Wandering @Winjana

We finally left Broome with the car purring and feeling refreshed for the next leg of our adventure. The road into the national park was quite rough and the corrugations meant we took it slowly. Even Mannie, Abby's Teddy drove!! We arrived at the campground in the middle of nowhere to find flushing toilets and lovely hot showers. What luxuries!
Early the next morning we headed into Winjana Gorge and even by 8 am it felt hot as we walked away from the camp ground. Abigail led the way as we wanted to motivate our weakest walker!
The walk started with a climb through cave like rocks and then we were in the gorge. The limestone and pink coral rock walls were stunning and their sheer size was overwhelming. We were very eagerly looking about for 'freshies' and it wasn't long before we spotted some. It was very hot walking through the sandy gorge floor, but was really worth it.
We returned to the campground for a cold drink and then headed back into the car for the drive to Tunnel Creek. We thought it was 30km, but it ended up being more like 40km of the worst dirt roads we've seen so far this trip. As we went through a dip we heard series of explosions and below you can see the results. Our jack was not tall enough, so we were rescued eventually by a German couple with a big air pillow jack. What an adventure in the heat of the day!
The trip to Tunnel creek we took very slowly as we no longer had a spare. It was amazing to walk through the pitch black tunnels knee deep in water and see limestone formations, bats, fish and another underground world. It wasn't always predictable how deep the water would be and Oliver and Josh both had deep water experiences... Very funny.
We head out today through the last 80km of rough road towards Tunnel Creek where hopefully we can get a new tyre.

Pool time@Broome

Our days currently go something like this: wake, eat breakfast, workbook time/ play UNO, go to pool, eat lunch, 2 hours quiet time, go to pool ( where we spotted Tawny Frogmouths), showers, eat dinner, little ones to bed, play banana-grams, go to bed. It's tough, but we are hanging in there until we get our car back.

Emily in Broome

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a lovely one, I even got a birthday cake. Today was even better. Mum and I went to Pearl Luggers, a museum and pearl retail business, while the others went to a water park. In the tour that we went on we were told about the clothes that the divers wore(see bellow) up until 1975 and how they often died. In the shop I held a real pearl that was worth$100,000!!! I also bought a pearl necklace for myself(see bellow) with some birthday money. In the afternoon we went down to Cable Beach to ride the well known Broome camels. It felt funny to be so high up and was bumpy! On the ground next to the camels were their shadows that looked funny. After our camel ride we watched the sunset. It was beautiful!

Katherine @ Broome

Apparently 10 years ago I was in hospital awaiting my second baby's arrival and now we are in Broome with four children. This morning we have celebrated Emily's 10th birthday with pancakes for breakfast.
Breakfast was closely followed by lots of running under the sprinkler- a rare treat for this generation! They were drenched before they realised how wet they were.
We let Emily choose the menu and activities for the day. So a trip to the pool this morning was ordered... Done.
So here I sit stitching my insane quilt while the children swim and Bruce has gone into town in the car in search of an auto electrician and a birthday cake.

The next thing on the birthday agenda is pizza for lunch (under the caravan grill) and to the beach in the afternoon/evening for swimming and fish and chips on the beach. What a special birthday it will be for a very special girl!!

Joshua @ Barn Hill Station

Day 37:
We arrived here on Saturday just after lunch. We are staying on a 450,000 acre cattle station with 6000 head of Braham cattle. We went to a market on the bowling green on Sunday morning. Mum bought a reddish hat for Abby and Emily bought a purple one for her. We also bought some very crusty white bread. We had some for lunch. For dinner we went to a three course meal made from the local cows at the bowling green with 250 other people. Oliver went to sleep under the table (he's been sick) but asked us to wake him up when the food came. There was also a band playing but unfortunately I didn't know any of the songs. Mum and Dad says they were aimimg their choices to the over 65's. Who is Elvis anyway?!? Monday morning we went down to the beach and found a rock cave with two story's. We also found lots of rock pools and pink shells. Western Australian beaches seem to be much more rocky than we are uses to on the other side of Australia.

Coloured rocks and Gorges...

Rocks of every colour and exploring on foot has been the highlight of the last couple of days.
We have really enjoyed the walks exploring the area. A lot of the walks have big climbs up and down large rock steps. Abigail was our walk leader (there has been much discussion abut pacing ourselves with the slowest walker) to Fern Pool yesterday which is in Dale Gorge. Some of the steps on the track were taller than her legs but she was a real trouper. Once down in the gorge we discovered a whole new world of swampy, heavily rooted trees and ferns growing.
The girls stripped off for swim but the combination of cold water and small black fish meant they didn't end up getting wet. Emily did have fun climbing one of the trees on the gorge floor.
We went and visited Mt Bruce yesterday but didn't do the climb. It is W.A.'s second highest peak but at 1235m was really not that impressive -we made sure we got a Bruce photo.
Today we are heading north toward Port Headland. Josh and Bruce both have head colds and feel a little miserable, so we will take it slowly and see where we end up tonight.

Red dirt @ Karijini

We are camped in Karijini National Park and our car, caravan and feet all show the red colour of the area. It is amazing how the landscape has changed now we have left the coast. I must say I have been comforted by the presence of trees once again.
We arrived to discover that the plug off our water tank had broken off ( a big rock?) and we had no water. We have a couple of containers to keep us going for now. Bruce will head into Tom Price this morning to find a replacement part and publish this.
We went exploring yesterday and walked to Weana Gorge. It was impressive and very deep! The colours are magnificent!!
The children were not satisfied with seeing gorges from above so we found a walk down to the bottom to the water. It didn't take long for shoes and socks to come off and the wading to begin.
Abigail slipped over... 3 times and was very stoic, especially as she walked back up the gorge in only her underwear.