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Published: April 29th 2007
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All of us :)
Here we all are on Shell beach Hi all, im writing from Broome, yep I've finally moved from Perth!! Well we nearly didnt as our bus was slightly late, although we weren't really in a rush to go anywhere, so that didnt make a difference.
We've travelled a very long way in the past few days, its all in km though so i cant quite grasp the concept (look on a map though...its far!).
Our bus consisted of Murray and Greg the tour guides, then there was me and Nat, Sandy and Sue and Jim all from East Australia and Jen, Alex, Lizzie and Angela from South London.
The first day we saw the pinnacles desert, big yellow stones that apparently Billy Connelly ran around naked...we didnt feel the need to do that when we were there though!! We had our first swag experience that night, a swag is just a piece of tarpauline doubled over with a zip around! It does keep you warm though when your gazing up into the stars, which there are loads of as well as venus which was shining bright and quite a few shooting stars too, so many wishes were made. Although no one can have wished for the weather
though!! from about the second day (some of these facts may not be in order as i didnt have a concept of time or day during the whole trip!!) it rained every day, yep i think it was every day apart from the last night and day!! we were in marble bar then, the hottest place in australia so if it had rained there it would have just topped it off!! It rained so much on some days my waterproof jacket actually got worn! very fetching it is too! The rain you could just cover up from which isnt too bad but there were the flies!! and millions of them from when the sun came up til it went down, so with our fetching waterproofs on we also investing in fly nets!! $6 well spent i thought.
Anyway back to whet we did, we had our first swim in what is called if im not mistaken a billabong (a large hole in the outback filled with water) so there were nmo steps to climb down or sides to hold on to, but it wa sok so as i jumped in i just thought if im running out of energy just
In the Boom Net
....before the engine got turned up!! roll overon my back and i'll float like my dad always told me to do, and it works . Oh yes i failed to mention i thought the guide Greg said it was 5m deep, 5m deep i thought woah wont be touching the bottom...he actually said 35m deep!! it was an old quarry, if i could touch the bottom then i would be worried!! An incident did occur due to the fact i had to jump in, with my bikini top feeling every so more slack the longer i was in there, so we had a team bonding session tightening my top while treading water to save my embarrasment!!
We had a couple more nights in swags and one place even had a spa pool!! (and we thought we were roughing it!!) but that changed when we had our first bush camps...into the bush we headed (with the delightful flies!!).. 500mm deep and 100m from a waterway is what you need to remember when your in the bush (thats the distance and depth of the hole you dig for your toilet!!) many giggles could be heard from the little flashlights wandering up the track trying to find a 'free cubicle'!!! That in itself was the initiation for staying in the bush i thought, but no we had to be introduced into the 'ugga bugga tribe' (still not convinced thats a true tribe!!) for the initiation we all had too....oh sorry cant tell you, what goes on in the camp stays in the camp , you'll just have to join one yourselves to find out.
We visited a lot of different places and the itinery did get changed slightly due to change of land ownership (so no sandboarding ) and the weather!! Coral bay and the ningaloo reef was going top be the highlight of the trip for me and we couldnt do any trips or see the reef or anything because that was the worst day for the weather, it was tipping it down and we had to stay in a hostel (which was nice) because even in tents we would have got soaked!! It was a real disapointment, we made up for it by spending more time in the Karijini national park, but i really wanted to snorkel at ningaloo .
Anyway,,,we did see the dolphins at monkey mia, (all different reasons for the name...one being mia means 'place of' and the monkey bit well theres all stories to do with pirate ships and monkeys sitting on the shoulders of pirates and things like that )...yeh so we saw the monkeys i nearly put there...i mean dolphins being fed, they are wild but come for their breakfasts...you cant touch them but they can touch you, not one decided to touch me but it was nice seeing them. At monkey mia we went on a catamaran (my fingers were crossed i wanst going to be ill!! and i wasnt!! yippee!!) that was really good especially when we got to go on the boom net at the back, which is a net you sit in, in the water and hang on for dear life as you zoom along in the water at the back of the boat!! i'd do that again!! We were looking for Dungongs (remeber the one i liked in singapore) ddint spot any but a dolphin swam near our boat. We did however spot lots of marine life, from point peron (not the one i was at before, thers two!) looking down into the ocean we spotted..a lemon shark (quite a fruity little fellow, not a very scary name though really!!), turtles, sting rays and flying fish, as well as the dolphins (we saw some swimming past at the pinnacles too, a really large pod!). That was really good.
We saw alot of wildlife on our tour, if i had the eye spy book of australian animals im sure i would have the highest points you could get!! to name but a few...a wild emu, bush turkey, kangaroo, wallaby, walleroo (cross between the other too), ecidna, thorny devil (lizard), dingo and wasaroos too (they are the ones that didnt hop quite quick enough across the roads!!). Oh yes and a tree frog was spotted in the toilet that most of the girls had been in at a roadhouse...apparantly it lives under the rim!! A red bellied black snake was spotted on one of our walks.....turned out it was a plastic one from Gregs bag!! ha ha very funny!!
A main part of Karijini was the gorges...the 'gorgeous gorges' as they were affectionatly renamed!! These were amazing and the best parts were climbing in Hancocks gorge...one part involved the spider walk!! this involved walking across a gap of about a metre wide with one hand and foot on each side and moving along, its hard to explain, but it was quite scary doing that across a fast flow of water!!
Fern pool was our last bath of the trip, it was a beautiful pool off Fortescue falls with a waterfall of its very own.
the funniest moment would have to have been when we were at a place called sandy bay and Lizzie (only been in oz a couple of days) said why do they call it 'information bay' bless her (to explain... all places in oz have an 'information bay' located near them explaining whats there, she had seen the sign for this and assumed thats where we were!! I was the one that had to explain to her why evryone was laughing, easy mistake to make (maybe you had to be there!!)
I've probablly missed a lot of the things out that we did, but i really would be here all day and the sun beckons (yep the rain did stop)...as well as a chemist (my legs are like the elephant mans!!! bites everywhere!!! my tip...always wear long trousers on a night..always!! unlike i did on the last night and im paying for it now!!!).
We have three nights in broome before our next part of the trip, so i think we will be going to the crocodile farm, open air cinema, sunset on cable beach!! lots and lots.
Speak to you all very soon. x x
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Lizzi
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Fame at last!
Hey Amy!! I just wanted to say how thrilled i am to be famous to all your friends and family as the dufus of our tour!! it really was a very easy mistake to make, honest! Hope ur enjoying the second part of the tour as much as we did the first bit, the new folks better not be as fun as us! we all part ways today, Alex and Jen head back to Melbourne on Friday night, Ange is off to Bangkok and i go to Brisbane, and then up to Airlie Beach for sailing....am keeping my fingers crossed for more boom nets! take care girls, and keep in touch, zi xxx