It’s Thursday morning and Stephen is at the hospital getting his second jab. I’ve been processing photos from yesterday, including a morning walk and afternoon and evening at beautiful Gantheaume Point. When we arrived on Tuesday late afternoon it was so humid that our windscreen was fogging up on the inside and the outside, fortunately at different times. We had a takeaway Chinese meal before heading back to the camp at Cable Beach.

Apart from ‘housekeeping’ (shopping, emptying and refilling tanks) we haven’t done very much. Yesterday morning we took a short walk along the path near the Cable Beach car park and I was trying to capture leaves, flowers and cobwebs with dew along the way. The morning was cool, but very humid.

At lunchtime we arrived at Gantheaume Point and were fortunate that the sea fog which we noticed at Cable Beach was still hanging around. It made for more interesting photos than we would usually get in the middle of the day. We stayed until sunset, just to see what the brochures were talking about, and that was very beautiful as well. The fog completely cleared during the afternoon and we were hot in the van.

Back at Cable Beach the Surf Lifesaving Club had a van selling Balinese food. We ordered a couple of meals and by the time we had eaten it was about 6.50 p.m. We rang Matt but it was a busy time for staff and no one picked up. I’ve contacted him this morning and had a bit of chat with him, with support from Eli. They are thinking of picking up a map so he can see where we are. I’m not sure if he is into map reading, but it would be good to learn.

About a week ago I managed to damage the side panel of the bench seating area. I applied some superglue, not expecting to get a good result, but it seems to be working and we are back to using the bench seat, which is a blessing. Although it is annoying to get into past the table leg it is the only seat where I reach to put my feet on the floor when sitting.

These are some photos from our morning walk. I wasn’t using a macro lens, just the kit lens that comes with the Sony A7c.

We spent the night at the Nillibubbica Rest Area which is on the Great Northern Highway between the Derby turnoff and Broome. It is a big area and there were about 15 Rvs of various types here last night.

We tried for a shady spot which didn’t work out that well for shade and even less for privacy as a caravan of three RVs looped around two sides of our van. Fortunately, they were nice people and overnight we felt secure enough to leave our sliding door open with just the screen door in place.

By ‘baking’ I literally mean baking as in using the Omnia stovetop oven to bake some muffins. This morning we took advantage of the changeover time to move our van into a spot which has shade all day. We are not getting much solar and if we weren’t planning to drive to Broome after lunch we would put out our external solar panel. But our batteries are on about 80% and we are not doing very much, just using the fan and doing a bit of charging of our multiple devices.

The muffin recipe today is 3/4 cup of self raising flour, 3/4 cup of yogurt, one egg, baking powder, turmeric, salt, vanilla, sultanas, coconut and wheat germ, at guessed quantities, not measured. I used a bit of olive oil to make the mixture moist enough for cooking. I’ve baked these muffins in the omnia oven before and they make a very nice snack at morning or afternoon tea. As we’ve already had morning tea of coffee and ryvitas with vegemite these should be good for the afternoon.

I have two silicon inserts for the Omnia, one for muffins and one just round. I’ve seen people do nice baked potatoes by this method and that’s something we’ve yet to try.

It is presently 32 degrees in the van, but there is a slight breeze and we have the fan, so not too uncomfortable. Stephen is using the time to research the science of lithium batteries.

We will get a Victron BMV-712 when we return to Perth which will allow us to actually assess battery levels and output. At the moment I am using a chart to gauge percentages, a different one to the one used for our AGM batteries as the required battery volts are quite different. the movement through volt levels is very slight and my chart doesn’t give all the possibilities, but is helpful as a guide.

This rest area does have quite good internet and I was even able to talk with NDIS about Matt’s travel allowance. They claim it wasn’t paid because they didn’t have his bank details, but I am sure they had them, but just didn’t put it into the system. He is now owed over a year of back payment and I’ll be checking his account to see if/when it happens.

We can also watch YouTube and do our other social media stuff.

At about 2.00 pm it was really hot in the van and we followed through with our plan B to drive back to Broome. It is definitely cooler here. We will stay for two nights, then Stephen has the jab on Thursday, so we will stay Thursday night in case he has a reaction, then head north again on Friday.

We have things we can do here and the time won’t be wasted.

To view the phots enlarged, click on the first one, then use the side arrows to move around. These photos were exported from Lightroom at much reduced size for ease of uploading.

We have had an interesting time in Derby. The population is over 70% indidgenous, which perhaps explains how comfortable the people are with mixed gatherings. It basically belongs to the three local tribal groups. Two supermarkets, a very good bakery, two hardware stores, plus electrical goods stores make up some of the local amenities. People do not have to travel to Broome for normal goods and services.

The first event was a dance festival at the Mowanjum Art & Culture Centre. It was a bring your own chairs event, starting at around 5.00 p.m. The three local groups put on dances from their various cultures. To me it was a very 21st Century event, perhaps I was expecting more of the sort of event from my childhood in the NT. Nevertheless, it was well done and very entertaining. Only men and boys were allowed to dance, but women and girls were on stage as well in colourful costumes. The highlight was a dance about a husband, wife and baby. A man played the role of the wife, and as he is a good dancer and comic it was very entertaining.

There were lots of children, milling around when not on stage, which suggests this is a very vibrant community. There were only a few older people on stage.

Frederick and Shereen came by bus, but we brought our van and were fortunate to find parking easily. They had saved space for our chairs and we appreciated having a good view of the stage.

That was Friday. On Saturday we met up at the markets at the CWA where there was live music, some food stalls, but not the fresh produce we had read about on notices at the caravan park. Frederick and Shereen got up to dance, it is one of their interests on the road to attend dances, and they have some special clothes for such events. At the markets they were just wearing casual clothes and still managed to look very good.

In the evening we went to a concert at the Spinifex Hotel. There were a couple of soloists and two groups, with the main act only starting at about 10.30. Stephen and I missed most of it as we had started watching our dear Ash Barty playing in the finals at Wimbeldon. Even when she looks determined she merely looks concerned, not fierce, like her rival. She didn’t play a perfect game, but still managed a win, which basically made our day, week and year!

On Sunday morning Stephen and I went for a walk along the Joonjoo Walk Trail. Despite the heat (the car said it was 36) we still enjoyed reading all of the information about the plants and trees and how the indidgenous people used them in the past. I was walking ahead of Stephen and at a certain point went left instead of right. I wasn’t really lost as we had a good 4g signal and I was able to use Google Maps to find my way back to the van.

We had a restful and hot afternoon at the caravan park. Being on power we had air conditioning for some of the time. I discovered that our system has a dehumidfy setting that makes things comfortable without running the noisy compressor. I did a last load of washing and left it out overnight. Of course, they use sprinklers early in the morning and some of the washing got very wet. I moved it to our awning clothesline and in the sun things got mostly dry before we packed up this morning.

Sunday evening at sunset we met up with our friends who had been on a trip to the horizonal falls. They said it definitely lived up to their hopes and was a great way of celebrating their 40th wedding anniverary.

The tide was almost full whilst we were there, still coming in.

We said farewell last night, but then met up again to see the full tide this morning. We had spotted a crocodile (we think) last night, and were looking for them again, but couldn’t see anything definite. The possible croc last night was way off in the distance in low light, so we weren’t really sure – but whatever it was it did seem to move a bit. This morning we didn’t see anything actually move and may have been looking at a piece of wood.

We are now on the road back to Broome and have stopped at the Willare Roadhouse for coffee and a toastie. The cafe is very nice and has good coffee. I was a bit worried about using the laptop in the hot van, so this is perfect for processing photos and writing.

When the electrical work was complete we rather enjoyed sorting out the storage area under the bed. We made some discoveries, including a mouldy, damp floor mat, now binned, as we sorted through our stuff. The good news is that we have been able to store our portable solar panel under the bed, something we were worried about.

Stephen has been worrying about weight, so we found a weighbridge near the electricians and weighed our van, including with us in it. We are 90 kilos under, and had some ‘discussion’ about whether to get fuel before setting out for Derby.

At Roebuck Roadhouse we filled up the tank, the. Stephen ordered a full breakfast. No need for us to go on a diet after all!

Afterwards, we drove about 20 kms down the road to find a shady park up for a rest. Then we shared the driving from that point on. We saw Frederick and Sherenes’ van at one of the 24hr rest areas on the way, but did not disturb them. They will arrive in Derby tomorrow morning and we will see them at an Indigenous festival in the afternoon/evening.

The rest of the drive was interesting with lots of boabs and river crossings, and a couple with single file bridges. There are lots of signs warning about crocs, but we didn’t see any. The danger on the road is wandering cattle and we drove rather slowly keeping watch. It is easy on these roads for cars to pass us.

We’ve ended up at the more expensive caravan park. But it’s nice with large shady sites. We are near two ablution/laundry blocks. This caravan park is in the town and we can walk to shops, etc. We are powered which means we can get these new batteries fully topped off a few times before our next free camping.

The evening was warm, but it cooled off by about 9.00 pm which means it is still very comfortable for sleeping.

By 7.00 am this morning I had put the washing on.

You would think so by the number of roundabouts. We are doing a lot of driving around and the traffic isn’t too bad, but we are getting dizzy😀

After another night at the free Surf Lifesaving Club camping Area we decided on a rest day. Stephen still had a headache. Of course, no rest day is complete without a visit to the dump point, filling up with water and getting fresh supplies because our fridge is now being fully powered. Stephen even managed a Museum in the afternoon.

We are meeting with Frederick and Sherene at various places and we spent the day at Town Beach with a view of the sea on their suggestion. In the evening we had a FaceTime with Matt and enjoyed actually seeing him. He finds us a bit boring I think, but fortunately Hidde was there as well.

This morning we arrived at the electrician’s at 9.00 am as instructed. Roger arranged for Bob to do the final step of connecting our 240 v charger as it needs to be done by someone qualified. We’ve been here 45 minutes so far. Waiting for Bob. He got us to unload our stuff from the back so that he has easy access. Roger spent all day Tuesday leaning in over the bed. It would have been nice for him to have had the better access. Bob supplied a big tarp for our stuff as we didn’t have anything large enough.

We’ve been managing our lack of power quite well. If we wait until about 9.00 a.m. we can turn on the 12volt system and use the water pump. By then we are getting enough solar power to run it. Amazingly this ‘overflow’ section of the caravan has a water tap for each campsite, which means we don’t have to use our water pump as we have the water hooked up. Even so, this morning at about 7.30 a.m. the battery was flashing a warning. Only the fridge was on and I turned it off for about an hour to let the solar catch up. We are getting lots of solar power now as we have no shade, all good.

We are still finding evenings get chilly, even here near the beach. There has been a strong, cool wind during the day for the past few days and even when the sun is high it helps to keep things cool. It also makes it comfortable to sleep and we are still using our doona at night.

On our last evening at Meentheena we walked up the nearby hill for the sunset, then joined the rest of the campers around the fire for the Ode. Again, we enjoyed chatting with other campers before heading off to our van to have tea.

In the morning we were packed and ready to leave by about 10.00 a.m. It was a beautiful drive to Marble Bar for essentials. A little shopping, fuel and water. I checked out the dump point but it was full to overflowing. It is the only local dump point as the caravan park doesn’t have one. Although the Marble Bar Races were cancelled because of the lockdown (couldn’t get staff) a lot of people had already arrived and the town was busy. Race goers had been allowed to camp and use the portable toilets at the race track and some of them had joined us at Meentheena, which is how we knew the story. I think this meant just too much strain on the dump point.

For our next overnight we stopped at the Des Streckfuss Rest Area. There were three vans and one truck also staying the night there. The dump point was very handy and although there was no water supplied for washing down it was fairly clean. Exasperatingly as we were leaving I used it again and some idiot had put a plastic bottle down there, which will almost certainly block it. Why oh why would someone do that!

Yesterday morning we travelled about 280kms to reach the 80 mile Beach Caravan Park. It was our first opportunity to camp at the beach and we were able to near the waves at night when the wind wasn’t as strong. It feels great to be travelling so far north. I haven’t been up this way since quite early in our marriage when we had the old blue Subaru sedan. Stephen came this way when he took a Greyhound trip around Australia, but even that was at least 20 years ago. I’m interested to see Broome again even though we know it will be very busy with tourists. But, we are too.

Our roast dinner Sunday night was excellent. Everything well cooked, the vegetables looking a good colour, etc. We ended up with three deserts, so shared the two that were different and saved the rest for the next day (now yesterday).

The road into the 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park is 9 kms of corrugations that were much too deep to go fast over. For most of the way we went at about 12kms an hour. This was having consideration for all of the internal furniture as well as the van components.

We plan to see if we can stay at the Seventh Day Adventist campground in Broome. It doesn’t take bookings and like this caravan park says it will accommodate everyone who needs to stay even if it is without power or water hookups. We shall see. Another place to stay is outside of the place where we are going to have our batteries checked. If there is no security around it would be very handy for the next morning at 9.00 a.m. when they open up.

We have to be close to Broome until the 12th for Stephen’s vaccination shot. That will be 12 weeks from his first shot and he booked it before we left. I haven’t worried about booking mine. I’m not sure where we will be two weeks after the 12th, which is when mine is due. I can always ask at a local medical centre and if the answer is ‘no’ then it will have to wait until later in the trip.

Update from Broome

We arrrived in Broome yesterday at about 3.30 p.m. after what was a long distance for us, about 380 kms. We shared the driving equally, which worked out well as neither of us was particularly tired at the end of the day. We went to the Seventh Day adventist overflow, but they were full. He recommend the place where we ended up. The dump point was at the Visitor Centre. It was very busy, but Stephen was able to pick up some brochures.

In the end we found free camping at the Surf Lifesaving Club on Cable Beach. Talk about a great option for the night! We also met up with our friends Frederick and Sherene who just happened to be staying there as well. They were in Broome for an extra night and it was quite by chance. Frederick had some advice for upgrading our system and we have followed that advice, plus the input from Roger at AllVolts here in Broome.

We have two new lithium batteries, are having a setup for using an external solar panel, and having a new battery charger installed that is suitable for lithium. We will need to come back to have an electrican finalise the setup, at a time to be determined.

Even here in Broome, about four hundred kilometres north of 80 Mile Beach, the evening became quite chilly. We went for a sunset walk along the boardwalk overlooking the beach and I regretted not bringing a jacket. Stephen had a jumper on, but he is always prepared. Of course, the cool overnight temperature helps us to sleep.

Today has been quite warm, especially as we had the van parked in the sun for most of the installation, but there has been a pleasant breeze all day, which has been comfortable in the shade, if not in the sun.

Stephen rang the hospital to confirm his appointment next week and the hospital could find no record of his appointment. We looked it up, and it was definitely there, so he rang back again just to make sure they agreed with our findings. We can then plan our tours, etc. around the appointment.

So far we like Broome even though we have spent most of the day getting our batteries replaced and various bits and peices installed. We need to restock our fridge and plan the rest of our time in this area.

This morning we relocated to the next carpark (which is one of the rules with the free camping) with Frederick and Sherene and caught up with their plans. They are going to an event in Derby on Friday night and we are thinking of joining them there.

When we tried to contact Matt last night the internet was down. It turned out later it was just one part of the van and if we had known we could have had a Facetime session with him. Stephen rang him anyway for a chat and we will catch up on Wednesday night for a Facetime. Hopefully!!