Blogs from Oceania - page 4

Thursday 2 nd May , KununurraG’Day Lake KununurraCost $45.00 per night with membershipRated by us 6/10Mileage 18949 travelled 0Slow and lazy start to the day, planned trip out to Wyndam and whatever else we can see on the way.You can not even start to show the scale and expanse of the scenery. The hills and roads go on for ever and change all the time as you drive along, the sun changes the colours and the shadows change the shapes, a moving landscape,The creeks are almost all full of water up here after the big wet, they have such strange names, Dead Horse Creek, Black Flag Creek, Maggies Creek to name but a few, you have to wonder by who and why they were so named. Watching for any brown tourist signs we ... read more

I get chatting to the motel manager over breakfast. She says that her occupancy rate’s currently well down, which she attributes almost entirely to the well publicised recent civil unrest in Alice Springs. She tells me that lots of bus tours through here have been cancelled, and even some of the scheduled Ghan services haven’t run due to lack of passengers. She says that the situation in The Alice is deplorable; gangs roaming the streets armed with guns and machetes, smashing cars and property, and injuring people. She says that the curfew has helped, as have additional police services, but it’s far from a complete solution. Hmmm. Alice Springs is our next stop, and I’m suddenly feeling relieved that we’ve opted for accommodation a few kilometres outside town. This is all incredibly sad. It seems to ... read more

Tuesday 30 th April, KununurraG’Day Lake KununurraCost $45.00 per night with membershipRated by us 6/10Mileage 18949 travelled 0Having looked at the flights and tours on offer around here we are shocked at the prices. The helicopter ride over the Bungle Bungles start at $1,500 each and they all include a hike, which I cannot do. The only one with no walking is $3,045 each which is crazy. Whilst chatting to the girls on reception I noticed a brochure for JJJ Cruises and on investigation I was pleasantly surprised, for $242 each we get a coach to Lake Argle and a cruise down the Ord river back to Kununurra from 11.30 am and taking in the sunset back at 5.30 pm, we booked.What an amazing day, Hazel who drove the coach picked us up ... read more

Issy asks me how I slept. “OK I think“, I reply, “other than getting up in the pitch black in the middle of the night and spending ten minutes trying to find the door handle on what turned out to be a door size wall panel”. My beloved does eventually stop giggling. Such a sympathetic response …. not. And on the subject of the motel’s bathroom, the mirror above the sink‘s so far from the basin that I need a telescope to be able to see myself shaving. Fortunately I seem to survive the ordeal without too many deep wounds. On the upside, the mirror’s only so far back because the proprietors have seen fit to fill the space between the sink and the wall with a wide bench. They’ve thus managed to avoid one of ... read more

Tuesday 23 rd April, BroomeRAC Cable Beach Caravan ParkCost $41.62 per night with membershipRated by us 8/10Mileage 17707 travelled 0I cannot believe how tired we still feel after our trip to the falls.Off to Cable Beach for a coffee and sit and watch the world for a while, no plans today.Could not resist actually getting onto Cable Beach, Tippy and I went for a short wander and I took a few shots.Back to camp to relax and catch up again, thank goodness for the shady trees and the pool.Murray and Jo have booked the trip after seeing our enthusiasm on return I do hope it works out for them. Grahame and Toni are waiting until May when the overnight stays begin, they have taken a job for two moths at the park so ... read more