Blogs from Buccaneer Archipelago, Western Australia, Australia, Oceania

We walk out of our apartment to see a long line of elegantly dressed women, complete with high heels, fancy dresses and fascinators, waiting for transport. It seems that the Broome Cup is on today, and it looks just like Melbourne Cup Day back home; well except for the minor matter of the weather. I wonder what these now very fashionably dressed ladies will look like by day's end - broken heels, smudged makeup and grazed knees are a fair bet if other cups I've experienced are anything to go by. I hope they'll think it was worth it. Today we've booked a seaplane flight to the iconic Horizontal Falls which are somewhere around 250 kms north-east of Broome, and only accessible by boat or plane. We board our ten-seater craft and track north along Cable ... read more

It was only a short drive in to Derby from Willare but we wanted to find somewhere to have a shower because the water was off at Willare. We checked one of the local caravan parks and after paying $5 had a luxurious shower. We also found a hairdresser on site and each of us got a haircut. Before the pick up for the trip out to the airport we had time to visit the Derby jetty plus check out the wharfinger museum (a wharfinger is a person who manages a wharf). The museum turned out to be the history of Derby for the last 100 or so years and was quite interesting. Georgi got excited about various bits of information relating to some research she was doing on property ownership. Ask Georgi about it. After ... read more

Woke up on Sunday to finally no rain falling (stopped round about 6am !) Great news with the puddles in the campground quickly drying up. Unfortunately the the corner of the pop-top roof did end up leaking during the night but the poly sheet & toilet paper plugs did soak up some of the wet. Prior to leaving we heard from our next door neighbours at the campground & the cleaner, that all side roads & gorges on the Gibb River Road were closed due to the large amount of rain that had fallen over the past 36 hours. Apparently it wasn't the water crossings that were the major issue, but more the fact that some of the side roads were washed out due to the unexpected & unseasonal downpour. We were very lucky that we'd ... read more