Another week has begun and it is
now time to leave the lovely town of Broome for a few days. We packed up and left the van park heading
north along the sandy red road along the Dampier Peninsula. We were taking the caravan to Middle Lagoon
for the next 4 nights to relax and enjoy the sunshine – just like a proper
holiday! It is a bit 150kms along the
red dusty road to the turn off to Middle Lagoon and then about another 30kms
west along corrugations until we sited the water. We pulled into this little aboriginal owned
caravan park and paid our fees (I’m sure they didn’t charge us enough). We found our site, set up the camp and went
for a walk down to the lagoon – it was beautiful – time to relax! We ran into some fellow travellers here that
we had previously met at El Questro, Andrew, Kylie, Jasmine, Josh and Mia so
the kids were excited that they might have some kids to play with for a few
days – I had a different idea which involved plenty of school work. In the afternoon, Josh and the kids went for
a dip in the lagoon, Dad went for a walk around the rocks and I slumped onto
the sand to chill out – we all came together a bit later for a spot of cricket
though. It was our niece’s birthday
today and we didn’t have phone reception to call her. However, we spotted a phone not far from the
office just standing all alone and figured that we may be able to use our phone
card to make a call. We were
surprisingly pleased when we read that it was a government paid phone to assist
the aboriginals with keeping in touch – but no signs to stop us white fella
from using it either. We were able to
make our free call back home to wish Rhiannon a happy birthday and in hindsight
probably should have called everyone on our phone list while it was free… It was a lazy afternoon which led into a
stunning sunset. We walked up to the top
of the cliffs that overlook the ocean, where many unpowered campers had set up
and the orange and red of the sunset was stunning, one of the best we’ve
seen. The cloud formations surrounding
us made for some fantastic photos – yet again!
We had a quiet night in watching a movie but it wasn’t one to rave about
– no wonder Josh fell asleep.
The following day, the kids
started out by doing some aboriginal dot paintings on my arms and legs by using
the red dirt from the ground and then we jumped into the car to do some sight-seeing. First stop was at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm. We browsed their small jewellery store before
grabbing a coffee at the café but when it came to wandering around the place,
we were told that due to OH&S that we weren’t able to, this was a busy
fully-operating pearl farm so it was unsafe to do so. Oh well, we went back to the car and back in
search of other spots. We next drove to
One Arm Point to the Ardiyooloon hatchery where they are particularly interested
in the Trochus Shell. The Bardi
aboriginal people eat the meat from these marine snails and then use the mother
of pearl to make things such as jewellery and buttons. We also got to feed the barramundi, and see
other fish like the lion fish, clown fish, monkey fish and blue ringed
octopus. There were some lovely beach
spots right along this coastline with gorgeous white sand, clear blue water and
a few little make-shift beach huts with lots of cockatoos floating about. We drove on further to Kooljaman Wilderness
Camp at Cape Leveque which is somewhere that other campers have raved
about. Unfortunately, the camping area
is not very big and we couldn’t bring the caravan this far up the cape and it
is also busy and hard to book into.
Instead, we stopped here for a late lunch of pizzas, wraps and hot chips
and then had a look around the coastline which again is extremely pretty. We followed the pathway all the way down to
the beach where Josh and the girls popped in for a swim. After a bit more of a look around we decided
that due to the time it was going to take us to return to the caravan park,
that we would make tracks. It was close
to sunset time again when we returned so had our showers and dinner and then
went to sit by the campfire with some fellow travellers to swap stories –
another great evening.
For the next 2 days we tried to
fit in lots of school work (which again we were behind with) in the mornings
and then relaxed on the beach at the lagoon in the afternoons. It was great to just go for a swim in the
cool water, go for long walks along the beach, make a few sandcastles, collect
shells and play a bit of beach cricket. They
were lovely hot days and we even managed to put the boat in for a day but when
it was pulled out of the water we had popped a tyre so no more boating until we
replaced it. Nights were spent inside as
it was pretty cold so we simply watched a movie at night. Mostly though Josh picked them and would then
fall asleep and we would curse him at the end of it as they were crap movies.
Friday was pack up time. Dad had collected lots of shells, shell
pieces and bits of coral so he went through his pile and chose out the ones he
wanted to keep and returned the rest. On
our drive back to Broome, we turned off into Beagle Bay to have a look at the
Sacred Heart Church. The church is only
quite small but is next to a school and a highly visited place for the beautiful
mother of pearl on the altar, window sills and aisle. From here we drove all the way back into
Broome, fuelled up, grabbed some McDonalds for lunch (haven’t had it since
Cairns which seems like an eternity ago) then went on the hunt for a gurney to
clean the car and van. If anybody is out
there looking for a business venture, I would highly recommend looking into
putting some type of car wash in at either Derby or Broome. There is only one gurney which is part of a
garage in Broome (and none in Derby). So
for around 6 months of the year you have hundreds of cars coming off the Gibb
River Road covered in dust and nowhere to wash them down at the end of their
trek. We spent around $30 (could have
been a lot more if we had more $1 coins) cleaning majority of the dust off both
vehicles while others were lining up waiting for us to finish. We ended up back at Broome Caravan Park near
to where we were previously and set back up.
After a quick shower, we decided to go out for dinner to Matso’s
Brewery. On our way out of the van park
we noticed Andrew and Kylie getting towed into our park, the poor things had
car trouble around 200kms out of town and had to turn back – not that Broome is
a bad place to have to spend additional time.
Dinner at Matso’s was pretty good – made even better by the fact that
the kids had found a free double ended gaming machine to sit and pass some of
their time instead of nagging away at us.
Josh enjoyed his last mango beer tonight, I’m sure that is something he
will miss.
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