Thursday 30 June 2016

Half-lap Day 57: Kununurra

It was a windy night which can make it quite tricky to sleep well, especially with the windows open. The nights are warm here – not hot and sticky like in Darwin, but warm enough to easily manage with the windows open and maybe using a blanket in the last few hours before dawn.

I was up early and spent more time in the camp kitchen on the the computer, catching up on blogging, email, bills and sorting out some stuff with Telstra (always a fun job, and even more so when I’m on holidays!!! I did get a credit on my bill for their mistake which was cool, but they haven’t yet figured out how to fix their mistake….)

The others had a quiet morning at the tent, playing games and having breakfast, and wandering over for a swim when they got hot. Tony had put up one side wall of the annex so we now had shade along the edge of the tent for most of the morning.

Tony went in to town to see if his wine has arrived at the post office (it hadn’t – he arranged for his work to send a case up and we’re hoping it arrives before we leave) and to vote in this Saturday’s election – we don’t know where we will be on Saturday, so decided it was easier to do an early vote while we had access to a polling station. We had some lunch then Caitlin, Millie and I went back over to the pool – it was so lovely in the water on a hot afternoon. We were about to have a race when another girl and boy got in the water and asked if Caitlin wanted to play. They decided to join in our race, and then we all played tiggy (chasies). Millie can’t stand up in much of this pool so she got on my back and we were a team. Chasing the kids in the deep end, with Millie sitting on my back – extremely hard work, I was exhausted and needed to take lots of breaks which the kids thought was pretty funny. LiAM joined us after a while, and then we formed teams (boys, girls, and Millie and me) and kept playing until I really needed to get out and rest. It was fun.

Tony came over to the pool so I left everyone there and I went into town, to vote, and have a browse around the shops. I really do like wandering around the towns we are in and getting a feel for them, rather than just being a tourist. Target had shelves and racks of items on clearance, and I was able to get some new swimmers and clothes for some of us, and some more Skylanders, all for around $2 each. I walked around to Coles and browsed some of the souvenir shops on the way, grabbed a few groceries then went back to the tent. I’d enjoyed my browsing but felt pretty flat overall – a bit worried about where we’ll be able to stay when we reach Broome (it will be WA school holidays) and whether we’ll catch up with our friends who we want to see – too much thinking ahead can up my anxiety quite a bit.

When I got back the kids were playing with their new friends from the pool (who are on their second lap around Australia) and Tony was relaxing at the tent and thinking about dinner. I decided to go for a walk in the National Park, one of the paths to which was about 20m from our tent. I checked with the kids (they’d talked about coming with me when I went) but they were happy staying with their friends, so I went for a quick wander around the big, red rocks that we’ve been looking at for the past few days. The track I took was little used and the spinifex was sticking out over the path in a lot of places – I didn’t have long pants on so my legs got quite scratched and irritated. I found a larger path and explored it a bit, then another smaller one, which gradually led up between two of the large mounds of rock. I climbed for a way but the light was fading, and the path was getting rockier and narrower. I saw something slither or scuttle under a rock – I only saw the tail so not sure if it was lizard or snake… I got a few cool photos of the view of the rocks and felt like I’d gone far enough in this light, so headed back to camp, feeling a little more relaxed.



I rang my sister and had a good chat to her and felt much better again. We had a delicious dinner of steak, mushrooms, cream and potato. The kids played with their friends a little more after tea, while Tony and I looked at more of the things we can do while in Kununurra or en route to Broome, then we headed to bed and read Brisingr – and reached the end! We’ve been reading this book since early this year and it’s been wonderful, and very exciting to finish. On to book 4 tomorrow night!

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