Just when you thought it was safe to check your emails, we reappear. Been off the beaten track and no connection for a couple of days. We got into Broome and yep just couldn't be bothered, the weather was good and decided to look around and see some sights. As we were staying at Cable beach we headed to the beach and had a nice walk along the white sands and endless water's edge. Yeah I forgot that someone said it was a nudists area further up the beach, low and behold a strapping old man just happened to strut his stuff down the beach into the water and back up in time for us check his bait and tackle, he did have a good suntan. Enough of that, we headed over to Gantheaume point and checked the sight out from the sandstone edge. The views and especially the water is so clean and blue. Probably the white sand that helps but still beautiful. Checked out the racecourse with the intention of hitting the track on Saturday. That didn't happen because we were on the beach.

 I was speaking to a colleague and told him that all was going well with the car, van and everything else, well that wasn't the case after the phone call that night. I always say don't talk about things that can go wrong because they will, Gabriella has learnt that I won't answer her if she says things are going well. Anyway the hot water hose decided to come loose overnight and turned the van into a heated swimming pool. It took three days of running a heater and fan to dry things out. Lucky the floor is marine ply as it didn't soak into it just ran off and through any little opening. Anyhow it's done and cleaned up.

When finally we got into the town centre of Broome we found the Sun Picture theatre. This is an icon with old projectors in the foyer along with photos of past actors, shit I'm starting to sound like Bill Collins. Yep thought so, don't know who Bill Collins is, he's not the race caller from the sixties he's the movie buff, probably passed away by now. Anyhow we went to the movies the next night with our neighbours to watch Salmon fishing in the Yemen.
The ambiance in the theatre was great as we sat back in  canvas deck chairs with the birds singing and the occasional 737 aircraft buzzing over the roof as it landed at Broome airport. Scared the shit out of some people, but again added to the night and the story telling. Gabriella did a test run of the seating and also checked out the acoustics of the place for the best seats, no only joking they open it up during the day for people to check it out.

  We headed out to a place called Cape Leveque. This was a trip of about 220 klms with about 86klms of unsealed corrugated road. We drove into Cape Leveque and the road was a little uneven but the area was very picturesque. Once again the beaches in the area are all beautiful and they seem to just go on and on.
As you can see I was into the fishing again and still didn't catch anything. It' very relaxing just like playing golf. Bullshit I haven't caught anything and I'm getting a bit frustrated with the whole thing. I'm going to persist and I will catch one even if I have to go to the fish farm. We stayed and had a bite to eat and then off to One arm point and the 86klms of dirt road. On the way out of Cape Leveque we came across this sign. If was a corrugated dirt road with more pot holes than the Western ring road. Check it out and see if you think it makes sense. Funny photo for Hey Hey its not on anymore.

As we drove up to One arm point the road started to get bad but we continued on. We came across some of the local fellas who had stopped as their car had over heated. They wanted some water and we gladly assisted them and had a chat with them for a while. It's funny how pretty much all other people driving past didn't stop or ask if they needed help. We had a laugh and they asked if we were staying up in Beagle bay which was our next stop. I think they would have had some interesting storys to tell. Oh, their car wasn't registered and they only used it to travel to the main road and then changed into another car to drive into town. They obviously have money as everyone in the North west has a Toyota 4x4 of some description. Some not as pretty as others, smashed and knocked about. Anyhow we made it to Beagle Bay unscathed and visited the local church which had a pearl shell alter. Pictures tell the story, not sure if the locals attend the Sunday mass.

As there wasn't much to see in the town we grabbed an ice cream and headed out.

We drove to One arm point and looked around the beaches and checked out some of the other features of the town. This area has street signs that tell you not to go into local areas but they were quite happy taking twenty dollars off us to drive into the area. It seems that the places of no interest or very little interest charge you money to go into the areas. The roads are bad, the upkeep of the facilities is poor but they charge you for it. Not too many people said a good thing about the money they take and how they use it.

Anyway we headed back out and down the sealed road for about 110klms and then hit the 86 ks of unmade road. We passed two recovery vehicles putting a couple of new Toyota 4x4s on tray trucks and it was a bit of a worry seeing new cars braking things. But the Nissan Navara made it through. I thought at one stage something broke as there was a load bang under the left front of the car. Luckily nothing broke and we made it out OK. I have decided that the Nissan has done it's job on off roads until I get some suspension mods done. It would be fun doing these trips with a small  4x4 camper trailer in the future but the caravan would fall apart 10ks down one of these roads. The speed hump sign road was what the 86 ks of road looked like on the return so I was very sore after the drive.

We got home and hit the shower and into bed, you wouldn't believe driving could take that much out of you.

We went down to the jetty to do some fishing and I was talking to the security guard on the gate, there was a cattle ship leaving for Egypt and he told me that they take 20,000 head of cattle on it. No wonder price of beef is expensive we send it all overseas. Oh yeah, they have to bring the cattle in by truck, yep all those road trains. It's either iron ore or cattle.

Now it was back to the beach so Gabriella could do the camel ride. It was a very warm afternoon so sat, drank and fished while Gabriella rode a camel. The pictures below tell the story.

The line up before they are set upon by the hordes of tourists. The keepers say they love being ridden on the beach. My comment was "which one told you that?" the girl laughed.

I said smile.

Off they go down the beach.

Yep they came back and still smiling.

had to throw this one in. Who is that good looking guy with Gabriella. Is that a six pack. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

This fella was the grumpy one of the herd.

This is the photo that you get on postcards. Thought I'd do it myself.

having a great time see you when we get back. :) Rod & Gabriella

This is the hardest shot to get on the beach as you have to wait until all the tourists have walked past and then start snapping.

Well that was our adventure in Broome, we are moving on to Karratha with an overnight stay on the way down. We decided to stop at DeGrey river which was very nice. There was close to a hundred vans, tents, motorhomes and camper trailers spread along the river banks. Left the next morning and headed down to Karratha, did some shopping and hit the Chinese restaurant for some dinner, it was beautiful.

We will look around town today and head down to Dampier for a look as well, only have today as we head to Coral Bay for a well earned rest.

With 400klms to drive today we left at 0745 with a nice little tail wind to assist us with getting to Broome and the beach. Not too much happens on the road unless you run into some strange people when you stop at some of the roadhouses or rest stops. Today we didn't find too much traffic on the road except for the odd road train. We continually run across these boab trees but as we can't stop on the side of the roads to take photos this was a great opportunity to photograph one. This tree was huge and one of the biggest we have spotted whilst driving across the top. From here we still had 200ks so it was back behind the wheel and get going to Broome. We finally made it into town and as everything in Broome is booked out we had to stay in a unpowered site until Thursday. We dropped the van and headed down to Cable beach and got a bite to eat. Yep picked up some bait and headed down to try and catch some fish. I can't beleave that there are no fish in such a big sea. Anyhow I fished and Gabriella relaxed and we then watched the sunset over Cable Beach. We decided to go for a walk and get a coffee at 0730pm but it seems all those old people go to bed early so everything closes. Well it was a good walk I probably needed it. Well that's it for today, tomorrow it's down to the mechanics to have the car serviced and have a look around Broome before getting some sun.

This is the Ivanhoe crossing where I was fishing from the other day. I was standing on the roadway in the shallow water to the left of the photo. This seemed to be a problem for some of the visitors and Gabriella. They were expecting a croc to come out of nowhere to eat me. The locals said there were crocs in the river but only freshwater ones. 

Anyway I fished that area for a little while until I was ear bashed enough to move. I ended up fishing where the guy is behing the Pandanas trees on the safe side of the crossing. A little bit too fast flowing for my liking. Anyway I filled in a bit of time but no fish. A lot of people say it's too cold for Barra at this time of the year. Well it was warm enough for me to stand in the water and fish. The area left of the sign is where I was trying as it was still water and probably had more luck than in the fast flowing river.

We travelled to Wyndham which is about 100ks from Kununurra the next day and it was a one horse town. No only kidding, this is a port for exporting the iron ore and cattle from for the area. The setup is very interesting with a large expanse set aside for the storage of both cattle and iron ore. The road trains truck everything in from hundreds of klms away and we would run into them either coming or going from the site. The iron ore is then loaded onto barges and pulled out to the ships to be loaded in the middle of the river. It looked like a hard way to do things but it must work.

It was off to the Bungle Bungles yesterday. We stayed overnight at the Spring Creek rest stop and drove the 53klms into the visitors centre. The sign didn't say it was another 27klms to the actual Bungle Bungles. Oh did I mention that the road was not sealed and 4x4. By the time we arrived we had a walk around and took some pictures of the area. These amzing structures are facinating to look at and you wonder how they were formed. The river bed was even better with a wide expanse of stone washed over by the water to form some brilliant ruts.

The river bed at this point would have been 30mtrs wide and ran through the gorge. The weathering of the rock must be hundreds of years old if not more and would be a sight to see when the river is following. The colour of the rocks change when the sun slowly dips behind them and others light up as you drive through the track on the way out. It was a rugged drive in and I lost a couple of stubbies due to the rough road. The woman at the information centre warned me that if you leave while the sun was going down you would drive right into it. Well she was right as on a few occasions I nearly ended up off the road or flying over a dip in the road because I got blinded by the light. Yep the old Supertramp song came in handy after that. I was lucky as there were  three tour buses leaving at the same time and making a lot of dust that added to the poor conditions, they thankfully slowed and let me past. Well we managed to do that in one day and get back to camp a hot shower to get the red dust out of our hair and have a cold beer. We heaed out today to Fitzroy Crossing and cleaned the car up a little as the dust is everywhere. Everytime you open a door it ends up everwhere. I am looking forward to getting into some sun and beach. I have had the red dust for now and will gratefully exchange that for some fish. I hope there are fish in WA as the other states have been very poor in that department. Well we head for the coast tomorrow and will be in Broome by early afternoon and hopefully on the beach late afternoon. We have had a bit of trouble getting accommodation along the coast so I hope things pan out and we can arrange enough stays up the northern end. Anyway I'm stuffed and heading to bed. Bye for now.

Due to no phone/internet connection for the past few days (well done telstra, the I've been everywhere man hasn't been to Timber creek or Lake Argyle obviously) we haven't posted anything.  Anyhow we arrived at Timber Creek and were hoping to get into the free camping site just outside of the town. How wrong were we, the place was full of those free loading tourists. So it was back to the caravan park for an overnight stay. A couple of girls working in the park feed the local fresh water crocs late in the afternoon so we, like everyone else headed off to check them out. We stood on the bridge just above the water and it was amazing at how these little buggers just appear out of thin air, well deep water. This was one of the little crocs that was about 2mtrs long.

Now this Boab tree looks small in the picture but when you actually stand next to it as Gabriella did to put some perspective of how big they are you wonder how old these trees actually are. As you drive the highways you see a lot with names carved into the trucks. Some of the names are so big they have expanded with the tree growth and are like mini billboards.

As the sun started to go down on the sleepy little town of Timber Creek, the flying foxes started to get into action. These little buggers kept us up pretty much most of the night but we managed to get some sleep.

Morning arrived and it was about 300ks to Lake Argyle for our next stop. We planned to stay a couple of nights as some said that you could get to the Argyle diamond mines. Well we couldn't as they are only open several times a year and you have to book or something like that. So we hung around and did one of the best cruises so far. Triple J tours run a sunset cruise and we decided to take the opportunity to see this great inland sea. Oh it's fresh water but the WA Government has classified it an inland sea because of the actual size of the lake. It is possible for the waves to reach two & a half metres on a very windy day. I'm actually starting to think, what did they teach us at school. This has to be the best country in the world and we still choose to go overseas. I must admit this trip has broadened my knowledge about the country.  Anyway back to the sights of Lake Argyle. The first three photos are from the park looking over the river. The rest were taken on the boat cruise that ran into the early evening.

That's about it for now, but I had to slip one in for the family so that they can see I haven't thrown Gabriella to the crocs. I do believe that we are coming into shark infested waters. Nah she'll be right.

We are currently in Kununarra and we headed off to the Ivanhoe Crossing late afternoon so I could do some more fishing. The crossing was closed and there were a few people fishing. The river was running fairly quickly so I decided to stay in the crossing close to the river bank. Everyone was fishing the fast moving areas so I decided to fish in close to the banks and the plant life. As the tourists started to arrive for the photo opportunities, Gabriella got talking to the tour guide who advised her that crocs were in the river and very close to where I was fishing. Yep, Gabriella was there yelling to me that there were crocs in the river and I should get out. She continually kept yelling at me as the tour guide insisted the crocs are usually around the banks and close to shore. Anyway I got out and stood in a safe rocky area that the crocs couldn't get me. Didn't help catch the fish and left disappointed again. We headed back to the park had dinner and went and drinks with a couple we met in Timber creek.

Well back on the road tomorrow and hope to get to some beach areas soon, I need to catch a fish so I can actually kick back and mark that off the list.

The wind has kicked up a bit so better get out and see some sights.

Bye for now.

We headed out on a quick run around Darwin before we left town. We were told to have a look at the Darwin oil tanks, so off we went and it was very interesting. The tanks were built during the war and just as they finished them the war came to an end and they didn't get used. There were many tanks built underground so as not to bring them to the attention off the Japanese airforce. This tank to the left was 171mtrs long and would have held a lot of oil. We then had a walk around the area and had a look at the Governors house and Parliament house. As we were leaving the next morning we did a bit of walking around town a heard a bit of yelling and abuse which we thought was coming from the street, unfortunately it was coming from the back of a police car. They had one of the local boys in custody and he wasn't happy.

Yesterday we arrived in Katherine and as usual I headed off the river to try and catch the elusive Barramuni. No luck so headed back to cook dinner. We booked the gorge boat trip for the morning. We had an early start and headed down to the gorge and boarded the boat to see the gorges. As it was morning trip the sun was right in our eyes as we headed up river. The photos don't it any justice or maybe it was just me.

After the trip to Katherine gorge we drove back up to Edith falls. We were a bit disappointed that the temperature was a bit cool and the water even cooler. We sat and had lunch and then headed back to Katherine. I went back to the river and fished for about 2hrs. This must be the only place you can't catch anything. The locals and others staying in the park say I'm using the right lures and doing everything right but they are very good at hiding from me. I will continue as we head off to Timber creek and Victoria river region, there has to be fish somewhere. Gabriella had to come looking for me as she thought I may have been taken by a croc. I think she came looking because I had the car keys in my pocket. Can't get out if you have no keys. 

Oh, the croc cage above is one they leave just in case a stray salt water croc is still hanging around. They say the odd fresh water croc gets into them but they let them go. Anyway catch you later.

This just an addition to the earlier blog. We didn't do much over the past two day's as we were pretty knackered due to the Bali trip. We mainly hung around Darwin, did the Humpt Doo pub for lunch as recommended by our friends Graham and Leonie. We decided to stick with the mixed seafood as the chicken parma was pretty much a whole chicken crumbed and fried. Gabriell said that if you have a pub and it's old and people go there then you will make money. They make money but it is still a pub, the beer was cold the food was good and it took up a bit of the day. We headed back and started to pack up before heading off to meet up with a couple we met on the road a few weeks earlier. Allan and Ann are from yes Melbourne up in Cockatoo. We headed for the Hidden valley pub and had a nice dinner and fun telling the stories of things we have seen and things we have done. Good night had by all.

It was back on the road again this morning and we headed off to Katherine and a two day stay. We are booked on the morning cruise at Katherine gorge. We may even head out to Edith falls if we get back early enough. Unfortunately it's about time at the moment so we have to cram in a much as possible. We heard the weather is pretty ordinary in Perth so I'm not looking forward to getting their in a hurry. If it looks like crap we may stay north west a little longer and do a flyby through Perth and say high to the family.

As usual we arrived at the caravan park and it was only 100mtrs from the river. Yep I had to go and throw a line in and not catch anything again. I was a bit worried as I felt like I was being watched and sure enough directly across the river there was a croc either watching me or just cruising the banks. I decided that it was time to stop fishing as a couple of times I lost sight of the beast. He had to be 20ft from where I was standing or maybe 5 ft in real terms. he won as I wasn't going to stay around, he wants the fish he can have them, they're in his back yard and I'm only a guest.

Got back to camp and put the roast lamb on the Mark Weber. Nothing better than a good home cooked meal. Anyway have a good night and check in again tomorrow. bye.

Well I'II finish off the Bali trip photos and last days we had. Yep Gabriella thought she was in a photo shoot. The only thing we could get our hands on were BB guns. As you can see they didn't work so the photos had to do. We were waiting to see the sunset and decided to sit and have a few cold beers. You can't get more relaxed. Everyone was a bit  worn out with walking and shopping, so the pool and beach was in order for the day.

As you can see I can't keep away from the women. These two Balinese women were doing a show at the hotel. The thing that I didn't understand was that they were doing Brazilian dancing. I had to stay and watch but I didn't see any Brazilian dancing. It may have had something to do with what they were wearing, or not wearing. The lady to my right was not as attractive as the one on the left and was a bit worried that her name was Bruce. Yes very manly features. The other entertainment was a little Balinese man who was very funny as a master of cerermony. Anyway that went on for about one hour and both Graham and myself enjoyed the entertainment.

The steet vendors are everywhere. This fellow sold corn on the cob for $2. This was something that was worth the price, everyone had one and the result was happy tummies all round. The last night we were there I decided to try a street vendors soup from the cart. The locals seemed to be buying it and one of the pool attendant said it was really good. The only thing was he kept laughing when he walked away. Well I hadn't been crook all week so it was time to try something different. This had wontons, chicken balls, noodles, some vegetables and some sort of broth. The thing that got to me was the chilli. Every spoon full took my breath away. After getting 2 thirds of the way through I had enough, it was filling but very nice. The other thought you idiot you'll be crook before you get home. Well I survived and I'd have it again.

This is what we came for as we sat and drank a cold Bintang. The sun hit the horizon and we waited until it was gone. The wait was worth it as you can see. 28deg a nice breeze and good company. Thanks guys for a good week in Bali hope all enjoyed it and see you when we get back. Bye for now.