We're back, and we stink

Hello.

Haven't got a lot of time as the library closes in a few minutes. We just thought we'd let you know that we're back and have had a nice time working on a pearl farm for the last 10 days or so. In fact, we have a few days off and then we plan to return on Friday for another 10 day stint.

Most of our time up in Beagle Bay was spent being wet, smelly, bruised, cut, stung and bitten. The other time was spent chipping crap off pearl shells - which wasn't a lot of fun - and then drinking lots of beer in the evenings - which was a lot of fun.

The bay itself was beautiful and our room faced the ocean. If we didn't have to get up before the sun rose then we probably would have appreciated it all the more.

We've been ridiculously well fed. They have a full time cook and all our meals (and washing) were catered for. Most of the food was restaurant quality so we've probably come back quite a bit heavier. We'll just pretend that's all the muscle we've gained from working so hard though.

We will update again some time this week with some piccies and a bit more info about what we've been up to.

Holy mother of pearl!

One job that we knew there was always available here in Broome is working on one of the several Pearl farms in the area. We had deliberately avoided it due to Charlotte's tendency to throw up when out on choppy seas.

However, we've been assured of a miracle cure for sea-sickness and so tomorrow afternoon we're being taken 120km up north to a place called Beagle Bay. It's remote up there and it's rough, dirt road all the way so 4WD only. We'll be picked up so our car will stay clean and safe in Broome.

As far as we can tell the work is largely going out on the pearling boats and cleaning the shells. Repetitive and hot work but the pay isn't bad and should allow us to move on fairly quickly.

It's a 10 day stint and we'll be living up there. We think it's a fair bet that there'll be no phone or internet (although we thought that with the farm!) so chances are we'll be quiet for 10 days starting tomorrow (Friday).

Hope everone is hunky dory. We're off back to the tent, where a foot-long blue-tongued lizard has just decided to move in... well, under.

Update

Hello.

This is just a quick update as we haven't been up to much since our last one. We have been doing a bit of job-hunting without much success. We both had a trial at a restaurant and Charlotte was offered a job at the local shop, but the person she was going to replace decided not to leave so that fell through.

We have been sorting some other things out too. There were a few problems with the car (nothing major for a change!) and we've just come back from having chest X-Rays; one of the conditions of the visa extensions we're applying for.

Broome is still hot and occasionally rainy although we haven't had a good storm since christmas eve.

Last Saturday was Brett's 30th birthday so the campsite regulars all gathered round Betsy (Brett's campervan) and had a few drinks. All was going well until Brett opened the Scotch and it wasn't long before he was staggering rather than walking. Late on in the evening, he and gravity had a bit of a falling out, and he went straight through his table, landing on his shoulder (and partly on his face) and doing something nasty to it.

Since we were all drunk we couldn't drive him to the hospital so we woke up Adam and Kerry - our neighbours - and Kerry took him in.

Other than that it's been fairly quiet, we've been saving money and just lounging around basically. It's a hard life innit.

Happy New Year

Hello. We've started 2007 and we have a bit of wind.

There's a cyclone about to hit the coast just a few hundred KMs south of Broome and we're copping a bit of the side effects, so the last day or so has had some pretty strong winds and some heavy rain.

It sounds like it's about to be downgraded from cyclone status soon though so although it's been a bit worrying for the past 24 hours or so, it looks like the tent won't have to come down.

So, to bring us up to date let's go back to New Years Eve. We began the day with a trip out of the caravan park to a place up the coast called Willie Creek. It's a beautiful little spot which opens out to the ocean and features a pearl farm (pearling being Broome's prime industry). We had a bit of fun taking the dirt road up there and after an hour or so we headed back to get on with the festivities. We were losing valuable drinking time!

A game of cricket in the afternoon started the party and we decided to stay on the caravan park for the evening, joining in with numerous little groups and parties going on which all merged together for midnight. We can remember most of the evening (Charlotte insists she can remember all of it - but she's not writing the blog... ha!).

By all accounts we had a good time, hope you all did too!

We solved a little car trouble over christmas with help from several other campers, and that turned out to be simply a bad connection in the relay to the glow plugs. We cleaned it up and since then Merv has been starting better than ever.

However, last night gave us a bit of a fright. We were woken at 3am by our neighbour shouting "hello, hello, there's a problem with your car!"

We unzipped the tent to see smoke coming from underneath the bonnet, the spotlights on full beam and what appeared to be flames licking the underside of the bonnet. For some unknown reason (but most likely related to the heavy rain), a small electrical fire had broken out in the relay to the spotlights (or 'spotties' in Aussie talk). We were bloody lucky, and managed to put it out before any major damage was done.

The car's fine now, we've secured all the wiring and removed the dodgy part. It's been checked about 150 times today already and all is OK, and the car was quite happy doing a river crossing - where Broome High Street usually is - this afternoon during a big downpour.

So, we're wet but warm, skint but happy, and ready to continue our travels in 2007.

Have a good one!

Here's our current location by the way (the cyclone is due to hit just up from Port Hedland)