Back in the firing line

Day 173 - Broome

We scramble from the tent after another good nights sleep to find a bright and cheerful morning. You can smell the smoke in the air but the fires look to have passed us by so we’re confident that we’ll be able to reach the highway today without being turned back.

We checked the internet and could see from the news reports that the fires had been quite extensive and it confirmed what we’d heard yesterday about the Coconut Wells caravan park being evacuated. Sadly it also states that the initial fire was started deliberately, quite beyond comprehension really. The updates don’t really say whether the highway is accessible or not so we’ll just have to keep our eyes on the sky for signs of smoke.

There’s time for one last dip in the ocean after breakfast, the waves are great and it’s just so beautiful here. We’re a very long way from any sort of hustle and bustle and fire for that matter.

It doesn’t take us long to pack up the camp and we even manage to write bits to the blogs before we head off along the sandy track. The blog writing is a bit behind but it won’t take us long to catch up, hopefully we’ll be back on track in the next few days!

We leave our camp having ensured that our camp fire was well and truly distinguished; we certainly wouldn’t want to add another one to the equation.

The journey back was nice and straight forward but when we got to the turn off for Willie Creek we were shocked at how far along the road the fire had ventured. It must have progressed during the night but luckily didn’t make it anywhere near us. We wondered how everyone else got out from the pearl farm, maybe they were all flown out in the end. We later found out that everyone stuck in Willie Creek with a vehicle was escorted out by the police quite late yesterday evening. Nige met the lady traveller in Woolies today and she was telling him all about it. All very dramatic but we're glad they all got out safely.

The Elliotts pump their tyres back up when we reach the bitumen and then head back towards the caravan park while we head off to collect our van. The original plan had been for us to start the journey towards Port Hedland today but we’re filthy! The car’s filthy, we’re filthy and we stink and everything is covered in red dust so we’ve decided to stay in the caravan park today to get cleaned up and we’ll leave in the morning.

Luckily the storage yard man is there when we arrive because our mobile is out of credit yet again so we couldn’t get through when we tried to call! We rarely use it but when we get an occasion where we’d like to we either have no reception or no credit again. It’s so odd we’ve both gone from being physically attached to mobile phones all the time to barely remembering where ours is!

The storage man tell's us that the fire's have not yet been brought under control so despite us being able to access the highway to get back in to Broome we're pretty much back in the 'firing line' again! It's surrounded by bush land though so it's got a long way to come before it's a real threat to the town or indeed us. Apart from the smoke billowing into the air you would never know that any sort of drama was taking place, Broome is continuing in it's everyday business nice and calmly.

We’re soon back at the Cable Beach Caravan Park and when we check in the receptionist tells us that the Elliotts have found us a pitch behind them. Beautiful! Another family that the Elliotts have met on their travels are camped here too and their son Cody is celebrating his birthday today, he’s turning eleven and almost as soon as we arrive he invites us to his party this evening!

We get straight on with cleaning up and trying to get the red dust out of every nook and cranny it’s managed to seep through to. It doesn’t take us long so then we head into town for some supplies to keep us going over the next few days. We’ll be in Karijini pretty soon and there aren’t many shops out that way, it’s all quite remote travelling again!

We get some supplies but also come back with a guitar! You remember, the 'cheap and nasty' one from the only music shop in Broome! Well today's sales assistant gave it just as good a review when I asked about a case for it! Nevermind, we bought it anyway but I have blog writing to do before I'm allowed to practise my new tunes!

The Elliotts are off on a camel ride this afternoon so we continue with our cleaning and try to catch up with the blog uploads then trot down to good old Cable Beach to watch the camels and the sunset. Belinda and Zali, Amber and Lachie are all sitting proudly atop their chosen camels and we watch them lollop off into the distance past a couple of nudie rudies! This section of the beach is clothing optional and whilst we didn’t see anyone ‘hanging it out’ when we were on our camel ride we do remember Jess, one of the handlers, saying that they normally see quite a few when they’ve got plenty of children on board. Oh well!

Nige is up for taking some different sunset shots tonight so he’s searching out the perfect spot, somewhere with rocks but where the tide will fill the foreground to give a soft water look. We are of course tagging along to see what we can learn!

The camel ride was soon over and everyone returned with huge grins on their faces, it’s a great experience.

Sunset was still a while off so Belinda and the kids went to meet up with Dee, Sean, Cody and Bae who were somewhere on the grass overlooking the beach to celebrate Cody’s birthday. We stayed with Nige for more sunset photography lessons and armed with camera and tripod we carefully picked out a good spot. Apparently we didn’t pick well enough though because we were soon ankle deep in water when the tide came in quicker than expected! We eventually settled further up the beach but lost the reflections that Nige had been hoping for. Still, it was good fun and we quite like a couple of the shots so it was worth the wet feet and the rock scrambling!

Back at camp we headed over to Cody’s birthday party just in time to get in on the pizza ordering! We’ve not eaten out for a long time so this is a big treat, we order wisely and are very excited when Sean discovers that by ordering on line we get extra garlic bread for free! We organise a collection rather than waiting 90 minutes for them to deliver and when we get there we’re amused to find that it’s being run by somebody who looks about 12, ok 14 at a push! We eventually walk out with a tower of pizzas and garlic bread to return to camp ready for the hungry hordes!

It was a good night and the pizza was delicious! Thanks Cody for inviting us along we hope you enjoyed your birthday!

Dar and Sar

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