Where Dinosaurs Trod

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DAY 202

Oh well, it may get extremely boring for you to find out that once again the morning starts of warm and sunny here in this lovely tropical climate. However today our next door neighbours Stuart and Yvonne are leaving for Cape Leveque, they have been here for a couple of months, but Stuart reckons that today is the day that it is going to rain. There is no sign at the moment.

Andy is out of bed first, I can hear him talking to Ken outside, I lay in bed listening for a short while and then decide to enter into the day.

Stuart and Yvonne are up early and before we know it the great Kimberley Camper that they have is packed away and they are ready to go.(just for your information Kimberley Camper trailers are the Rolls Royce of camper trailers, and they have the very best of everything on them, Like Solar panels, Led Lights. Diesel hot water system etc) We bid them goodbye and safe travel in the hope that somewhere along the road we meet up with them again.

After our breakfast we shower and soon we are out and about for the day ahead, we drive down to Gantheaume Point where the cliffs have been eroded over time forming interesting shapes. When the tide is very low it exposes 120 million year old dinosaur tracks, however the tide was in when we were up there so we only had a view of the casts of dinosaur tracks.

We are seeing Andrew and Kirsty tonight so we need to pop into Coles for some groceries to make dinner, which we plan to be a chicken curry. Now the real plan is that if Andy finishes his little project, earlier design courtesy of Stuart, we may actually be able to cook in our camp oven on a fire using heat beads.

The idea of a heat bead is to use firelighters to start a fire, with the heat beads placed on top they soon ignite but don’t catch fire they just heat up and as we all know heat rises so it should cook the contents of the camp oven placed over it. So today/s dinner will be a little bit experimental.

We pop into the camping shop also, just because we like looking at camp shops to see what is about and if there is anything that can make our life a little bit easier, but for today there is nothing that we need or want, except a new pair of shorts for Andy.

Back at camp, the Trueys are off to the beach for a swim, I decline because Andy and I are in the middle of making some modifications to the contents of our trailer, such as the swag. We both feel that a roof rack would make a big difference to our storage and therefore if we were to put the swag and spare wheel on the roof rack it would free up easier accessible space in the trailer.

In the absence of a roof rack (they cost big money!) another plan is hatched and that is to wrap the swag in a tarp and secure it to the front of the trailer on the draw bar behind the two spare wheels, so before we knew it the job was done and now we have bags of room in the trailer, until of course we find something else to fill it up with!

So Andy and I are soon on our way to the beach for a swim, but we see the Trueys are on their way back, Jodie commented that she wished I had come down earlier so that we could have walked up the beach, but that is for curiosity as we know that the northern part of the beach is a nudist beach.

Andy and I carry on to the beach, the Trueys need to get ready because Josh and Kahlia are having a sunset camel ride this evening.

We cannot drive onto the beach, well we could but the tide was still in, so we park up instead and find the swimming part of the beach, which is designated by the red and yellow lifeguard flags, i.e. the part of the beach that is patrolled by the life guard. We see on the notice board saying that the last Irukandji (Jelly Fish) sting was on the 9th May, this year.

Yomping down to the beach and finding a spot we leave our towels, sunnies, and thongs in a pile and walk in to the sea, its beautiful and warm, in we venture the tide is going out, but the waves coming in were rather huge and were great fun. Some of the waves looked as if they were going to break over my head, you had to stand in just the right position so that you were not in the middle of the break.

If you had it right you could just jump and therefore bob with the wave, but it was much harder if it broke into you, you can still bob, but there is huge force with the wave that easily unbalances you.

We spend and hour in the water enjoying the warmth and the waves, we get out, get dried, then we jump back in the truck and go back to the campsite as Andy wants to prepare the food for tonight and I want to have a shower.

Andy is busy cutting the chillies and the onions as perfectly as he does, so off I go to shower however when I get there I find that there is no water, someone told me before I went in, so I went in and turned the tap on just to make sure. I heard someone go into the shower so I shouted to here, “before you get ready there is no water.” She did not respond so I shouted again. She appeared and said “F***, I have the hangover from hell, I have been on the beach all day so I am salty, sandy and really minging.” I sympathised with her plight.

I find out that the water on the camp site has been turned off as the site down the road has gone through the main water pipe so we have nothing for now. Showers and the like will have to wait.

Jumping back in the truck we head back down to the beach as Josh and Kahlia Truman will be on the sunset camel ride and we want to get some photo’s against the sunset. Parking up the Patrol up near the dunes so I can get some good photos, and in the distance three trains of camels come loping across the sand.

I dart down nearly to the waters edge and take some pictures, whilst Andy drives down the beach to collect me we then both drive back along the beach where the camels will stop and all the passengers will dismount, and yes you guessed it I take some more photo’s! All the camel passengers were given a carrot to feed to their camel as a treat.

Once the kids are off their beasts we ask if they enjoyed their camel ride and the view was favourable, well sort of anyway. Seeing the time was moving on we needed to get a wiggle on as our dinner guests would soon be with us.

Once back in camp Andy put heat beads in to the camp oven and lit the firelighters, the chicken, chillies and onions where browning the frying pan, when they were done they were transferred to the camp cook pot, which was placed on the camp oven to slowly cook, then I went off for my long awaited shower as the water had now been restored to normality.

Andrew and Kirsty arrived and Gave us a little gift, its was a postcard of an Aboriginal Girl, who was as pretty as a picture holding a newborn Wombat asleep in her arms, as by now you will know Andy has a love for Wombats and this picture is really special.

We sit and chat while the curry slowly cooked itself, the heat coming from the pot was quite intense and would have been very welcome on a cool night, however with the humidity of the tropics it was a hot evening. After some time had passed the curry was ready and was served up beautifully hot, Andy had done poppadoms and Naan breads to compliment a really tasty chicken curry. Kirsty and I washed it down with a red wine Spritzer, before Stuart left he gave me half a bottle of red that he was not going to drink, well how could I refuse?

We sat around for the rest of the evening talking and laughing, we had a great time, but very quickly again time moved ahead of us and eventually Andrew and Kirsty said their goodbyes.

We tidied up quickly, knowing that we would be starting to pack up tomorrow so leaving a few things now would not be a problem so Andy and I went to bed, again the evening was really hot and we both slept of top of the sleeping bags.

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Photos

Foot Print
Dinosaur Foot Print

Stuart & Yvonne
Stuart came over when he was 15 from New Zealand on a Russian Ship with his mate Greg Munro, Nephew of Burt Munro "The Worlds fastest Indian"

Kimberly Kampers
The Rolls Royce of Campers

Comments

[Darryl and Sarah]

We're still reading the blogs!
It gets harder now we're travelling to but we've caught up with the ones that we'd missed! You're having such a great time and your weather is better than ours in Sydney!!! Take care Sarah and Darryl

[kangaroojack]

Still reading the blog
Hi Both,glad to see you are settling in to your adventure, If you want a good camp site in Glen Innes go to Craigieburn Camp site and ask for Helen and Robyn, (Nice People). We have heard about the weather in NSW and Qld, and I would just get a wiggle on North of Cairnes if you want some decent weather, we have just got back to Broome for a couple of days, then we will work out whats next. Its nice to see people who apprecaite just how hard it is to produce a blog everyday, and it just gets harder, with computer failures and the like. Stay safe and maybe we will eventually meet. Kangaroojack