At
Port Hedland we fuelled up the vehicle, the tucker box and had a look around one of the oldest towns in the
Pilbara.
Port Hedland looks as if it's slowly rusting away as everything is covered with a fine film of iron ore dust. We camped at 80 Mile Beach caravan park and wandered along that glorious stretch of sand and sea while the sun set in brilliant colour beside us. Next day more bitumen up the highway and then back to reality with a crash and a bang. The
Cape Leveque Road. Anyone who says it's a bit rough is definitely understating the facts. It's corrugated to hell and back, sandy and tough going. I know we all have different comfort levels where corrugations are concerned and later on we had much worse but the
Cape Leveque road was a ripper up until
Beagle Bay and then it was like driving on bitumen. There were graders and
road works going on so maybe by now the good stuff will have lengthened out. We didn't go all the way to
Cape Leveque because we'd been a couple of times and decided to go to
Middle Lagoon. We arrived and the caretaker said "have you booked" I replied "didn't know I had to". "Ah, don't worry" says he, "we'll fit you in". "Do you want a receipt", "no" I replied..and a huge grin appeared on his face. I reckon my $52 for the two nights went straight into his pocket!!! We enjoyed
Middle Lagoon. We had a shady
campsite with plenty of space and relaxed, swam and walked. All too soon it was time to brave the
road back to
Broome. It seemed better on the way out, now why is that always so?
We stayed at the
Broome Vacation Village which we'd booked months earlier because we decided that we would get a site with power and own toilet/shower. I'm glad that we did as most parks were packed and we had a lovely shady spot. We spent four days here and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The first night was Ray's birthday so we went to the open air pictures and saw "Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest". The next day was spent doing the presents for the kids and just washing clothes and pottering around. The Staircase to the Moon was on so we had tea at the market and waited for the moon to come up. It was worth waiting for and put on a spectacular display. Ganthaume Point and
Cable Beach took up another day..which we ended by sitting on the beach watching another magnificent
Broome sunset. The
Broome Cup was on and we went along. I backed the winner of the Cup. I had $10 on at 10.00 so got $100 back. I reckon that just about squared me up for presents and the market buys.
Broome to
Derby was the next leg of the trip. We got to
Derby in the middle of the day, set up
camp in the heat because we wanted to rush off to the
Derby Rodeo. It was a great show. Mum's dad's, kids, babies,
dogs and assorted tourists all had a ball. This is the only rodeo where I've seen them use a heeler dog to chase the bucking bulls out of the arena! We had fish and chips from the
shop at the jetty.
Barramundi and every bit was delicious. Next day we took a seaplane flight out to
Talbot Bay where they had a big boat moored and took speed boats through the Horizontal Falls. Wow!! How amazing is this place! The flight out was incredible as we flew out over the mudflats, the mountains and then the islands of the Buccaneer Archipelego. That would have been worth while even without the boat ride I thought, but then off we went through the falls. The power of the water and the speed and the absolute magnitude of it all was bewildering and exciting. It was over too soon and like a kid I asked "Dad, can we do that again"? Back in
Derby we packed up and headed off out on to the
Gibb River Road and
Windjana Gorge.
Next - The
Gibb River Road,
Mitchell Falls and
Kalumburu