Hi from Exmouth (no not Devon!)

Broome- Exmouth
We went to the deckchair cinema at Broome and saw a film with Paul Hogan - It was a road trip from Victoria to Cape York and they went to loads of places that we had been - they even got their fruit taken away at the fruit fly zone, just like we did!
We went on a tour of the Willie Creek Pearl Farm where they taught us all about oysters and how to get great pearls from them)(makes your eyes water, and rather put me off pearls to be honest) - but it was quite interesting!
Port Smith - there is a tidal lagoon here where there is supposed to be great fishing - what better thing to do on your birthday! So that is where we went for Barry’s 60th. It was a bit hairy you had to fish at low tide and the tide came in really quickly - nearly cutting us off! Barry caught a ‘Queenie’ was tasted really good. Fortunately there weren’t any crocs
Next stop was 80 mile beach - amazing beach, and pretty good fishing too - mostly catfish - but they tasted good as well! It is the time of year for flat backed turtles to lay their eggs in the sand dunes and we were privileged to see it happen. To get video footage I had to practically sit on the turtle (as it was dark, only moonlight) and she didn’t seem to mind as I accompanied her back to the sea - truly wonderful.
After a couple of days at the beach we headed west again to Port Hedland - this is the largest port in Australia and ships iron ore from the mines in the Pilbara all over the world. The whole town is red with dust - and we were soon likewise covered
We then moved inland as there is only so much industry you want to see. Karijini national park. What a gem. We arrived in the afternoon and went and had a look at a couple of lookouts, across the gorges. We spent the night in the bush, but it was spoilt by some noisy neighbours who played music at full volume and screamed and shouted all night - not quite the bush experience we were looking for!
Hancock Gorge - one of the highlights of the trip so far. We decided that lookouts weren’t enough, so set off on a 3 hour hike to the bottom of the gorge. We had to negotiate a 30ft ladder, and climb down into the gorge - to discover that most of it was water - lovely cool water! It was fab. We were the oldest ones down there by about 40 years - but we had a great time - and made a few new friends. On the way towards Exmouth we had to stop at a roadhouse as it was just too far (spent too much time in that gorge!) We were caught in some amazing thunderstorms, got a bit worrying when we realised we were the tallest object around (very flat, very small scrub, no trees). The lightening was the best I have ever seen, and some of the roads were flooded.

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