Broome - Horizontal Falls

Broome is a good place to leave from if you're heading into the Kimberley's. We went north from Broome to Talbot Bay in the Buccaneer Archipelago. With 9 others we were picked up in Broome at 5:30am and loaded into a truck and driven a couple of hundred k's north.

We went via Beagle Bay, home to a magnificent church built in the 1800's by Germans and locals, and on to Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm about 100km further north where we had breakfast, a tour of the farm and got to handle some pretty expensive items.

Our ride arrived in the form of a float plane and 35 mins later we landed on Talbot Bay.

We were there for lunch, a tour up and back through the falls, and some nature study on Cyclone Creek.

We got to experience "Kimberley Massage", a water takeoff and landing, a ride through the falls, etc. Some great food, the awesome landscape and to find out a bit about pearls.








We returned to Broome around 4:30pm by air.... a great day.

Broome - Dragon Boat Races

Put a few paddlers in a Dragon Boat and tell them to paddle 500m straight off the beach and around a buoy, then paddle back.... simple hey? Well maybe not so... Four boats lined up. Two boats went straight for the bouy. The third boat (Broome Hash no less) headed off to the right and took out the fourth boat. It was about 9am, so they may have been a little under the weather..... well it is hot!

Broome Hash (the red boat)

We had lunch, a couple of drinks, a bit of a chat to some locals, and had left by the time they returned to the beach.

Broome - Dinosaur footprints

Dinosaurs used to live here. That's for certain. They left their footprints in the sandstone. The tides have to be pretty low to expose them, but we were lucky and the tides were very low.

Gantheaume Point.

Broome

Yep!. It's like we've died and gone to heaven. We're back on the coast. The temperature has dropped about 8 deg and there's a light breeze blowing.... every day...!!!!!

We're camped in a park 200m from Cable Beach and about 4km from Broome (the town). We could easily come back for 2-3 months each year. I've even glanced at the realestate.







I don't know how we've done it, but we've arrived bang in the middle of the "Shinju Matsuri" Festival.... and it's been awesome with Dragon Boats, fireworks, cultural displays, food, music and other festivities.

Technical:

We may have solved our electrical problems. We had the van built with a second battery. It seems that the second battery was treated as an "add-on" and was attached to the original battery by 2 x 30amp cables only. We had a professional have a look at it and he's remarkably increased the size of the cables linking the batteries and altered the wiring from the charger so that it now reacts to the condition of both of the batteries. We've been through several discharge/charge cycles and the batteries are now pretty well balanced and we're getting far less "peaky" demand. We've also bought a portable 120watt panel to help supplement our existing solar capacity. We now have 430watts.

Fitzroy Crossing

The weather is starting to heat up. 41 deg the day before yesterday, 40 yesterday and 39 forecast for today. Two free camps sitting in the shade and we're ready to spend a day or two with the air conditioning on, so the Fitzroy River Lodge it is. It's also close to Fathers Day.  It's a little Oasis. The only place for miles around with grass and shade, and it has a pretty good restaurant as well. Not much else here in the area except Gieki Gorge.

A couple arrived in the park today with a car problem. It's a Mitsubishi Tritan I believe. They were on their way back from Tunnel Creek, towing a 2.5t van, had about 250kg's in the back with a tent on top. His wife heard the chains rattling so they stopped. He'd actually broken his chassis. It took them 4 hours to crawl back to the highway (40km's). Their chassis cracked along the welds used to hold the cab mounts. Fitzroy Crossing is not the place to have that happen.

Mary's Pool

What a place. This has got to be the "ducks guts" of free camps. It's a great half way point between the Bungles and Fitzroy Crossing. To get into it you traverse a narrow dry season bridge (causeway) across the Margaret River. Yes, there are crocs (Salties). Once on the other river bank it's first in best dressed.

We arrived about midday and found 6 others there. By 2pm I said the Rose, "have a look at this"... 50 others had arrived but unlike a caravan park, everyone had enough room and shade. We went for a walk about 5pm, we walked about 50mt and returned to the van 2 hours later... Gee some people can talk.

Bungle Bungles

We're now on the Great Northern Highway heading toward Broome. Last night we stopped at Spring Creek Rest Area. As it's name suggests it's right alongside a creek. What a great little spot. We arrived just before midday and drove right in to the last remaining possie down by the creek. There were a couple of people from the veteran car rally and their cars also there. This is the place to stay when you don't want to pay the $50/night at the Bungles Caravan Park 1km down the road. A better kind of people free camp!

We were in part shade and I had to run the generator for an hour on the second day just to get enough juice in the batteries to see us through the second night.

We took the day tour of the Bungles, left the van locked up and walked to the van park. The 53k trip in is best done in someones else's vehicle.









Our guide "Billy Goat". Doing what he does best.