Nothing stops for a cup of tea

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DAY 210

Once again the day will not start with a cup of tea as we ran out of gas last night. Andy was up early as usual, I was up before 7.00 also, we both went and showered then when we came back I set about making our breakfast, a bowl of cereal but before I could splash the milk into the bowl Margaret appeared with a kettle of boiling water saying “I thought you might need a cup of tea”, both Andy and I were thrilled at such a sight. What bliss our kindly neighbour Margaret had only just got up and remembered that we were out of gas.

Hurriedly I made the tea and then returned the kettle, we both sat down to eat our breakfast and enjoy our first cup of the day.

We are packing up this morning as we are leaving Broome, to start making our way round to Darwin. Most of our kit is packed up as we were preparing ourselves yesterday all we really needed to do was to collapse the tent and load the trailer with our gear.

John appeared and said “come on it is about time you were packing up!” Laughing at his comment Andy replied “we have a cup of tea, everything stops for a cup of tea.” Pondering this thought John came back a few moments later and said “I have to tell you if you are to stay in this country and make a success of it, nothing stops for a cup of tea here, it only stops for a beer!” Feeling happy that we would benefit from knowing this otherwise we might upset a few Aussies along the way.

As there was not a lot to do, Andy finished packing up and I finished yesterday’s blog and got that published with a few pictures.

Andy also popped up to reception with the gas bottle, as they are able to recharge them from here, he returned saying that we will collect it on our way out this morning.

By 9.30 we are packed and almost ready to go, I reverse the Patrol back so that Andy can hook up the trailer, with that job done we pop over to see Margaret and John and bid them goodbye and a safe journey. They are taking a flight today to see Horizontal Falls in the Buccaneer Archipelago, John was joking that as they are both over 70 (looking exceptionally well at 70) every day is a bonus. I am not sure that this went down well with Margaret who although is looking forward to seeing the falls, is actually a little bit nervous of the small plane.

I return our gate card, get my $20 back and Andy picked up the replenished gas bottle, we then found our way out of Broome and heading towards Derby on the Great Northern Highway.

Just before we lost our Vodafone signal we received a message from Andrew and Kirsty to say that they would be at Windjana tomorrow night as they were spending another night in Derby. Derby was not high on my list of things to do and see so we are heading straight for Windjana Gorge as we may spend a few days around the national parks there. There is also camping further up in the King Leopold ranges, which may also be nice for a night or two.

I had Internet for a while as we were driving so I did a quick check on my emails, I find a message from a close friend of mine, Keeley, to say that one of my pictures of the Diamond Princess is going to be used in one of P&O’s marketing brochures for the next season of cruises, how pleased am I? It is a really exciting prospect and cannot wait to see the brochure, except that I am not sure how soon I will be able to get my hands on it as it is not yet published.

I managed to do a few catch up emails along the way. When we were out of range I just picked up my map again and started to look at the mileage and stuff like that before deciding where we should stop for lunch.

Approximately 200 kilometres later we were nearing Derby, we stopped to look at the Prison Boab Tree, this tree is reputed to be some 1500 years old, its hollow round and bulging trunk gave nothing away about its age, you can see where people have in the past carved their names into the trunk, but nowadays you are not allowed near it as it is sacred Aboriginal ground.

Aboriginal men were forced into the Pearl Industry, when they were rounded up they used to chain them to the Boab Tree before sending them out to dive for Pearls, which by all accounts in the early days of the pearling industry was a very unpleasant and treacherous job.

Driving into Derby we pass a fuel station selling Diesel at $1.49, which is a lot better than the one that we passed 50 kilometres before Derby, which was selling at $1.89. We drove round the town just to see what it was like, it was quite a small town, nowhere near the size of Broome and definitely not as modern, although it does have the obligatory Woolworth’s.

As we were driving round we see West Kimberley Fuel Distribution depot selling Diesel at $1.36, all we wanted to do was top up the tank, as I have mentioned before it does pay just to keep it topped up because of the long distances between towns and the extreme cost in more remote places.

We moved on fairly quickly as there was not really much that we wanted to see, and we were keen to get out to Windjana to get a campsite for a night or two. We head out and turn off toward the Gibb River Road, this road will take us up past Kimberley Downs Station, which we have been reading about in Sheryl McCorry’s Book, Diamonds and Dust. The road is bitumen at the moment, just a narrow strip of it and you have to move over for oncoming traffic (they do too!) but definitely don’t argue with those road trains they are bigger than we are.

Stuart who we met on our first campsite in Broome tells us that the road on this side of Mount Barnet is actually well maintained by this shire. We can tell, we are driving through a set of roadworks, it looks as if they will lay more bitumen down this stretch of road past Kimberley Downs. I do reflect on how tough life must have been in the wet season, these roads flood and some areas turn into raging rivers that become impassable. We drive through floodplains and a couple of severe dips in the track that clearly become deep rivers.

Although the road is good we have reduced the tyre pressure slightly as indicated in the book supplied by the tyre company.

We find our turning just before a sign that says there is a snack bar up ahead, I found this quite strange as it is not a main road, it is a dirt track (albeit a busy dirt track at the moment) and the idea of a snack bar in the middle of nowhere sounds as if it should be a mirage.

Less than 20 kilometres later we turn into our campsite at Windjana Gorge (Camps 5 reference 634 Western Australia, page 341, it appears to be quite busy, there are not any designated spots, just a large grassy area that people find a space to camp on, we drive round and soon find a spot, then I realise that they are near the toilets. I told Andy that I would make sure they don’t smell then if not we would be ok to camp here.

Now this is where I find it quite funny, a lot of the national parks we have been to they have long drop loos in the camp areas, some good, some bad and I expected the same here, but they are actually flushing loo’s in individual little huts! So this spot will be perfect for us, a short walk to the toilet. The bonus here is that there are also showers where the water is solar heated, this can catch you out if you are at the back of the queue.

Shortly before 4.00 we pulled up and quickly set up our bed for the night. The kettle was on and we were relaxing after our hot dusty journey. The camp was a hive of activity with people returning from their hikes around the gorge, campfires were being lit and lots of talking about the days events could be heard.

Our dinner tonight is curry, we made it yesterday so we will just set up the little home made cooker placing some fire lighters and heat beads in so that we just place our camp oven on the top to reheat the curry. When the curry is nearly ready I wrap two small Naan breads in silver foil and place them on the top.

Andy serves up with rice everything is done to perfection, the Naans are just the right temperature and the curry is just the right flavour, I wish I could find a way to describe how different the flavour is when food is cooked using the camp oven.

I write up some blog, but as we have been busy lately we have not played cards in a long while, so Andy suggests that we relax and have a game of rummy over a cup of tea. Great idea so we break out the cards and the game is on, our competitive heads on as usual. We play about 6 hands and Andy says he is getting to tired to play so we have one more game to use as a decider but as it turned out we drew (using points that we deduct from 100).

At some point in the evening the temperature dropped, almost as if the humidity just vanished, but it was still a lovely ambient temperature, we were sitting outside in shorts and T-shirts, a far cry from our travels along the Southern part of Australia when we were wearing fleeces just to keep warm in the evenings.

By 9.00 everything and everyone on the campsite as starting to get quite, slowly the campfires were burning down and one by one people were going to bed, Andy cleaned his teeth however I heard a shout and turned around just in time to see the bung fly out of the water bag and soak Andy with a torrent of 5 litres of water.

It was almost silent when we went to bed at around 9.30, I read my magazine for about half hour and then turned the lights out. The temperature was just perfect, not too warm and not too cold and every now and then a nice gentle breeze would blow straight through the mosquito nets.

The night was really tranquil it was lovely.

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Photos

Prison Boab Tree
Can be found just outside of Derby

Camp Spot
Under the Devonian Reef, Windjana Gorge, The Kimberleys

Windmill
Pumps Water to the trough

Kimberley Downs
We read about this station in Sheryl McCorrys Book

Damping Down
Spraying the road with water to keep the dust down