Days 116 - 128

We left Derby with mixed feelings. On the plus side, Derby was a mecca for waste cooking oil and we managed to collect 420 litres in two days (this will enable us to travel around 2200 kms). On the down side, we took the Battered Fish to two different mechanics and neither one could fathom what was wrong with the car. We are finding that as soon as we mention that we are running on waste cooking oil to a mechanic, they automatically conclude that the problem must be something to do with that. The ironic thing is that it is running perfectly on the oil but still won’t work when we use diesel. As the weather is hot up here (between 35 – 40 degrees during the day), running only on oil is working well but we are praying that we do not hit a cool patch before the car is fixed.

We back tracked along the Gibb River Road to two awesome gorges – Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. We walked along Windjana Gorge and saw hundreds of freshwater crocodiles, all lying on the banks of the gorge in the sun. Even though there were crocs everywhere, there were still some crazy people swimming in the gorge. Walking through Tunnel Creek was another amazing experience of the Kimberley. We scrambled over rocks with our head torches on to enter the tunnel and once inside, we waded through water in the pitch black to get to the other side. At one stage, we all turned off our head torches and stood in the pitch black listening to the numerous bats. I couldn’t resist the temptation and grabbed Gerard’s leg pretending to be a croc. He literally ran across the water.

From Tunnel Creek, we detoured to Geike Gorge before heading West to the coast. After a long, hot drive, we arrived at Paradise – an idyllic spot called Middle Lagoon. The indigenous owner “upgraded” us from camping to a beach shelter. The shelter was literally just that, with a palm frond roof and sides, a sand floor to sleep on, a window without any glass or netting and a door way without a door. It was simplicity at its best. By day, we swam, snorkeled and fished and each evening, we would have sundowners on “our” beach, look out to the coast where we saw hump back whales diving and hitting their fins against the water, fire up the wooden bbq and have dinner by moonlight. Going to bed with the stars and moon above us was an experience I will not forget in a hurry.

We left our paradise at Middle Lagoon and drove further up the coast to Cape Leveque, a place we had been looking forward to visiting for some time. Although it was undeniably beautiful with its red cliffs, brilliantly white sand beaches and turquoise waters, it lacked that carefree, laid back feeling that we adored at Middle Lagoon. It catered to a completely different set as it was primarily a resort with villas, safari tents for tour groups and a restaurant. Those “undesirables” with dusty clothes, such as Gerard and I, were squashed into a camp ground. Having said all of this, we spent two lovely nights at Cape Leveque and once again, fished, swam in the sea, whale watched and enjoyed the glorious sunsets setting over the ocean.

From Cape Leveque, we decided upon some bush camping at another gorgeous spot, James Price Point, about 50kms North of Broome. It was Sarah’s last few days and we wanted her to enjoy the solitude of camping before she flew back to Sydney. We could not have wished for a better spot as we had the beautiful beach to ourselves and enjoyed some cliff top camping overlooking the ocean – it really isn’t a bad life this camping malarkey!

We arrived in Broome, intent on one thing, alcohol! As we had been in Aboriginal communities for the last few weeks, once we had ran out of beer, there was nowhere we could restock. We all felt pretty thirsty and decided to go out in Broome, something that Gerard and I had not done since Darwin. Suddenly, vanity (or was it reality?) hit me and I had to go through my clothes and pick out the least dusty item (even though we are washing our clothes in our makeshift washing machine – a bin filled with water in the back of the car – red dust gets into everything). Poor Gerard did not have anything that was not stained with waste cooking oil. Dressed in the best attire I had (shorts, t-shirt and flip flops) and with brushed and washed hair, we hit Broome. Unfortunately, no one told my camping body clock that we were out for the night and we would defiantly not set any records for the amount we drank or how long we spent out!

The rest of our time in Broome was spent looking for waste cooking oil, going for walks along Cable Beach, enjoying the beautiful sunsets and consuming vast amounts of fresh food and drink.

We have included some pictures of the whales we saw on the North coast, some of the sunsets we enjoyed, Tunnel Creek, Windjana Gorge, our beach shelter at Middle Lagoon, the beautiful red cliffs at Cape Leveque and some of the wildlife.

We are staying in Broome to watch the Stairway to the Moon, a natural phenomenon caused by a full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats at Roebuck Bay at extremely low tides to create an optical illusion of a staircase reaching to the moon, before heading South along the coast and slowly making our way to Perth. We hope everyone is well and enjoying their time. Thank you to all who have commented on our blog or sent emails. As always, it is great to hear from you.

Rachel and Gerard x