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Published: October 19th 2009
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Day 170 - North of Broome and South of the Dampier Peninsula
We’ve let ourselves get really settled in our lovely camp spot at the Cable Beach Caravan Park, it’s so shady here and the sprinklers keep things nice and cool. Plus of course the company is pretty awesome!
Along with the Elliott’s we’re heading a short way up towards the Dampier Peninsula today, we’re not sure which camp spot we’ll pick but we have a choice of three and they are all free!
We’re packed up by 7am and set off to drop the caravan in the storage yard. We could probably take it where we’re going but you can never tell how bad the road is going to be and it’s a bit of a struggle when you chuck sand in the equation so we’ll be sleeping in the tent again
With the caravan in storage and the Elliott’s all packed up we head for the rather nice café just above the beach to grab a coffee with Amber, Ross and Lucy before we hit the road.
And then we were off, but only as far as the turning for Cape Leveque. There was
a road block here stopping anyone driving towards Port Hedland due to a bush fire which is proving difficult to contain. We’re not sure where it started or indeed which way it’s heading so we stop with the local news crew for a while wondering if we’ll be able to do a ‘Hello Mum’ sign! Ha ha! Plenty of others are parked up but we’re allowed through as we’re turning onto the Cape Leveque road. We hope nobody has to wait for too long or indeed that the fire gets too out of control.
The road soon turns to a large red sand track. It’s corrugated but we expected that and stop to drop our tyre pressures which makes such a huge difference for the Elliotts in their 2WD, the journey is far more pleasant for them from here! We get to the turn off for Willie Creek and Nige gives us the thumbs up to carry on towards Quandong which is the next camp spot. When we get there we’re met by a glorious view of the ocean in a very remote setting. Beautiful!
We start to set up camp in a clearing which was not too
far from the bush and not too far from the top of the sand dunes which gave us a sand slide down to the beach if we wanted!
It was really hot and Nige came up with an idea for some shade by using their huge tarp which until now has remained in the packaging since its purchase! We manage to erect it and spend a very pleasant lunch sitting underneath and enjoying our new shady spot. Aaaahhhhh, lovely and cool. Unfortunately it didn’t last long and the middle started to sag. The creative builder in Nige came out and he began to construct a tower to hold it in place but despite the valiant effort the wind beat it to the ground so we had to give up on that one!
We put our little tent up and installed our new sleeping foam (part of the loot from the skip the other day!). They fit perfectly and the Op Shop doona cover lies proudly over the top!
I went for a walk along the beach with Lachie and Zali leaving the adults to sort out the rest of the camp!
Down the sand slide we
went and onto the beach looking for shells and any sea life that might have been left behind. There’s plenty of crab holes and we find a blue bottle too although we weren’t 100% sure what it was initially but knew it was some sort of jelly fish. These will give you a sting (dead or alive) but nothing too harmful so it won’t stop us from swimming in the ocean, unless we find another hundred or more!
There’s a rush of activity behind us and everyone else is whooping and hollering as they make their way towards the ocean for a swim! It’s great to see people so comfortable with the ocean and it’s certainly giving us far more confidence. The water is gorgeous and it’s not long before we’re all in enjoying the coolness, beautiful!
It was so tempting to bring dinner down to the shore line and cook watching the sunset but we decided to be sensible and light the fire back at camp. Talking of fire, we can see smoke filling the sky line from the south so it seems that the bush fire is not yet under control. It gives us a very
interesting sunset though and the colours that come out are amazing.
We’ve got plenty of chopped vegetables and together with a happy helping of sausages we’re certainly not going to starve. A good all round effort brought out a very tasty stew cooked in the camp oven on the fire, it’s just delicious when it’s done that way! The kids were hankering for toasted marshmallows but for a horrible ten minutes or so we thought we’d left them behind in the caravan. Luckily an extensive search uncovered their whereabouts and even though they were pretty mushed and melted together we did manage to toast a fair few! The difference in the kids was astounding. Belinda and Nige are careful what they eat and what the kids eat, it’s a very well balanced, healthy diet and the kids see things like toasted marshmallows as big treats, huge. Lachie and Zali giggled like we’ve never heard them giggle before, were unbelievably excitable and with some help managed a rendition of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang like no other where the ‘bang bang’ was replaced with blowing raspberries on different parts of the body! We shamefully have to admit responsibility for single handedly
‘breaking’ these two beautiful children but hope they’re back to normal by morning or Belinda and Nige will be putting us in the dog house, tee hee!
The kids say goodnight and go off to bed with a story from Nige before they fall sound asleep after a pretty fun day. We sit around the fire a while longer and with the lantern turned off it’s great to admire the remoteness of where we are. There’s no artificial lights to be seen, except for our camp fire and the large red glow from the bush fire which is seemingly still going somewhere north of Broome and therefore heading, sort of, in our direction. Quite an interesting thought to go to bed with!
We know that we’re not in any danger though, we’ve chosen our spot well so we’ll sleep soundly tonight.
Dar and Sar
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Darryl and Sarah
Wallaby Wanderers
Looking back a year on
Amazing to look back at our adventures a year on. We had such fun with the beautiful Nige, Bel, Lachy and Zali and long to catch up with them one day in the future. Quandong will certainly hold magical memories for us for all time.