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Published: April 16th 2012
Prison Boab
near Derby WAAs you may have guessed we are once again part of the unemployment stats, having finished up at the station on March 4
th (happy birthday Scott!!!).
Before our departure, we were lucky enough to have a ride in the station chopper! Having both never been in a chopper before this little lego-model was an eye opener. It can even be flown with the doors off completely, not that we went for that option, but made us aware that the doors literally are only there for keeping the rain off the passengers! It was beautiful to see the land, river & station from above and even over some fires that were still burning having recently been lit by lightning.
Leaving on a severely corrugated homestead road was a bit of a challenge for Boris, made us realise how much it had deteriorated since we arrived back in August. So with only 27 km out to the highway, we hit bitumen in just under 2 hours!!! Not so much as an escape, but a slow crawl to freedom!
Spending a few nights in Onslow, we had our final beers at the pub, enjoyed a gorgeous moonlit balcony dinner
The mighty Ord River
Look close, the trees up on the hill look like they have smoke trails coming outta them....it was swams of moths! at Nikki’s Restaurant (our xmas pressie from Jen & Andy – thanks guys!) and generally had some ‘wine down’ time before hitting the road for real.
The cats were a bit hot and upset for the first half hour of life back on the road, but soon settled down and now it’s as if they never had the freedom of a little air-conditioned apartment…..oh hang on, they are missing the aircon immensely! Poor babies, we know it will cool down very soon, they just have to hang in there a couple more weeks. It’s like having two ginger rag-dolls hanging around, they are just floppy & hot, but enjoying their walks and bird-watching from their cat run too.
Probably why they weren’t successful at catching the little mouse that took up residence in Boris’ roofspace, busting into our bread & crackers and taking a bite out of each one! Oh, and pulling the insulation out of our roof and dumping it in the linen. We quickly sacked the mogs from this important job, got ourselves some mouse traps and hey presto the Little prick is now in that big block of cheddar in the sky! He was with
Breathing the Infinity
Tab enjoying a twighlight dip in the pool overlooking Argyle dam us all the way from Onslow to 80 Mile Beach, that’s some serious frequent flyer points in mouse-land!
So north we went, first stop Karratha post office to organise some passports. Yep, we are going overseas! We are excited to announce we will be spending a week in Bali with our fab mates Kate & Mick, who we haven’t seen for WAY too long. Little did we know the birth extracts we have and the marriage certificate we were given on the day are not legal documents……so onto the Karratha Courthouse to apply for the real docs. So we have been waiting for those to come in the mail (to Melbourne, then to us) before we can lodge our applications, you also now need a guarantor on your application to vouch for who you are and sign the passport photos agreeing they are a real photo of you. This person also has to have known you for more than 12 months, have a passport themselves and they can’t be related to you even by marriage, instantly ruling out any of our in-laws and most definitely our families. WTF!!!!! So after all that the poor bastard we nailed was Jase,
Our spot on the Ord River
Alas, couldn't swim as there were crocs!! thanks mate you’re a legend!
Funnily enough while going through all this red-tape, we found out that our marriage had not been registered….or so we panicked! It turns out that our celebrant wrote on the certificate we got on the day “Moama NSW”and then proceeded to send the application to B, D & M’s VIC. So when we got a call from B,D & M’s NSW saying they had never heard of us and had no record of our marriage there was a mini-meltdown indeed. We thought (with our 10 year anniversary coming up this May) that we had never been married after all! Not to mention all the new red-tape that might have been created by Tab having to change ALL her stuff back into her maiden name so she could get a passport……..to cut a long story short, we ranf the VIC office, yes they had heard of us, and we just had to put in another application with them.
With predictions of some crap weather on the way we decided to hi-tail it to Karijini National Park before the wet arrived. We camped Boris in a beaut little rest area outside of the National Park
(therefore not having to put the mogs into lock-down) and Daz got his first work out in a long time. It was cool to have the wind in our hair again, and even the sore bums were worth it, as it was 140km round trip, on bums that have not been motorbike trained since about September last year!!!
Karijini is amazing. Blue swimming holes, giant red cliffs and some really cool rock formations on the gorge walls. Firstly we hiked down into Dales Gorge, to Circular Pool, then back long the Gorge floor heading to Fortescue Falls. With the last bit of the hike into the falls requiring gripping on to a spider-covered rock wall, you can probably guess that we promptly backtracked our walk!! Not to fear, there was another way in from the top so we hiked along the Gorge top this time and then down into the falls from the spider-free side!
The weather at this point was very overcast, which made the hiking easier, but we would love to have gone for a swim at the falls. But with it cool and even a little drizzly we hit the road back to the bus,
Bea Bea Creek
One of our camp spots Near Newman, WA - and yes, we got in!!! hoping not to get rained on the whole way back as we forgot to pack our wet-weather pants that morning. Got home dry with very sore arses indeed!
We then went to Port Hedland, finding out that there were 2 tropical lows, one near Darwin, one near Broome, both of which were on our destination list in the next few weeks - doh! So finding Port Hedland a bit of a shithole we decided to play it safe and retrace our steps to get away from the coast. So back down past Karijini, and nestled into a nice little park in Newman. We rode out the cyclone there, rocking and rolling our way through a Catergory 2 cyclone, into a then-calm Saturday morning.
With the highway going practically past Karijini again we decided to go back in and do some more hikes, now that the weather was just perfect and we are so glad we did. There were heaps more gorges and waterfalls we had missed last time so we spent another 2 days rock hiking and even stayed at the Karijini Resort one night (in Boris) where we watched the sun set with a bottle of bubbles
Station from above
The green circular area is the homestead bit, and the beautiful Ashburton River winding past on the deck of the Resort restaurant. Now that’s a bit OTT for camping!
Retracing our steps up to Port Hedland for supplies, we then turned East and started making our way to Broome. Turning that corner marked a noticeable difference in the climate and foliage. Dry dusty plains gave way to lush greenery, striking rock formations along the highway and gorgeous boab trees, some of them absolutely massive! We spent a few lazy days in Broome, venturing to Matso’s brewery (whoa, that Chilli Beer was HOT!!!) and a nice arvo near the harbour eating oysters and sipping cold Coronas…now it’s officially a holiday!
Onwards and upwards, we stopped for a weekend in the lovely little town of Derby, before heading further East through Fitzroy Crossing on our way to a major destination on our list – Wolfe Creek! This was unreal, so perfectly round, nice little camping area at the bottom, we even set the alarm (shock horror!) so we’d be awake before sunrise and really make the most of the rim walk. Halfway around the rim, you intersect a track that then cuts right through the centre so we decided to go that way, when disaster
Now that's a road train!
Each loaded trailer being pulled by two semi engines joined together - welcome to the mining boom! struck! Poor Jeff twisted his knee in an angry way and had to hobble all the way from one side to the other, then climb the crater rim back up and then back down again to get to the bus. Tab did a sprint to go and get the first aid kit (yes, mums, we should have had it with us….😊 so we could strap it asap. What would have been a 30 minute hike back out took considerably longer, and then, exhausted, Jeff could only sit and be in pain for the 5 hour journey back out to the main highway. Longest trip ever! On into Halls Creek, it being Easter Friday, there was not a soul at Halls Creek Hospital (glad he wasn’t dying) so we decided to just hit the road up to Kununurra asap, as they would be more likely to have xray/scan facilities anyway.
We arrived in Kununurra about 11am Easter Saturday and he was quickly examined, put on crutches with some heavy duty pain killers and asked to rest it for a few days until a Doctor could see him on the Tuesday. So now forced with being in holiday-mode, yes he HAD
Dales Gorge
Karijini NP to put his feet up, we spent a nice weekend camped right next to the lake in Kununurra, reading, eating, sleeping the days away. We were also hoping that we would finally get those blasted Marriage & Birth Certificates, but alas by Tuesday they hadn’t arrived. So we took a day trip out to Wyndham (don’t bother) and then decided we may as well waste a few more days waiting for Australia Post to get their act together, having a look out at Lake Argyle.
Jeff has decided to wait until Darwin and see how his leg feels, then possibly organise an MRI if still no better by then. We reckon we’ll be there in a week or two.
It’s now our 6
th day out here – we spent the first 3 in the Caravan Park and then found a beaut free camp right next to the Ord River – and we hope to discover that our mail has arrived tomorrow (Monday 16
th) otherwise we are gonna start having a small tanty. Can’t believe these docs were posted from Melbourne almost 2 weeks ago, and yes, that was Express Post. Snail Mail is being polite.
So hopefully
next time we blog we will be well on our way to receiving our completed passports and then can be assured we will be on the plane to Bali afterall! Until then, don’t work too hard, but party like it’s 1999!
P.S Happy birthday for the next couple of days to Jase & Madge xo
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