plan of the first half of our trip, I don’t think we ever thought we would do the Gibb River Road (GRR) in less than 4 weeks.

We did decide to do the Horizontal Falls flight while we were in Broome though. We were able to book this at Mt Hart and Harry (the APT fella in charge at the moment) said he would look after us! Well I know he didn't on the price but on the morning we did the trip, we both got a chance to sit up the front in the First Officers seat!! This was brilliant for photos as it was a sea plane so you landed on water as well as the ground!

Horizontal Falls trip (above & below)

 Another funny thing happened at Mt Hart. At beer-o’clock(4pm) one afternoon, we realized that we were fast running out of Coopers Pale Ales and we would have to ration them until we got to Broome. Just before Anthony turned off his computer and the internet, I asked him to check to see if there was a Liquorland in Broome. Well there was and while he was checking the address, I noticed that the special for the week was 2 Coopers Pale Ales for $88.00 and the special was finishing at 7pm that night (thank goodness we were on the same time zone!!). So I grabbed the satellite phone, called Liquorland, gave them my credit card number over the phone and asked them to hold 2 Pales for us and we would pick them up in a weeks’ time on the 30^th. And they did!!

How close are we to this croc!!!!

Still heading towards Broome, we spent 2 nights at Windjana Gorge and another two at Birdwood Downs Homestead (not the best place to stay on the GRR!). Windjana Gorge is where there are heaps of crocodiles in the gorge and you can basically almost walk up and touch them. In the afternoon they all laze around on the edge of the creek and you can get some fantastic photos of them. We also went to Tunnel Creek early one morning. This is a special area where you can walk 750 metres under the rock/hill through water and over sand to an opening at the other end. Nine years ago I wasn’t up to doing this walk but this year was totally different. It actually was heaps of fun walking through this pitch black tunnel with torches and having to navigate your way over sand and through water. We only passed a lone tourist on our walk into the tunnel and another single person on our way back so it really did feel like we were the only people there.

Anthony at the entrance to Tunnel Creek

 We arrived into Broome on Wednesday 31^st July as booked (we did have to spend the 30^th at Broome’s Gateway c/van park which is 30 kms out of Broome to 'kill' one more night!!). Went into Broome and had a look around and got our bearings, as our caravan park was at Cable Beach (about 4 kms from Broome CBD).

While we were in Broome, I went to Perth for my MS medicine (Thursday arvo to Friday evening), we checked out Chinatown, visited Matso’s Brewery (where they make a delicious alcoholic ginger beer), had a romantic 50^th birthday dinner at the Thai restaurant inside the Cable Beach Resort (Thai Pearl), bought some beautiful Broome pearl earrings for my 50^th and caught up with an old mate of Anthony’s who owns and runs the Bali Hai Resort. And don’t forget we did the Horizontal Falls full day trip also. And this was supposed to be our half way break!!!

The view from Matso's Brewery outdoor bistro- best pub views anywhere if you ask me!!!

Well we are now having a break. We are at 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park which is about 360 kms south west of Broome. We are just a sand dune away from the beach, where we sat last night and enjoyed a Pikes Riesling while watching the sun set. Shortly, we’ll go for a nice long walk down the beach and back. And we just did- it's just gorgeous!!!

Eighty Mile Beach- just gorgeous

We have just worked out the remainder of our trip and really could do with a few more days!! Bummer we wasted almost a week slowing down our trip at the end of the GRR as we could do with another week now. Oh well, we can’t do everything as we’ll have to leave some things to do on our next trip to WA.

Tomorrow we head off to Port Headland and we will be getting the Prado checked over at the Toyota dealership. We tried to have it done in Broome but they were fully booked for 2 weeks. We just want them to check that everything is tight and that there isn’t anything untoward going on under the car (from being on dirt for 28 days!).

Then it’s off down the coast…….

We'll be in touch again soon,

Love to all, Julie & Anthony xx