Festive Photos

Hello. We had a lovely Christmas here in Broome. Our day began by unwrapping our present - a bar of chocolate, and then we had a big fry up with Brett. We then made up an interesting concoction of fruit juice and Gin and played a few games.

We joined another group of other long-termers from the campsite in a game of cricket. Let's just say we regained the prestige of our nation. Then it was time for a swim to cool off, and back to the beer and gin and fruit punch.

The massive breakfast kept us going until teatime when we cooked up a delicious feast of steaks, chicken kebabs, prawns, potato salad and a chilli crab caught a couple of days ago. We finished eating just in time to wander down to the beach to watch the sun go down and eat our mince pies. Brett hadn't had a mince pie before but he seemed to enjoy it.

It was a strange christmas and although we had a good day we were a little homesick. Or maybe that was the punch.

Hangovers weren't too bad today so all in all it was a success! Now we just have to plan something for new year.

Here's our festive photos:

Our Christmas decorations (on the tent there). No expense spent.

Err, this is the same piece of tinsel.


Kev unwraps his present:


Brett with 4.5kg of steak:


Christmas dinner in progress:



Kev chatting to Charlotte's sister Tracey on cable beach:


Sea, sun, sand and Mince pies:



Hope you all had a great Christmas!

Ho Ho Ho

Christmas in Australia is strange but with the help of multiple cans of Victoria Bitter we're just about reaching that level of excitement that Christmas brings. This post is just to wish everyone a merry christmas because we can't afford the internet fees to contact everyone individually!

We're still not sure what our plans for the day will be but we've bought half a cow, a quarter of a chicken, 3 million prawns and 8 sausages to eat. Not exactly traditional as we know it but that's just the way it's going to be here. As long as the rain doesn't hit us again tomorrow we'll be doing our best to have a damn good time despite not having you all around.

We managed to buy ourselves some christmas decorations (which are simply jaw-dropping) but the photos will have to wait until later. Just prepare to be blown away by our spectacular festive display!

As for presents, we've got a bar of chocolate and a bottle of gin each, with a tonic sitting in the fridge. Wrapping them with proper wrapping paper is, again, beyond our budget but I'm sure we'll find something to improvise with.

So we hope you all have a fantastic christmas. It's our first away from our families and it's a bit strange but don't worry, we'll cope.

Love,
Kev and Charlotte

Broometime

Hello.

We're still in Broome and have settled into the caravan park ready for the christmas season. It's pretty quiet here. Broome is one of the last towns that has the wet season and we've watched several massive storms build up around us and then pass us by.

A couple of evenings ago the rains did come though and the tent survived a very good test. The winds were strong and the rain was torrential, something like 2 inches in 2 hours. Unlike most people in vans on the park it seems, we stayed dry!

When it's not raining, the weather's pretty much in the high 30s from the time the sun comes up to the time it sets over cable beach. It doesn't seem right that you can get sunburnt at 8.30 in the morning but that's the way it is here.

Other than that we don't have much to report. Brett's got himself a bit of work because he's bored so we've been lounging around the park in the daytime and having a few beers at night. Last night we had more than a few. Well, it is the weekend!

We still don't know what we'll be doing for christmas but we're pretty sure it won't be what most of you are doing. There's a good chance it'll involved the three Bs: beach, beer and barbecue.

And now, some pics.

One thing we might not have mentioned about our travels is that we've learnt how to cook properly (and cheaply too!):


A little Christmas treat (on special offer, naturally):


A bit of Broome's coastline with Cable beach in the background.


A Cable Beach sunset:

Piccies from Katherine to Broome

Crossing the NT / Western Australia border:


Charlotte feeding the fish at the Zebra Rock Gallery near Kununurra.


A huge Boab tree in Wyndham. These are unique to this area of Oz:


The Ivanhoe River crossing near Kununurra:


Hiss... hiss... hiss... hiss... stop. Note the piece of metal we managed to find sitting on the step:


Just to prove that it is quite hot - 46 degrees.


These fellas are common on all the campsites we've been to since Darwin:


A nice little place off the main track we found. We've paid for a 4WD and we'll bloody well make the most of it:

Sweeping across Australia

Hello.

Sorry for the lack of contact recently. Since we left Katherine, things got very remote. We've done a lot of long and hot driving in the past 10 days or so which gave us chance to test the new car, which has so far been pretty faultless aside from one small matter which we'll come to later.

From Katherine we got on the highway towards the west coast, crossing the border into Western Australia, where they take things like honey from you in case it kills their bees. They also have a lot of literature about the cane toad, which they seem to think they'll be able to stop reaching WA, but that seems a bit unrealistic given it's progress across the country so far.

Anyway, first stop in WA was a mid-sized town called Kununurra. We had a few days there as it was a decent base to visit a few things in that area. First was a trip to the north and a town called Wyndham which is where 5 major rivers in the area all converge to head into the ocean. It's quite impressive.

On our way back from there we decided to take a 4WD track instead of the normal highway. After about 20kms we managed to find a piece of rusty old steel which ripped a large hole in our left rear tyre (spookily the same corner of the car that our Staples 2 Naples car had 3 tyre failures on...). After a few minutes of puzzle-solving as we worked out how to get the spare tyre off its bracket, we got the spare on and carried on our bumpy way.

The highlight of taking this road back was a river crossing at about 30cm deep. The car handled this fine although we got told off for going too fast by some of the locals who were fishing and swimming in the river, because the wake from our huge bull bar sent a large wave splashing over them. Tee hee.

The major sight to see on the road from Katherine to Broome is the Purnululu national park, aka the Bungle Bungle. Entry is for 4WD only so we were keen to get in there before the rains came and closed it. Brett is travelling in a campervan so we cleared some of our stuff out and he was going to come in with us.

But, when we arrived they told us it was closed. The rain had beaten us and the track was too likely to get damaged by 4WDs. Bugger. So we went back to a roadhouse, set up the tent and got drunk instead.

We had a big drive from there to the next stop which was Fitzroy Crossing, and then we parted ways with Brett as we decided to cut through a 4WD track up to the Gibb River Rd. This is another 4WD track but it's hundreds of km long and runs parallel to the main highway. We stopped at a couple of national parks on the way through; Tunnel Creek and Widjana Gorge.

Tunnel Creek is basically a creek running through a mountain and if you've got a decent torch and a pair of shoes you can walk right through. Our little maglite and flip-flops weren't up to the task, and the fact that it looked downright scary in there meant we jumped back in the car and continued bouncing our way down the track.

At Widjana Gorge we met a couple who were doing a charity drive from the UK to New Zealand. We ended up chatting to them for an hour and ended up running out of time to see the Gorge.

When we finally joined the Gibb River Road it was about 130km from the end and that part is in pretty good condition, the last 60km or so being single lane tarmac (and mind-numbingly straight).

At it's end we arrived in a town called Derby, confusingly pronounced Durby. Although when you think about it, Derby probably should be pronounced Durby. Anyway, there wasn't much to see other than Australias biggest tidal difference (which at 12 metres is quite impressive), and an annual local art auction which we stumbled on last night, intentionally without our wallets.

The sights of Derby took us a couple of hours, so this morning we arrived at what looks like being our final destination of 2006 - Broome.

Hope you're all enjoying christmas, and that my brother Dave had a nice birthday last week - just 42 years old!

Piccies to follow...