Broome is Closed - We count the stings from sand fly pee

The answer to the question we found ourselves asking many Australians, 'Where is your favourite place in Australia?' was often Broome. "You simply must go to Broome." "Make sure you stop at Broome!" so we eagerly headed for the Western coast in expectation of a warm and inviting place.



A snake Phil jogged over on Cable Beach

We landed, we exclaimed our arrival, we held our hands like cups to the back of our our ears waiting for a response..... but nobody replied. Broome was closed. Streets full of luring window displays and posters invited us in to leer, but every door was bolted shut, the cold and cheerless signs shouted the word 'CLOSED'. Our high expectations were shattered as the daily showers showed no signs of submission. The off season meteorological lows kept the shop keeper's income low and the general mood of the place was also pretty low. It seems this tourist town's population is largely here for the trade the holiday goers bring in, many business owners simply shut up shop and live elsewhere during the off season.



With our past week's wages going to the Bush Fire Appeal we were adamant about making up the money for Book Aid to help us get nearer to our £10,000 total but we couldn't find anyone to ask for a job, everywhere we went seemed like a desolate ghost town. Even an interview with the local ABC brought us no replies to our pleas for work of any nature.




Giving up on the look for work we decided to sleep out Valentine's Day in this quiet town and spend a little time on the famed Cable Beach. With such a busy time of year for the few restaurants and cafes that were still open for business we had little chance of speaking to owners to see if they could help with food, so we thought walking off our cravings along the sea front would be our only chance of getting through another day without the use of money.



Phil and I had decided to go and try to find some accommodation for the following evening on the way to the beach so we took the van out with us. 'Meet you at the beach in a short while' Gareth said, as he walked off in the opposite direction to the sea. He must be off to have a look around before meeting us for the sunset, I thought.




Snake prints in the sand

The beach, long and wide, camel trains walking in amongst the rocks, was as beautiful as I had imagined. The heavenly light reflecting off the wet sand was magical, giving the ground beneath our feet a depth of light, simulating a sensation of floating on clouds. At first the wet air soaked in the colours of a moody brewing blue and then as the sun hid behind the horizon a smorgasbord of vibrant fiery hot reds was brushed across the skies.



Phil went off for a barefoot run, (the only time we can go for a run is when we are on the beach due to lack of shoes) Gareth was still nowhere to be seen but I had my camera and stayed on the beach until I could no longer stand the biting of march flies and mosquitoes, taking a multitude of sunset pictures.



Later that evening Gareth was found back at the hostel we were lucky enough to be put up in. It seems his unbelievably bad sense of direction had failed him again and he had thought he was heading toward the beach when we saw him walking off in the wrong direction. At least he is consistent. Whenever you are in doubt just ask Gareth the way, face the direction he is pointing at, then turn around 180 degrees and walk away from his pointing arm, you will undoubtedly end up where you want to be. Left to his own devices, Gareth's internal compass would have us heading back in the direction we just came from every time we pulled into a fuel station for a bathroom break. If it wasn't for Phil's navigation and inability to sleep while I count the zzzzzz's on Gareth's driving shift, then we would probably be carcasses somewhere in the outback by now.







Broome's beauty came to life on the morning we left, the skies were blue and as we trawled the town for fuel we saw the emerald sea cradling sailing boats where men looked relaxed and happy as they fished. With the skies no longer grey, the town took on a new light and life seemed to be blossoming, people were found on the streets and we were wanting for nothing as those around us gave a cheery 'Nice work folks!' and patted us on the back.







As I counted the number of red spots all over my body caused by sand flies and started getting into the fifties I gave up. Checking the first aid book to see if there was anything I could put on the bites I found out that the spots were nothing to worry about but saw a note added to the bottom of the page. 'Did you know that sand flies do not actually bite you, they pee on you? The uric acid burns into your skin leaving you with a red spot'. Puke! Now my legs are a veritable tossed salad of allergic reactions to mosquitoes, spots from sand fly pee and marks from ant bites. It's not pretty.












The Diver's Tavern donated a wonderful meal of gigantic proportions

Broome is a beautiful place but if I were a tourist I would wait until the holiday season starts before I headed out to this far away town.

Read a cheeky bit more!

We Donate One Week's Wages to the Victorian Bush Fire Appeal

Image from Guardian.co.uk

With news of the Victorian Bushfires dominating the news and views of the whole of Australia for most of February, it was with incredulity and awe that we listened to it all. The great extremes of the climate produced by this continent were asserting themselves dramatically. As we were experiencing the Wet season in the Top End, and the mighty river systems rose and flowed in flood and deluge, with creeks torrential and the floodplains vast, in the south of the country, in Victoria, they were having the worst, the most destructive and devastating Bushfires in Australian history.

Around the same time in Ingham, on Queensland's coast, the rain fell uninterrupted for 33 straight days, flooding many out of their homes, and drowning the crops the farmers rely on for their living. Not a drop of this vast deluge touched the southern end of the island, instead a drought, that had been constant for nearly seven years, culminated this year in record temperatures soaring into the mid-forties as a scorching heat-wave sent the state of Victoria into full alert; residents were warned of the potential for Bushfires; the bone-dry dense scrub surrounding the populated areas was like tinder, and coupled with high winds gusting through, a state-wide fire ban was called and extreme caution urged.



When the first fires broke out, some, we found out later, deliberately, they erupted and consumed and burnt with an intensity that no one anticipated. Black Saturday, February 7th, saw more than four hundred bushfires variously burning with degrees of ferocity as the wind fanned and spread the flames. The policies towards Bushfires propose that citizens in the path of one choose one of two options: to escape and take with you what you can, or to stay, prepare a defence, and fight. The fires were so intense and furious that some people had neither time nor warning to do either. 120 people died that day alone.

Over 175 people died all told, more than 500 injured, over 3,500 buildings were razed completely, with damage to thousands more. Entire communities were burnt to a cinder, the bodies of families trying to flee the inferno were found in their cars, still in their driveway, unable to escape in time. Those that survived talked of a 'Tsunami of fire' that roared through the hillside, hurled along by 100 kilometre and hour winds, giving those that had made all the proper preparations to protect their homes no opportunity to as much as think of defending themselves. Fire-breaks were rendered useless, new fires erupted from the smouldering ash, igniting the dense layers of scrub, as firemen backtracked and worked furiously trying to contend with it all, and as the wind threw it along.

Listening to the reports as they came in on the radio, we were horrified to learn of the carnage, as daily it got worse. More fires started as the wind carried with it spark and cinder, fanning the blaze over large distances and areas. It was terrible. Utter helplessness and total loss followed in its wake as home after home and family after family were affected. The series of fires consumed many towns north-east of the state capital Melbourne and most were badly damaged or almost completely destroyed - Kinglake, Marysville, Narbethong, Strathewen and Flowerdale among those towns that no longer exist. The fires affected 78 individual townships in total and left an estimated 7,500 people homeless.

Those unaffected, and those elsewhere in Australia, however, quickly sprang into action; providing temporary accommodation, in the form of spare rooms, and caravans, tents and beds in community relief centres. Clothing was sent by the truckload, food and water brought in also. Fodder and hay for the animals was found. By the fifth day, with fires still burning, over $88 million had been raised, by the end of the week over $200 million, as individuals, businesses and the Australian nation rallied behind the ravaged state of Victoria and dug deep to help out.

The culture of mateship, and helping others that we have had experience of ourselves was now fully behind the survivors; people from all over were taking a personal responsibility to raise as much as they could, taking it upon themselves to organize matters and do whatever they could. This very Australian of characteristics, borne of an ingrained can-do willingness to help the underdog, to aid where possible when needed and to do it all briskly, robustly and totally naturally, was taking from the adversity and giving those whose lives had been reduced to ash, some hope that things may get better.

Every town we passed through from Kununurra to Port Headland, had their own Bushfire Appeal and were intent on helping out. As small as our contribution was, we hoped that through contributing we could give back a little of the amazing kindness and generosity Australians have shown to us. The fires of Black Saturday and the following days, were of a magnitude scarcely credible, but so too was the response to it.......
Read a cheeky bit more!

Kununurra to Broome - Phil's Birthday Behind Bars

A forgotten fuel cap is replaced (again)by Argyle Toyota

The day was hot and damp and steadily, not spectacularly, raining as we left Kununurra and made our way along the Great Northern Highway for our next intended stay in Broome. It had been a hot night in Kununurra. Sweat and rain intermingled. We had seen the night sky turn from dark blue to a deeply bruised purple as its ominous growling and churning yielded to spectacular sheet-lightning and the growling boom of thunder.

The strobe-like illuminations of an electric storm had flashed intermittent and when the threatened rain came it rattled the corrugated iron roofs with an assaulting drum-roll, cascading down, overspilling gutters within seconds, while the drains lustily drank the deluge.

The air that morning was still heavy and damp, the build up continuing. It had been raining a lot and would yet for another two months. It may be this fact, or it may not, that contributed to the story circulating that neatly encapsulates how small town Australia, small town anywhere really, works.

Kununurra is the Aboriginal word for "meeting of big waters", and where the waters meet they have been diverted into the Lake Argyle Dam. Lake Argyle covers an area 18 times the size of Sydney harbour, 1000 square kilometres. At full flood level that area increases to 2100 square kilometres and with 150,000 litres every second pouring into it from its catchments during the flood, it is a mighty contribution to the towns water supply and irrigation.

Told, undoubtedly as a joke it quickly became the rumour which caused a lot of stress for the residents of the Mirima community in Kununurra. The story spread that the Lake Argyle dam wall had cracked, was cracking, had breached, was spilling and in the way of all that pent up water waiting to burst its way down was firstly the Aboriginal settlement of Mirima then the town of Kununurra itself.



The Police received a number a calls from concerned residents, the locals were terrified and with the heavy, heavy rain still falling they were concerned the whole wall would break. According to the local paper one resident said that: "I was sleeping in my house, when I got a shock one night because one lady comes up and told me; "get up, get, up, get up" the dam is going to bust. So I got up, wake my brother in law, wake my grandson, I got a shock that night."

The Water Corporation, the Police, their experts and engineers, all concluded there was no foundation to the rumour, and while the locals concerned themselves with the foundation of the dam, the rumour grew and more worried calls flooded in.

Notice was issued by those experts and engineers, refuting completely the whole affair; the rumour was the work of malignant drunks or innocent fools, and that there was absolutely no evidence to support it. It was completely, unequivocally untrue. But the fact that they sent all those people there to look at what they claimed to be a blatant lie seemed to signify there had to be a problem.



Panic ensued. If a drunken yarn, or tall story it really was, then the Water Authority and Police would not be so involved or so worked up about it. Stricken locals, unable to get through to the overloaded switchboards, and driven to fever-pitch by their own hysteria, considered evacuating, those that had one took to their cars, others barricaded their homes, boats were readied, supplies stored away, the boatless residents demanding something be done to save them as they could not even swim (a dam bursts, the front end of 10,763,000 megalitres starts coming towards you, but you're ok, you have your water wings inflated and rubber ring on) and the more it was denied there was anything the matter, the more they demanded something be done, and the rumour ran riot as their imaginations worst nightmare struggled to contain itself and idle conjecture turned to solid fact.



It reached its height with tales of the dam having already broken and with witnesses reporting a concerned engineer conducting emergency repairs (150,000 litres per second pouring in one end, an engineer's thumb blocking up the other?) and with that the Police got on air and on radio and told everyone to stop it! just calm down ok! And as far as we know, they did, but that crack there, hairline, you can barely see it....

We spent the day driving and it became clear that we would make it no further than Halls Creek. The Roadhouses and Service Stations we stopped and asked at along the way could not help and it was with a diminishing supply of fuel that we approached. By the time we got there we had emptied the second of our three Jerry cans into the thirsty tank and still had 600 kilometres or so to go until Broome.

Halls Creek is not much. In fact as far as not much goes it is probably a little less. We did bump into Bernie though, Lou's other half, on his route through from Karratha in his Road Train. He could not talk long and we had to find someplace to sleep. We shook him by the hand and thanked him again for all he and Lou had done for us.



We found some accommodation quickly enough at a Motel. Phil did the talking then we settled in and I was startled to discover that the price of the room was my presence in the kitchen of the adjoining restaurant, washing up, as I was the only one with 'proper' shoes, and it had anyway already been arranged. I took it for the team, though it was hard to watch all the steaks and chops disappear from view out the swinging door, while I had instant noodles and cold beans for tea.



The job for the morning, before we could really head off anywhere, was to find some fuel. With limited choice we had to find it at one of two places on the main strip we had been told were the only Servos in town. Both said they could not help. But undeterred as only the truly desperate can be, we asked again whether there were any more, and hold on, said one fella, hang-yer-hat, if there isn't another one just down the way, round that corner and on the left.



We saw the Toyota Garage, parked up, went in, and asked. Delia the bosslady said yes, of course, no worries. Relief. Just use that diesel pump there, number five. Anxiety. We're on unleaded, we said. We have no unleaded left, Delia answered. A bitten fingernail, a chew of the lip, attested to the tricky spot. But I'll get on the phone to my husband and see what we can do. Hope. Good old Diego, he and Delia agreed to donate to us $90 for fuel, here you go have it. Anxiety again. Erm, we can't actually handle the cash we murmured, any cash we are given must go to Book Aid. Back on the phone to Diego, and it was agreed that Delia would accompany us to the Servo and pay for us after we filled-her-up. That we made everything as hard as possible for them and that they still came through it testament to the good nature of these small towns and its people.



It was Phil's birthday today, and as usual we all forgot. Or were we unsure, and not wanting to admit we didn't know (erm, I thought it was last week..?) and besides who knew how old he was? either 19 or 27, possibly 29, what with his mercurial existence making him elusive to the confines of chronological ageing and all (I'm a name not a number!) but we pretended we knew all along as Phil made subtle then not so subtle hints as to the specialness of this special day. Special boy that he is he was duly awarded the pride of place window seat position in the van.




We had been warned that the Fitzroy River was liable to flood at any time but that it had been crossable for the past couple of days, but not to delay much, as it rose quite quickly. Reports came to us via various sources (yarns, everyone loves telling travellers these yarns, especially one with a dramatic twist) that the River had at one point been ten metres above the bridge, and in danger of flooding the town. Equally dramatic had been the assertion that it rose some forty metres in under an hour, when the rains came and drowned out the dry.


In Fitzroy Crossing we discovered these claims to be true. The Fitzroy River can be one of the fastest flowing in the world. Its flow rate down the 15 kilometre wide flood plain has been estimated to be 30,000 cubic metres per second. In flood, it is probably the largest river in Australia. Fact, for those who like them. It was, thankfully for our safe passage over, probably ten metres under the bridge when we passed through and into Fitzroy Crossing itself.



We headed for the Crossing Inn, the local pub/hotel/motel/restaurant, figuring that we should probably try to find somewhere to stay in which we could toast Phil's (alleged) birthday with a couple of schooners of the cold stuff. Terry the manager gave us a donga (Australian word for a basic unit, or cabin, transportable, but not on wheels) and as Phil demanded we make him birthday tea, I went to talk with Terry alone, to bargain for some beers, and he agreed to a few each if I wash his car. Duly done, Terry fed us, and the beers came, and we toasted Phil's (possible) birthday with as much joy as people who-are-not-even-sure-if-it-is-his-real-birthday-at-all-but-that-are-going-along-with-it-because-Phil-is-making-such-a-fuss can be.

The pub was teeming with life as the seemingly all the Aboriginals in the area were having a party. I asked the barlady, Hilda, if it was a busy night an she said 'nah', in a way that made me think of the response Capitain Ahab would give if you went fishing with him and exclaimed as he pulled up a Spanish Mackerel that it was 'a big fish eh'. Hilda had seen worse, or better, I don't know.

Lulled into a false sense of drinking comfort and security, we sit at the bar, swaying away to the harmonica playing on the duke box. We are just getting merry with our third drinks and then all of a sudden the jovialities are cut to a prompt finish with the sound of a loud siren. The girl behind the counter shouts last orders and we quickly get our last green cans and rum cokes. I still have one drink to get but I’m not allowed to get it. Can I get two? No, you can only have one because it is one drink per person. Can’t I drink it really quickly and get another? No. Can you just give me a double then? No.
Ten minutes after the last order is called everyone is booted out the bar, metal cages come down around us as we are asked to move our drinks. I notice the signs behind the bars stating no spitting, fighting or humbugging. Left sat on stools, stunned at the change of scenery around us in the space of ten minutes we are asked to drink faster in a firm tone.
I am in no position to complain, I haven’t exactly paid for the beer, Gareth has worked for it but we had no money crossing palms. If I was a paying customer I would have had some words to say to the boss.
The staff left and the lights were turned off.
It is eight thirty five. Apparently the day ends early here.

Phil is stunned. Happy birthday.




The mossies were busy that night, situated as we were not far from the Fitzroy River, but we were by the time we got back to the Donga, merrily inebriated (Anne had oonl ha-d two drinks- hic!) and prepared to admit that it was Phil's birthday if he were prepared to take the joke this far.

We were up and-at-them the next morning with 400 kilometres to Broome, along country that it is hard to describe the barrenness of. With no trees in all four directions, as far as the horizon blank and featureless, without even an undulation pretending to be a hill. But it was all verdant and lush thanks to all the rain, with the deep rich red-ochre earth framing the picture of the thirstily thriving flora.

Presenters of Fitzroy Crossing local radio gave us Tshirts and caps, showing us around their station as the signal was down

With much water still on the roads, we were careful to avoid being too reckless as we drove over the flooded roads (cautionary yarns by well-meaning Aussies, of wheels snapping! and axles breaking! and people stranded! in the middle of nowhere! for days! because they didn't know the road was not there anymore under all the water) with care and made it to Broome around five o'clock, heading for Cable Beach besides that other vast tract of water the Indian Ocean. Read a cheeky bit more!

What is listed as a Class 1 drug, has a nation watching its invading front and is used to play baseball and cricket? The Cane Toad

The chemical Bufotenin excreted from the glands behind the eyes of a cane toad is classified, just as heroin, as a Class 1 drug under Australian drug laws. Toad licking could result in serious illness or death and many a pet dog has fell prey to these unappetising poison bags. Apparently the toxic skin has been smoked to obtain hallucinogenic effects, but after seeing a multitude of these vulgar cretins with white puss squirting out, it is certainly not something I have ever found myself compelled to do. Pets and animals eating the creatures become sick and die and so the cane toad has become something of a national focus for hatred and disgust. Thriving in conditions where they have no natural predators, and with the ability to kill most native wildlife in Australia when ingested, this introduced species has become one of Australia’s biggest mistakes.


The cane toad front is something that has been closely watched by a nation, especially farmers and nature conservationists can be watched on Australian TV after the weather. Native to Central and South America, the cane toad was introduced to Australia to help eradicate the cane beetle in 1935, the idea being they would eat all the cane beetles leaving the crops pest free without the use of pesticides. However, the cane beetles live on the top of the crops and guess what, because of its voracious and unselective appetite, the cane beetle is too fat to climb up and get them.

The migration of the cane toad from its introduction area in Queensland has been rapid. As we passed through quarantine at the state boarder for Western Australia we saw signs all over advising that vehicles must be checked for cane toads. On the table by the checkpoint a fat, sorrowful pickled specimen squashed into a large yet still too small jar is on show for those who don’t know what a cane toad looks like. As I asked the boarder security guys about the cane toad they advised me that it would not be long now before the cane toad is upon them anyway, they are merely kilometres away from the check point. As it happens, we were in Western Australia a matter of days before there was a report on the evening news showing a lowly single cane toad hoping over the state boarder before it was caught and put in a jar next to the one I had asked about, the first of many to come crossing through to Western Australia.
“The impact of the cane toad, if allowed to happen, will literally destroy one of the last unique biodiversity wilderness frontiers in Australia," Lee Scott-Virtue. Kimberley Specialists in Research.

In April 2005, in an attempt to give Australian native species a fighting chance against the cane toads, Dave Tollner, a Northern Territory Member of Parliament, called for legalisation of attacking cane toads.

People were encouraged to kill as many as they could and even though many animal and conservation groups criticised the inhumane way of killing, I have seen detol being poured over them, cars swerving all over the road to run over those cane toads that sit on the bitumen, I have seen farmers tossing and kicking toads against walls, and I witnessed the axing of a toad in half. And in those states where the cane toad is common, and with parents positively encouraging their children to eradicate the cane toads from their gardens, some rather cruel 'sports' have developed, such as cane toad golf, baseball and cricket, where cane toads are used as balls. A bounty of 40c per toad has even been discussed in some areas. But with one adult female laying up to 20,000 eggs, and with some people telling of the toads strange ability to vomit their guts out and then swallow them back again they have so far beaten any attempts of eradication.

Queensland has galvanised residents into taking part in mass culls.Townsville council encouraged people to track down and bag up the toads in an event called Toad Day Out, where live animals were taken to a collection point the following day, weighed and either frozen or gassed to death, with the carcasses turned into fertiliser.


"The cane toad is probably the most disgusting creature and the most destructive creature," said Queensland politician Shane Knuth, who came up with the Toad Day Out idea. "They're killing our native wildlife, they're taking over our habitat and they're hopping all through this country." Those who criticise claim that freezing is a more humane way to kill cane toads rather than hitting them with cricket bats, but as I watched a conscientious member of the public collect dozens of toads from around his house in plastic bags and place them in a bucket, the odd plastic bag escaping the bucket, hopping off blindly around the kitchen until the fish fingers were moved over to make room in the freezer, I couldn’t help but wonder if freezing was actually any kinder at all.

Read a cheeky bit more!