Tazzie Talk 12 :) Darwin - Broome

Snowcones at Mindil Beach Market, yum.

Darwin was awesome I loved the free waterpark with the 3 waterslides, Litchfield was good but nothing compared to Kakadu. Over the border to Kununurra and now Broome!

We pulled up at Darwin and Mia came running straight to me. She is super fluffy and super cute. After meeting Nicky, Clair and Brendan we started to set-up our base camp.

Free Waterpark

“WOW” I said as we got out of the car. I was looking at the best free water park I have been too. It had a water playground and 3 huge slides. The pool was massive and so much fun to play in. After a quick swim in the pool we ran over to the waterslides. The yellow one was really fast but hurt my back, the blue slide was really slow and lame so I didn’t go on that on again, the red slide was the best one there. You needed a donut and not to be scared of the dark because it was that dark that I couldn’t see Taj who was sitting in front of me! The water playground was closed but we didn’t really care.

Darwin Museum

This was the museum like no other. You weren't allowed cameras but that didn’t matter because they would bring the place no justice. We headed up to Sweetheart first. She was a massive, over 5m croc that used to tip over little boats. She never ate anyone and probably didn’t want to the only thing was she probably had friends swimming around who did want to eat the porr fishermen.

The stuff on Cyclone Tracy was really interesting and I think that we are lucky to now have the technology that we need to all stay safe. We get into the cyclone Tracy room and I was really exicited! I had wanted to do this ever since I first heard of it. It was really scary actually. I thought that the room was about to cave in. There was a lot of cracking sounds and the sort of sound that you will here when an evil teacher scrapes her long fingers along the black board.

Barramundi Lake

We have failed to catch a Barramundi so far. Were about to give up but this person put us onto a lake where you will defiantly catch a barramundi! We all caught fish but i'm only going to tell you about mine.

When my turn came I was exicited. This Barra was pulling me under everything it could and when I finally got it in it was 70cms beating dads and Taj’s 60cm Barra’s and Ryley 25 and 64cm Barra’s. Mum just beat me with a 72cm Barra.

Noonamah Tavern Rodeo

When we arrived at the rodeo there were already horses out in the ring warming up. It wasn’t only going to be the bulls but the horses and motorbikes too.

The motorbikes went first with their freestyle tricks and that was really cool. The bucking Broncos were next and I hated that. They tied a rope around their flanks and then pulled it so tight that I could see the scratch marks from up in the stands.

Then it was the bulls, they had a different strap and I couldn’t see and rope burns from the stands but I’m sure that they would be there. In the under 18 the Victorian won so that was pretty cool and another Vic also came second.

In the 18 and over I can’t remember who won it but the bulls were crazy. They would bash people into fences and smash them into walls when they got of or fell off. There were 3 people that had to go to hospital, that’s not a job I would want to get.

My favourites were next the Barrel Races. This was proper horse riding. They had to go in a clover pattern and who ever got the lowest time won! It was really close in the end there were two people going for it. There was a young girl that would have not been much older than me and a older lady who looked like she had a lot of experience.

Rock Salt the mean bad bull. He was the worst of them all. He was the bull that no one wanted to mess with and when he got out into the ring the rider was off. He has a 99% buck off rate and I’m telling you I wouldn’t want to be messing with him!

Getting tickled by a dragon

Yum, rat for lunch

Crocasaurus

We were told to go to a place called Crocasaurus and I really liked it. We started off the day by watching an Olive Python eating a rat and it was disgusting! There was blood all over that table at the end and watching it was just yuck!



Wrestling a dangerous python

 We got to then go and see all the crocs and there were some huge ones. I liked watching them being fed because they would launch themselves into the air and then grab their lunch.

Getting to hold a baby croc was pretty cool it weighed a lot though and we had to wait for a really long time. The lady was so rude she made us wait for a long time. She was talking for ages about how beautiful the pictures were even though they didn’t want to buy. I was going to just walk out of the door but it was all Ry wanted to do.

Croc feeding was next but this was only the little ones. We got to feed them by a fishing rod and they would jump out of the water and take speckies on each other it was really funny! That was my favourite thing.

The last thing was the turtle feeding and that was really cool. Because there weren’t many people there we got to feed all of the turtles. My favourite was the pig nose turtle because it had a really little pig nose.


Look you can see the croc swimming towards me just near
my sholder.  Very cool.



2nd biggest croc in
captivity

Litchfield

When we arrived at our caravan park in Litchfield we looked at our pool and it was a blue water tank cut in half. I can’t believe that they can actually call that a pool.

We went looking for water holes and when we got to our first water hole the people that had just came back from the walk and said that you can't swim in the water because it looked like a good place for crocs.

We went looking for more and came to this beautiful place that had 3 waterfalls. Dad and I swam out to all of them. Mum, Taj and Ry played in the shallows.

My favourite was the last one we went to it was a crystal clear pool with a lot of little fish to chase. There were 3 pools. Taj and Mum played in the little one at the top of the little waterfall and Dad, Ry and I played in the 2 pools at the bottom. Ry and I chased the fish all into a corner and then we tried to catch them but that didn’t work.

Kununurra

After a long drive we settled just over the border at a rough place called Kununurra. It had hobos everywhere and most of them looked dead. It was hard to find a good restaurant. We ended up at a nice place just out of town. It had nice food but I was sick so everything tasted horrible, even ice cream.  We were at a caravan park just out of town but I still didn’t want to sleep in my tent because I didn’t like the looks of hobos.

Don't look now, we're riding a camel.

Broome

I was happy to be in Broome. It was a beautiful place and the fishing was awesome.

On our first night we went riding on camels along a nudey beach and I didn’t look down because all I was hearing was Ry saying “I could have parked my bike in that guys butt” and “That guy has a but the size of the moon”. My camel was called Amos and when the ride was over and he was told to go down he just did a straight drop!

The fishing was so good. We caught 25 fish! My favourite fish caught was dads spotted Barra. I caught 6 fish. I rock Cod, 3 Moses sea perch and 2 emperors, 1 sweet lip and 1 spangled. When we were fishing we caught 2 shovel nose sharks and they ended up snapping us off and we saw one hammerhead. I didn’t want to swim after that!



My Sweet Lip Emperor



My RockCod

Just an ordinary peacock.

Port Smith

A town so small that it didn’t show up on the GPS. It was a town that was a caravan park. That was all. At the caravan park it had petrol and a milk bar. Fishing was all this town was about.

We got to a place where you catch cod after cod. All the cod were only little but dad got 2 huge fish that snapped him off. At the end I had one last cast and I got the best fighting thing of the day. It was a seagull!! I had to pull the rod down and wind in. When I got it onto the beach dad had to unhook it. When he did the seagull pecked him and then flew off.

Best Dog in Dampier.

Dampier

Dampier, home of one of my favourite dogs, Red Dog. We got into Dampier when it was nearly dark and found Red Dog's statue. If you haven’t seen the movie I recommend you do, but if you love dogs as much as me you might want to bring a box of tissues. We stopped for a pub meal not realizing that this was the pub that Red Dog died in. Dampier hasn’t changed much you can see where everything was. You could see where the red dog saved the man from being eaten by a shark and at the pub you can even see the old bus. The town was all red dogs. The should probably change the town’s name to Red dog town!

Now off to Exmouth for snorkelling. Talk to you soon Taz

One of many dangerous river crossings.

Kristy's Chat Broome - Dampier

Broome, oh beautiful Broome.  My new most favourite place in the whole entire world!  Our first night saw us take a camel ride along the pristine sands of Cable beach.  So naturally beautiful is this place that people are encouraged to get natural with it.  I was unaware of this fact until, aboard our camels with a bird’s eye view we cruised past numerous nude people tanning themselves.  Ry thought it was hysterical and although he swears he doesn’t like girls he kept nagging us to go for a drive on the north side of the beach (how dumb does he think we are?).  The funniest thing about a nude beach is it is heavily populated by aging men in far less than perfect shape.  Let’s not kid ourselves, they’re there hoping a young spunk strips off and makes their life a little happier!  Now for those who may be wondering, yes, our bums are still pristine white in colour.



Taz and I get Nude on Nudey Beach



 Broome just got better by the day.  We went fishing on the wharf and in the first 15mins we had seen 2 huge sharks, sea turtles giant trevally and a variety of other fish.  We pulled in beautiful fish one after another until all the bait was gone.  Catch of the day went to Ry who hooked a huge shovel nose shark, a battle ensued until reality struck and it occurred to us that if we got him up on to the wharf he may want to eat us! The kids were buzzing with excitement and just when we thought we could take no more a massive 3m hammerhead shark cruised by to check us all out.  It was breathtaking to see such an amazing animal in his own environment.  That was it, Tamsyn, Ry and Chris to the wharf for the next couple of days.  Not to worry Taj and I were well equipped to cope beside the pool/café/beach.

Of course it wouldn’t be a real trip to Broome unless I ventured in to one of the pearl dealers.  Yep the budget took another little beating but there are some things that just have to be done to help the local economy.  That being said I did manage to get past the Argyle diamond mine without spending a cent.

I really have to say that everything about Broome looks beautiful.  The bright red dirt is such a stark contrast to the blinding white sands which transform almost immediately into waters of every different shade or turquoise.  To see this best we drove out to the lighthouse, where dinosaur footprints remain embedded in the rocky cliffs.


Swimming in Anastasia's pool (notice Taj's bomb)



Once again Chris got talking to a local who put us on to “the place we go to get away from Broome”.  So we waved good bye to Broome, the one place I had been desperate to see since watching a Malcolm Douglas doco when I was about 10.  We drove south for a couple of hours before turning onto a heavily corrugated, red dirt road (my van will never be the same again).  We pulled up at Port Smith, (never heard of it? Google it).  This town consists of a caravan park and ….. actually that’s about it.  Oh but the caravan park is packed with facilities making it a dream destination for most men I know.  You see it has fuel ($1.95), ice, bait, bore water, great fishing in a remote destination and oh yeah, it has an 18 hole golf course.  Apparently during peak season you can’t fit an extra tent in the park however at this time of the year we were able to count the total of full sites on one hand.  At full tide the ocean fills the lagoon making it safe for the kids to swim but as the tide goes out you can drive over the sandbar to the inlet and fish for hours.  It’s unbelievably beautiful and we had the entire beach to ourselves for most of the day.  After a full day of fishing and a lovely quiet night sleep we realised that there really is only so much fishing Taj and I can take so we continued out trip south.



Just another "normal" roadhouse.

 After 10 hours of nonstop driving we arrived at yet another of my choice destinations.  For those who have seen Red Dog you’ll understand that travelling through the Pilbarra meant we would have to stop and pay homage to the Red Dog statue.  I sobbed during the movie, so it was no surprise that I got a little emotional standing in front of the statue.  I don’t know if the tradition of having a resident stray in Dampier continued after Red Dogs death but while we were having dinner at the pub where the movie was set the kids found the pub dog, a red heeler that sits out the front of the pub in the company of about 50 miners going from one to another for a pat. Whatever the case it kept the dream alive for all of us. 

So the west coast has proven to be a saviour of my sanity.  Even the ghastly red dirt that seems to coat everything looks beautiful here set against the bluest of blue skies.  I’m right back to thinking that this trip could last forever.

Until next time,

Love and miss you all, Kristy.

Ry's Report Broome- Port Smith

At Broome we stayed at Cable Beach caravan park.  It was nice and had the best pool we’ve ever seen.  The pool had a waterfall and cave in it.  We went out to Cable Beach and we were allowed to drive on it.  It is a Nudey  beach and we were all laughing at the nudies.  We rode camels down the beach and saw even more nudies from way up high on the camel’s back.  The camels were really funny when they stood up because they did it so quickly and you had to be ready or you’d fall off.  When they sat down they were just as funny because they look like they’re about to collapse.  You had to lock your arms in really tight and hold on.  We watched the sunset and it was really beautiful.  After that dad chased us down the beach in the car and when  he overtook us we just jumped on the side of the car and hitched a ride.  I fell off the car when it was going at about 20km ph and started tumbling.  Then I jumped up and caught back up to the car.

Hammerhead cruising past the jetty

We went fishing and caught lots of fish.  I hooked onto two three meter long sharks.  They were shovel nose sharks.  I pulled them straight up to the surface and then handed the rod to Dad but they were too heavy to pull up onto the pier and they broke my line.  We saw a hammer head shark it was swimming around the pier there were also turtles and lots of other fish to see.  We were catching lots of pretty fish like the five striped sea perch. We fished heaps.  I caught a yellow tailed trevally and it put on a great fight, he was taking me everywhere.  There are dinosaur footprints at Broome but we couldn’t see them because the tide wasn’t down low enough.  We went to the beach and Taj and I collected lots of jelly fish on our boogie boards.  We showed the lifeguards and they told us not to touch underneath them because some of them would still have their stingers.  Taj ended up getting stung. 



My Trevally



We drove along a red dirt road to get to Port Smith.  A one caravan park town.  I don’t think it’s actually a town because there is only a caravan park.  We went there because we were told there was great fishing and a beautiful lagoon.  We got there and the tide was already out so the lagoon was empty.  We started fishing but we had no bites for 2hrs.  Then as we got our first bites the bites kept coming.  We ended up catching eight fish, cod and perch.  Taj had a good time trying to catch jelly fish.  He got a hook and walked into the sea trying to hook them up.  It kept him entertained while Mum, Dad, Tamsyn and I kept fishing.  Then at the end Taj decided that he wanted to try fishing so I hooked a fish and then called him over to reel it in.  It took him ages to get to me because he was on the other side of the rocks.  I had to wind in the fish and then I let the bail arm go so that it would swim off a bit.  Then Taj came over and started reeling it in, it put on a good fight and Taj was really excited when he got it up on the beach.

Until next week

See ya from Ry.

Tazzie Talk 11 Undurra to Kakadu

Tazzie Talk

This week we stayed at our first road side stop and my favourite thing Kaka defiantly do!



Undurra Caves



After Cairns we drove for hours ending up stoping at 40 mile scrub road side stop. As far as a road side stops can go it was pretty good. They had a nice 300m walk and a little grassy patch to play on.

After a horrible night’s sleep at 40 mile scrub we went off to a little place called Undara. It had a nice pool and a lot of walks and some lava tubes. We went on a tour and it wasn’t that good we only went into little caves that were not impressive at all we payed $150 to be told at the end of the tour that we can go out and explore it ourselves for free!

1000kms in a car with your brothers hitting you on the head with whatever won’t knock you out isn’t fun. I didn’t care where I ended up I just needed to get out. When we pulled up at a road side stop just out of Eliot we were very surprised to see a camel. His name was noodles and he was walking with his owner from Kathryn to the Alice Springs! CRAZY

Mataranka was really good. With the three caravan parks to choose from we took our time sussing everyone out. We ended up at a nice caravan park called Mataranka Homestead and it was home to 25 thousand bats that stunk so much.

There were two hot springs one of them at the caravan parked and the other just downs the road. I liked the Bitter springs better. They were the springs just down the road and we got to float down with the currant to the end where you can swim.

Edith falls was sooooo hot and thank goodness that there was a swimming hole there. I wanted to go out to pussy cat flats (mainly because it had a hilarious name) but also because it had electricity and we could have the air con running but we ended up at Edith falls and when night came it was still 30dc and I just said, "I told you to go to pussy cat flats, I told you."  When morning arrived we went for a little walk to a nice spring and then on the road again.

Kakadu

I have heard many thing about Kakadu and many of them not very nice at all.  Kaka-don’t many people have told me but if you are willing to get off your butt and do a walk or sit and wait for the crocs at Cahills Crossing it turns out to be Kaka defiantly do!

We went for 2 walks to see aboriginal paintings. They were awesome I really liked the ones of the kangaroos. The pictures I show you won’t bring any justice to what I saw.

On the second walk we saw more paintings and at the top was an amazing 360 look out! It was so cool I got a heap of good picks but they still won’t bring the place any justice.

When we got to Cahills Crossing there was an aboriginal family fishing. The mother Nolene and her two daughters were on hand lines and the dad was on a fishing road with a lure. The girls were brining catfish in one after another. Watching the crocs swim by throwing rocks at them to keep them away because they will only attack on surprise. We saw about 15 crocs. On the last catfish they pulled in a croc chased it in! All Nolein said was “He’s a cheeky one that one. He’s not after my fish he’s after me”

That was my fantastic week now off to Darwin to meet Nicki, Clair, Brendan and they’re very friendly Husky Mia

Kristy's Chat Darwin-Derby



First 1000kms

I think in my last blog I signed off saying “we look forward to the mountain views”.  Well that was true but after driving through them for 1000km in 38degree heat I’ll be happy if I never see another escarpment again.  The Pentlands have discovered that we are coastal travellers, not country.  Having said that, the first 1000km weren’t too bad.

 



Second 1000kms

Litchfield Caravan Park swimming pool

Our first day of driving west took us out to Litchfield National Park.  Everyone, and I mean everyone says Litchfield is better than Kakadu but I have to disagree.  Perhaps it was just the high expectation we had built on so many comments.  It’s very different to Kakadu in that all the attractions are quite close together.  I loved all the aboriginal history in Kakadu and found Litchfield had much less ancestry attached (or at lease accessible).  To be fare we were also arriving at the end of the dry so some of the waterfalls were only barely falling.  We were provided with plenty of laughs as we pulled up at the Litchfield caravan park.  It was so barren and old fashioned, I’m sure it stands today exactly as it was constructed in the 70’s.  The sign out the front boasted many of its qualities including a pool.  Check out the photo, I’m sure you’ll understand our amusement.

Wangi Falls was brilliant, finally some genuine cool water to swim in.  After a refreshing dip we headed to several other falls and viewpoints but the best was Buley pools.  This is a succession of about 15 rock pools forming a cascade down about 100m.  Some of the pools were incredibly deep and provided a very refreshing cool down while others were shallow and allowed you to bask in the sunshine and warmth like an outdoor bath.  Initially we thought we’d stay at Litchfield for a few days but after getting everything done in a day we headed west, way, way out west.

After a quick pack up we drove south for a couple of hundred k’s before finally turning right.  Through vast farmland (hang on I think it has to have a fence to be considered a farm), vast open grazing land where suicidal cattle stand bravely/stupidly in the middle of the road.  Our only amusement for hundreds of kilometres was the stench of a rotting carcass and the occasional cow playing chicken!  Roadhouses were few and far between so we soldiered on across the country with one mission, get to WA TODAY.

After chucking out all of our fruit and veg at the quarantine station Taz and I decided that we’d had enough driving so we walked to WA instead.  SO many people had told us about Kununurra so we were looking forward to a few days of rest before another 12hr driving stint.  Boy were we surprised.  After settling into a caravan park on the outskirts of town we drove in to the central shopping area to grab some dinner.  The roads were littered with drunken people.  I don’t know, perhaps Mardi gras had just finished and this was the hangover but something about Kununurra told me that they weren’t the Mardi gras type.  At one point we had to step around this fella who was unconscious/dead on the path.  Usually I would have felt compelled to help but all I felt at that moment was Ry squeezing my hand and trying to pull me past faster.



The El Questro Lookout



Thankfully our caravan park was brilliant and after a good night sleep we headed out to yet another highly recommended tourist attraction on the Gibb River Road.  Apparently If you want to see the best of the Kimberley’s the Gibb River Rd is an essential part of any WA trip however the prospect of dragging my new van 400km across a dirt, heavily corrugated track with several river crossings and very high chance of getting flooded in didn’t appeal to me.  That and the fact that we are feeling a little “gorged out”.  Nevertheless, we headed off to see many spectacular gorges at El Questro.  We drove into the settlement and paid our visitors fee only to find out that more than half the areas had already been closed for the wet season.  Bugger, there goes $50 out of the budget.  We attempted to drive out to one lookout only to be confronted with a huge river crossing, sharp rocky terrain and a depressing outlook.  With all our newly developed 4wd skill we decided that we would push on through, right until we saw just how sharp the rocks were then we reversed back 20m and left.  AT this point we were thinking that our great friends Scotty and Trace had set us up and would be laughing their hearts out at home (most beautiful place in Aust yeah right).  Our second endeavour involved what we were told would be a 50cm river crossing.  “No worries”, we declared as we head out to El Questro Gorge.  Now I know I’m not good at maths but I’m sure the bonnet of the Patrol is higher than 50cm.  Thankfully we made it through.  Finally we were rewarded for our efforts as we hiked in through the narrow gorge.  Butterflies danced in the hundreds through the shady cliff faces and little fish frolicked in the shallow stream.  It was a great relief to get to the swimming hole were we all had a private swim, cooling off in the 38 degree heat.



One of the many shallow crossings.



We waved farewell to Kununurra with the hope of making in to Derby.  Some 11hrs later we pulled up in the fading light at the front of the famous Derby Boab Jail Tree.  Sometimes I surprise myself with the things that appeal to me but the tree was one of those amazing historical places that I’ll remember forever (just in case you were wondering I did not leave any of the kids in it).  A quick bite to eat and we continued our drive west finishing the night at a roadside stop 80km out of Broome, 13 hours after we started the day!

Just 80 more k's and we're back to the beach.  Yay.

I'm sure next weeks chat will be a little more refreshing.

xox Kristy.