2012 Around Australia: Day 142 - 143 4th July

Day 142 Wednesday 4th July 2012.

Continued cleaning the caravan and inside of the car. It is amazing how this fine orange coloured dirt / sand gets into everything. Vania also did a grocery list of supplies as we may not be able to do another decent shop till Darwin. Vania also did the laundry as it is always more convenient to do it at a home or Laundromat.

Early afternoon we drove into Chinatown. When not really spending a “lot” of time in a certain place it would be very easy to overlook significant places of interest at a place. If Brad (our host in Broome) did not mention Chinatown I think in the 3 days there we may have missed it.

As we walked Chinatown we came across the old picture theatre which has half the roof missing and people sit in the canvas deck chairs. Real atmosphere. After discovering Chinatown we went to Gantheaume Point where there are “footprints” of dinosaurs. These footprints are only seen at the very lowest tide, thus we really did not see the significant ones. However, we did see a sea eagle that had caught a fairly large fish; consume most of it before no doubt feeding 2 young sea eagles. These birds are very majestic.

Broome has a phenomenon called “Staircase to the moon”. It happens whenever there is a full moon. We were fortunate that this was happening tonight. Fundamentally, it is the combination of a full moon rising over the mudflats at low tide. The mud flats reflect the moonlight giving the appearance of horizontal lines on the mudflats which look similar to a staircase. We arrived early as we were warned that this was very popular with the tourists and locals. This phenomenon lasts for 3 nights. It is so popular that they also have a night market on the foreshore.

It was a very special sight and there were thousands of people with massive cameras down to only phone cameras. Vania managed to take a few shots however yours truly couldn’t as my battery seized. After waiting nearly 2 hours the full moon rose at 6.06PM. What a fantastic sight. Vivid orange at first on the horizon and then the pale yellow / white as it rose higher. The reflections on the mudflats were very special indeed.

After this it was quickly back to our host’s place where we got changed and headed out to a Rock N Roll venue. Yep, I was finally going to take Vania out to dance. I needed to do something to stop her “nagging”. Well you wouldn’t believe it. We arrived right on commencement time only to find out that it had been CANCELLED. Yep cancelled and I had nothing to do with it. Vania was extremely pi**ed off and I must admit I was disappointed as well. The fact that we were all dressed up we decided to have dinner and drinks at the venue before heading “home” with our tails between our legs.

Tomorrow we are moving on. Once again I would like to thank Brad and Bridgette (and the 2 girls) for their hospitality. It was great, thank you from Vania and Oscar

Vania is getting REALLY great with her macro shots.

Two little "kids" playing on the mudflaps whilst waiting for the "Staircase to the Moon" phenomenon

Pearl lugger nearly bottoming out on the mudflaps.

"Staircase to the moon". Moons reflections at low tide on the mudflaps. Only occurrs 2-3 days everymonth. The night we were there, there were at least 1000 people+.

The actual reflection is very narrow. When the moon rosr on the horizon it was a vivid oramge. Fantastic

This is the open cinema in Broome. Great! Watch a good movie, sit back in sun deck chairs and also watch the fantastic stars at night.

If we hadn't been told by Brad and Bridgette we may have missed "Chinatown".

Coconuts ready to be picked.

Evening / night market on the beach for "Staircase to the moon".

This sea eagle had caught a reasonable sized fish. Consumed it all and no doubt was going to then feed 3 younger "babies". The fish was wriggling for quiet a long time.

Day 143 Thursday 5^th July 2012.

Did an early morning shop, packed the caravan and car, hitched everything up, said our good bye’s to our host’s and headed on with the next leg of our journey. We were heading towards Derby.

Derby is only 210K’s from Broome so it wasn’t going to be a long drive. Arrived in Derby, had a counter lunch and a drink, spoke to some locals about the attractions in Derby and was told that apart from the Boab Prison Tree and the wharf there was not much else. However, we were told that Derby has the second highest tidal shifts in the world. The largest is at Nova Scotia. However, the local also added that Derby has the salt water crocodiles and Nova Scotia doesn’t.

After seeing the sights (only took 3 minutes and 47 seconds – just joking) our next dilemma was where we were going to stop for the night. My concern was that we were headed towards Windjana Gorge National Park (NP) and this was on the notorious Gibb River Road. Gibb River road stretches approximately 700K’s between Derby and Kununurra and although some sections are bituminised the large proportion is very heavily corrugated. The last thing I wanted to do late in the afternoon today was to drive on bloody corrugated dirt roads. So we headed out on the Gibb River Road and thus far it is bituminised. Very narrow but at least bituminised. We spotted one of many “cuttings” on the side of the road which was reasonably flat and well protected. I backed the caravan in and this is our home for tonight.

Tomorrow morning, early, I will face up to the corrugations. I don’t expect large distances of corrugations before we reach the NP and I have been told that this section of the road is relatively good. However, I have been told that before and everything is always in the eyes of the beholder. What is good in someone’s mind is bad in another’s. Such is life.

No doubt will get a QUIET sleep tonight and face tomorrow when it arrives. Take care from Vania and Oscar.