Brisbane Trip Day 35 - 38: Bimbi Park -> Home

The wind was strong on the first night - I was surprised that it didn't scare me, I usually am uncomfortable with wind. It was loud though and at times I was awake listening to it and hoping that everyone's tents were safe. (All the homeschoolers were fine - one hire vehicle that some backpackers were staying in ended up with a large branch on it, but no one was injured).

The heavy wind continued for all of the next day, then eased overnight which was a relief to everyone - it had most of the adults feeling a bit jittery and exhausted, although it didn't slow the kids down.

I was pretty tired after our 5 weeks away and was happy to sit at our tent up the back of the camping area and chat to whoever wanted to come to see me. I spent much of the first couple of days talking with our friend who was camped with us, and with others who came up to see us. It was great to sit and relax and not have to think too much.

The kids were very happy off with their friends. Caitlin and the rest of the teens wandered around the camp, played games, went for walks, sat in the lounge area of the camp kitchen, took lots of photos of themselves and each other, played on the swing, and forged stronger friendships. Liam and his friends chatted a lot about fantasy games and stories, played tag games, explored the camp grounds, and occasionally played on their DSs. Amelie played mainly with a couple of girls camped near us, they played with pokemon, did roadworks on the path in front of the other girls' tent, played mini golf and ran around a lot.

Various people had fires at night which were great to sit around and chat (for the adults) and the kids came back and forth with marshmallows. The boys played games with torches of an evening. Amelie was quite tired each night and ready to go to bed reasonably early.

On the 3rd day our campsite friend packed up and headed home - his son (Liam's friend) stayed in his tent next to us for the rest of the camp. One of Caitlin's friend's dads also went home, and the friend moved into our tent. Another of Caitlin's friends had his swag next to our tent (his dad had stayed the first night), so we had quite a tribe of extras with us.

Each of the kids and their friends spent time hanging out at our campsite, as well as at other campsites and in the kitchen. At one point all the teens and most of Liam's friends were at our tent, and someone started massaging someone's shoulders, which quickly turned into a massage chain - I had a great massage from Caitlin's friend.

On the 3rd evening I walked up to the top of the nearby hill, it was great to see the view from there and watch the sun head towards the horizon. There were glimpses of the ocean, and views of the forest in all directions. I was also able to get enough mobile reception to catch up on messages that had been sent while I'd been at camp - although this brought me back to the real world a bit and reminded me that our trip was nearly over which felt a little less relaxing than camp.

The next day I went for a longer walk by myself to the lighthouse. The walk itself was along a wide path, mainly through open fields, and occasionally through the forest. It was a sunny afternoon and quite a pleasant walk, although longer than I'd expected. I stopped to look at a tiny graveyard my friend had told me about, with the graves of adults and children from lighthouse families who had died while stationed there. The view of the ocean from near the lighthouse was quite beautiful. On the way back I ran into Caitlin and her friends doing the same walk as me. When they came back they spent time up on the top of the hill watching the sunset and taking gorgeous photos.

I spent several hours each afternoon sitting at my tent chatting to friends and drinking cups of tea. The weather was sunny and warm and it was a very pleasant way to spend the time.

On the last night the wind picked up a bit again and it started raining. I got up and sorted out the potential for leaks. Packing up in the morning was tricky with the wind and rain coming on and off. The kids hung out with their friends and I chipped away and the packing up, and we were ready to go around the middle of the day. I was taking home two of the other kids so we had to pack the car and the trailer differently, it was pretty crowded but we got everything and everyone in. Throughout the morning we said goodbye to people as they headed off and we said bye to the last few families before we went as well.

We drove home via the Great Ocean Road which was beautiful, although very slow because of the frequent roadworks. Coming through the countryside before Geelong someone indicated to me that there was something wrong with my trailer - I stopped and checked and one of the straps across the back had come loose and was dragging on the ground. I tied it back together with cable ties and secured the carpet and trailer again.

We had a fairly easy trip around Melbourne, and we stopped at Bundoora to drop Caitlin's friend off with family. The rest of us kept going and arrived home in the evening. Very exciting to see Tony again after so long, and to see the dogs and cat.

Brisbane Trip Day 28: Newcastle

Once again I was up first and went for a walk to the beach. The water was clearer today, less seaweed and no muck. It was sunny and beautiful in a different way to yesterday. There was one surfer in the water and I decided to go in - the undertow was strong and the waves were breaking fairly close to shore. I thought about going past the break but didn't feel confident given that I was there on my own. I stood in waist deep water for a while and it was lovely, then hopped out and kept walking. I walked to the end of the beach and all the way out to the end of the break wall. There was a big swell coming into the channel - it was really cool to see the waves from behind as they rolled past me. There were some good splashes on the edge of the break wall but nothing really breaking over onto the path.

I chatted for a while with a couple and their dog (the dog didn't want me to come too close to it's humans, until we started talking and then it came over to me for a pat and was quite happy), then wandered back home. I had a shower and some breakfast and chatted to the kids as they woke up.

At 10 an old friend from BHP came to visit, we sat out the back and talked for a couple of hours, it was fantastic to spend some time with him. After he left I tidied up a bit, talked to a friend from home on the phone, then we had lunch and got ready to go out to see another friend (Caitlin's godfather).

We drove down to his house in Wyee and had a lovely afternoon chatting, looking at his garden and the work he's done in the yard, talking politics and lots of other topics. The kids played with his girls and came in and out of our conversation. They played Uno and hide and seek and read books and played with stuffed toys, then Amelie and his girls watched TV until we left. Just as we were getting ready to go his wife came home from work, I'm so glad we got to see her as well.

Back home and the cousins were out at the beach so we relaxed for a while, when they came home the kids played on the trampoline and chatted. The youngest cousin was here and she and Amelie danced to Moana again. My BIL set up a fire in the backyard and the kids sat around that and ate their dinner, some went inside afterwards to watch tv together, some stayed outside. I chatted to the other adults and it was a lovely quiet evening. After the little one and her mum and brother had left, the kids all stayed inside and my BIL sat outside near the fire until quite late, talking about lots of deep topics. I had thought about packing some of our stuff tonight, then decided the conversation was more important.

Half-lap Day 103: The Nullarbor

I got up just after sunrise and it was cold and beautiful outside the tent, the early morning sun shining on the few trees and over the low bushes surrounding the campsite. I went for a bit of a walk to find more firewood, there were a couple of dead trees not far from us and I was able to find plenty of branches around them that would get the fire going again for the morning.

I sat near the fire for a while and then as people woke up, got breakfast ready and we started to pack up. Everyone was cold and wanted to sit near the fire, which helped us feel warmer and may have slowed down our packing a bit. We were ready to go around 10.30, the last (by a few minutes) people to leave the campground.

We continued eastward along the longest straight stretch of road in Australia. There was a slight slope to parts of it, so we could only see 5 or 10km ahead, and when it was flat, the road shimmered out of sight in the distance, so we didn’t ever feel like we got a strong visual sense of how long it was – but it did take a long time to drive, without a bend. It wasn’t boring though, the scenery was fascinating, sometimes low, sparsely scattered trees, sometimes plains of low bushes, all very dry and inhospitable looking, but always quite pretty. It was exciting to get to the end and have the road bend a little. There weren’t a lot of bends over the course of the day – mainly the road was straight with the occasional meander to one side or the other. Therre wasn’t a lot of traffic either,  some road trains and caravans coming the other way, and occasionally another truck or van going our way, often we were the only vehicle we could see.

Part of the longest straight stretch of road

Not long after we started driving we saw a dead camel by the side of the road – our first wild camel sighting and we all felt it was a sad way to start. About 2 hours later we saw live camels, four of them to the right of the road,  in an area with no trees. We pulled over and watched them for a while, very excited to tick another desired animal off our list. Later on I saw a pair of emus – the kids didn’t see them though so we hoped that we would see more as we kept driving.

Camels

Around 2pm we were approaching Madura, and saw a sign to a lookout. I think this is the place someone told me about, way back in Hahndorf, so I suggested we pull over. It was a fairly bumpy road in to the lookout, and then the view was incredible. The road sloped down quite steeply just after the turn off to the lookout, and below us was the Nullarbor Plain – flat land for as far as we could see, with low, silvery green bushes and grass, and the occasional tree scattered all the way across. From where we stood the trees looked like emus – rounded green tops with thin trunks. To the north of the plain, looking straight ahead in the direction of the road, was a large escarpment – I had no idea that it even existed. From the lookout we could hear, and then see as they came past, the road trains and the caravans laboring up the hill as they headed west.

View from Madura lookout

We had lunch while we were stopped, then drove down the hill ourselves, onto the plain. The road followed the escarpment for the rest of the day. The terrain was similar all the way, with the occasional stand of taller gum trees (not tall, but not the tiny trees that were over most of the plain. Many of the rest stops had these taller trees. 

Once again the sun was setting fast as we drove away from it. We had hoped to get to the border, or at least close to it, today – however there was a strong vote for stopping at a rest stop with a toilet, and the last toilet was at Jilah Rockhole, about 70km before the border. We arrived there about 4pm and found a nice clearing between trees and set up the tent – the sun was close to setting by the time the tent was up so it was good timing. We wandered through the trees to find wood for a fire, finding a pile left by someone at one of the spots near the back (again, it was a very large camping area, with lots of relatively private spots because of the trees) and Tony found some wood he could cut with his axe. Caitlin had a bit of a scare as we loaded wood onto her bike – 2 wolf spiders were nestled together in a hollow in one piece of wood, and it took a while before we found them on the ground (after we flung the wood away) to make sure that neither of them were still on her bike.

We got the fire going and I made a cup of tea, while Tony cooked dinner. I hung some washing so it could start to dry in the morning, and Caitlin went for a ride to see if she could find anyone heading west so that she could give them our leftover onions – we can’t take fruit and veg into South Australia and we’d used all the onions we could manage. We also had carrots and apples left and felt confident we could eat them in the morning.

Caitlin had finished reading the 8^th Harry Potter book in the morning, and I got it out to start reading. While I did the washing LiAM started to read it and made his way through most of the first scene – that’s all 3 kids who have started to read by reading a Harry Potter book.

Caitlin hadn’t come back when our sausage and egg burgers were ready, so LiAM and I went to find her. She was talking to couple from the Central Coast, who were travelling west and had taken our onions gratefully, and as usual we shared tips on places we’d been and things to do. We walked back over and had our dinner and enjoyed sitting around the fire.

The toilet was interesting – a drop toilet, not surprisingly, but with a very narrow hole leading from the bowl down into the pit underneath. Normally with the narrow hole, the toilet has a water pump that lets a small amount of water be run down the bowl after use, or a bucket of water with disinfectant in it and a toilet brush that can be used to clean the bowl. This one had neither – just a stick (an old broom handle) that could be used to poke down anything that hadn’t made it through the narrow hole. It was pretty gross, and seemed to get worse every time we went in there. I’ve recommended to my friends who are following us across the Nullarbor in the next week or so that they don’t bother stopping here just because it has a toilet…

We heated up our hot water bottles on the fire and snuggled into bed, with beanies and socks and neck warmers, to read Inheritance, which is getting extremely exciting.

Half-lap Day 94: Kalbarri

I woke before sunrise and sat outside with the computer, gradually watching it get lighter. I’ve been having trouble with the keyboard again, since the first day at Shark Bay, so typing anything can take a while sometimes – I know how to temporarily fix it now, but it can start playing up again at irregular intervals and it is a little frustrating. Having the beautiful bush and river around me though helped me feel quite calm and peaceful even when the computer wasn’t working easily.

Millie came out and went to pat the goats. I mentioned that we were allowed to go in the goat pen, as long as an adult was with any kids – she was keen to go straight away, I suggested she have breakfast first, and wait for the other kids. She decided she wanted French Toast, cooked up in the camp kitchen – the idea of sitting on a couch, or around a large table, with real (non-folding up) chairs, really appealed to her. Tony took the food he’d need up to the kitchen – it is really well equipped (like staying at a backpacker hostel) so he didn’t need to take any cooking utensils. He made French Toast with bacon, and the other kids wandered up there too as they woke up. I sorted out our washing and had a good chat to the guy in the tent across the road from us – again getting a few tips about places to see, and sharing our love of these remoter, less populated campsites.

Breakfast was delicious, and the kids enjoyed playing in the communal area. They got out a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle from the cupboard and started working on that. We considered just hanging around at the station all day – we haven’t had a rest day for nearly 2 weeks and it is more tiring when we are really active every day. There was one thing at least that I wanted to see in the National Park so we decided to still do that, but not stay long in the Park, so we could come back and have a quiet afternoon. The kids had agreed to meet up with the kids from the station this afternoon as well, so they were keen to be back before 4pm.

I took the kids in to see the goats – there was a small goat kid lying in the sleeping area, and when we looked closer we realised that it had died. The kids were very sad, and we went to look at the rest of the goats a bit more somberly than when we’d first entered. The other goat kids were sleeping, some of the mother goats came over to us for a pat. After a while some of the kids woke up as well and everyone had a great time playing together.

We got ready to go out and headed for the National Park. We stopped at the entry station to get a new tag for our National Parks pass – ours appears to have blown out the door at Cape Range. (We had the receipt with the details on it from when we paid for the pass, so we didn’t have to pay again, just get a new tag.) This is our fourth National Park since buying the pass, so now we’ve saved money by buying it rather than paying day entry each time). Driving in was quiet pretty, there were wildflowers everywhere, purple, red, yellow and white. The road was sealed for about half the way, then dirt – it was a little corrugated in parts, and sandy occasionally, but the car handled it fine. We did unplug our fridge cord in case it was the bouncing around of the corrugations that blew the fuse last time (at Karajini).

Our first stop was Nature’s Window, which was the one thing I really really wanted to see in this area. As we approached the carpark we were amazed at the view – wide, deep gorges with sloping cliffsides leading down to the bottom. The rock layers were horizontal and obvious and the gorge sides looked like large cakes. The scale of the gorges was quite overwhelming. The walk down to the window was quite easy – and very pretty. We were up close to the wildflowers now, with the gorges and river in the background. At this point the Murchison River does a massive loop, as well as doing a hairpin turn on either end of the loop – so walking out to the lookout, we had a U-bend in the river on either side of us, and we were walking on a narrow isthmus (high up on top of the cliff, which dropped down to the river on either side. Except around the area of Nature’s Window the cliff top wasn’t so narrow that it was scary. Beyond the window the high land widened out again and filled the whole circle of land within the loop.

View of the gorge as we approached it

We reached Nature’s Window and clambered around to get a good view – it is a natural hole in the rocks, large enough to stand in, and it frames the view of the river quite nicely. I was excited to see it and to take photos through it – I always love framing my shots with something like a tree branch or a rock, so having a ready-made frame on all 4 sides of the shot was quite cool. The kids loved it there too, looking at the river and the cliff faces and the birds and the flowers. We saw 6 emus down on the grass next to the river, and several bushes that also looked like emus – again, the natural features of an area often imitate the shape of the local animals (or perhaps the other way around). There was a walk that went right around the loop, 9km and at least 5 hours – we’d decided not to do it but once I was there I really wished we had the time and the energy to attempt it, it would have been amazing.

At Nature's Window

The layers in the rocks were quite obvious up close as well as from a distance – like some of the other places we’ve walked (Karajini, Kings Canyon) the vertical layers wear away so the layers themselves make natural steps. The layers here were very thin, only a couple of centimetres high, so the steps were quite shallow. We hung around at the lookout for ages, then wandered back along the path. The kids and Tony raced back, and I took my time, enjoying the wildflowers and the view from different perspectives.

We had lunch at the picnic area back at the carpark, then everyone was happy to go back to camp. Driving into the station we could see the river winding through the land towards the coast (we were only 13km from the ocean here), large sloping cliffs that were whiter as they got closer to the sea. There was also a large green grassy area that looked like a natural ampitheatre in among the high river banks – it was a long way away and we weren’t sure if it was grass or crops or what, but we loved looking at it.

Back at camp Tony took the kids in to see the goats again, while I got a few things organised. One of  the kids kept ‘hugging’ Caitlin, and then tried to eat her hair. The little ones are so cute, its great watching them play. Tony went in to town to get some food for dinner and to organise our accommodation in Perth. The kids and I had a bit of a play with the totem tennis and Caitlin practiced walking on the rolling barrel, as well as showing Millie how to do it – she was pretty good!  Caitlin told one of the station managers about the little dead goat, and the lady took Caitlin and LiAM in with her so they could show here where it was, then she organised for someone to remove it. The station children arrived home and I left the 5 kids all playing together with the totem tennis and the barrel, everyone looked very happy. I had a bit of time at the tent by myself which was nice and relaxing.

Tony decided to take advantage of having an oven in the camp kitchen, and made sausage rolls. LiAM and I went to the kitchen with him,  I played cards and he worked some more on the 1000 piece puzzle. A couple of horses walked past the window – they walked all the way down past our tent and LiAM and I ran around trying to find Caitlin so she could see them. She was playing with the girl from the station, who started to call the horses so they’d come back up – Caitlin did get to see them when they wandered back past. She and Millie played with the girl for a while longer on the ipad and with the tennis pole. Once she went inside they joined us in the kitchen and helped LiAM with the puzzle and Tony with cooking tea.

The sausage rolls were delicious – Tony hasn’t made them for ages and he’s so good at it. While we were eating, the lady from the family who had just set up next to us came into the kitchen. We’d seen them out at Nature’s Window today, they looked like a relaxed and fun family, with 2 little boys. We chatted to her for a while and discovered they lived not far from us (Park Orchards) and she knew some people in Healesville – she listed them and we know some of them as well.  Tony offered to bring down any leftover sausage rolls to them, and she said we were welcome to join them at their campfire. Tony had cooked apple pie for dessert – we ate it with ice cream and it was magnificent. We did a bit more of the jigsaw puzzle, then cleaned up in the kitchen and Millie and I went to have a shower. Caitlin joined us after a while and we also ran into our neighbour again. We walked back down to the campsite with her and she invited us to their campfire again, we offered to bring marshmallows.

We had a very pleasant evening chatting to our new friends. We have a fair bit in common (similar interests and lifestyles and beliefs) so had lots to talk about apart from comparing trip details. As we talked we discovered even more people who we know in common – the guy used to play cricket with some of the guys from Tony’s baseball club. Their littlest boy was asleep, and their 5 year old stayed up chatted and played with our kids. The kids all roasted marshmallows, then LiAM talked to him a lot about Star Wars and they played with his toy light saber. Caitlin played with them and talked to the adults, Millie played with them then snuggled up on Tony’s lap once she got tired. Our friends shared a bottle of scotch with us, it was really lovely sitting and drinking and chatting and laughing around the fire, even when it sprinkled rain occasionally. It was a much warmer evening than the night before and sitting outside felt really comfortable. We could see the goats in their pen and they were often awake and walking around, even the kids – we weren’t sure if that was usual nighttime behaviour for goats or if they were up because we were up. Eventually everyone was very tired and we decided to call it a night – back at our tent we discovered it was 12.30! Definitely our latest night on the trip so far! No reading tonight, Millie was already asleep and everyone else bundled into bed pretty quickly and went straight to sleep.

Half-lap Day 81: Karajini -> House Creek

Tony was up first and rode his bike down to the Fortescue Falls lookout to watch the sunrise. There were no clouds today and he said it was really beautiful. I got up not long after he left and started the pack up – as always our stuff had spread everywhere in 4 days, and we wanted to travel a fair distance today so didn’t want to linger.

Pack up went quite smoothly, the kids didn’t get up early but we were able to do quite a lot while they were still in bed, then once they got up we quickly put away the beds and folded up the tent. Caitlin rode her bike over to our friends to get our ice, and brought it back to put in the fridge. The ice we’d bought was still mainly frozen and all our things still cold, so we hadn’t lost anything by the fridge being out of power for 2 days. She also had a look to see if she could see the family we met at Circular Pool on the first day – she found their site but they weren’t about.

Our friends came past around 9.20 to say they were leaving, and they took our rubbish with them to drop off in the rubbish trailer. We planned to meet in Tom Price (the nearest town) – where there would be phone signal again so we’d be able to get in touch. We were ready to leave by just after 10, very happy with that effort!

It was funny driving out, seeing all the red dirt on the outbound side of the road, while the inbound side was clean. The dirt here is even thicker than the red dirt we experienced up through the middle, and it really does get into everything. Millie and LiAM look like they are heavily tanned, while it’s actually a layer of dirt. The white bottom of my runners are now completely red, and all our clothes have a much more red tinge than they used to.

The drive to Tom Price was pleasant, nice to see Mt Bruce again and beyond that to see more of the Hammersley Ranges. We found a trailer parking space near the Visit

ors Centre, and walked over to Coles to get supplies – running into our friends on the way. The kids all stayed outside to play in the playground and look at the statues of Australian animals, Tony went to Betta Electrical to get a new fuse for the fridge, and we mums went into Coles to get supplies. We all met back outside – Tony had bought a fuse and also a new cord for the fridge, and it was plugged in and working again. I took the cold stuff back to the car and brought lunch supplies back to the picnic tables. Our friends had contacted a family that they’d met in Broome, who live in Tom Price, and they came down and joined us for lunch too. The kids all played in the playground, we chatted and ate, and planned the rest of the day. We agreed to try to get to a free camp a few more hours down the road, and stay the night there next to our friends. She was going to drive the dirt road, while we’d go around the long way on the bitumen, so she’d try to save us a spot next to her if she could.

They left and we went down to the Visitors Centre while Tony went and filled up our water containers. We bought a few gifts for people at home and the kids got a couple of souvenirs. On the way out of town we stopped for petrol, and saw the family Caitlin had been looking for that morning, also on their way to somewhere else today. LiAM and Millie and I walked across the road to see the massive mining tip-truck that was on display at the entrance to town. It was seriously huge – the wheels were twice my height, and the whole thing weighed 98000kg. The town is surrounded on three sides by rocky hills, and they framed this large machine beautifully.

We headed off, through Parabardoo (where there was another mining vehicle on display, a green one this time) and then west. I had a little nap in the car (my first car nap) and we listened to more Harry Potter – finishing the 5^th book. There were a lot of cows on the road today, we had to slow several times to drive carefully past them, and a couple of times they seemed determined to walk in front of us. We saw a snake on the road at one point and stopped to look closer - it was a (very long) black headed python, which had been run over, quite sad to see.

The landscape was similar to the area around Karajini, lots of rocky hills, with plains in between. Some of the hills were quite spectacular, with interesting crevices and valleys. The plant life was mainly quite low to the ground, lots of spinifex and the occasional tree.

We arrived at House Creek rest area a bit after 5 – we’d been worried we wouldn’t make it before sunset then realised that sunset would be a little bit later today as we’d driven so far west. Our friends were there, all set up, and had a space next to them where we could go. There was time to set up before dark – Tony and I did the quickest and most efficient set up we’ve ever done, I think. The 3 big kids went exploring to find wood for the fire, while the girls played with their toys on the picnic rug. We had the fire going between our tent and their van, we cooked our dinner separately then all sat around the fire and ate it. Once again it was great company and the kids enjoyed playing together. After dinner we all had marshmallows and s’mores.

It was a bit colder tonight but quite pleasant in the tent. The girls had moved inside to play and were very reluctant to go to bed, eventually we were all ready to call it a night and they agreed to stop playing for now. It was a dark, cloudy night and felt so peaceful except for the occasional truck slowing and pulling in to the cattle station opposite us. We headed to bed around 9 and read a very exciting chapter of Inheritance.

Half-lap Day 74: De Grey

It was quite windy overnight (although mainly in the tree tops, so it was noisy but the tent didn’t get battered too much) and still quite cold in the morning. The site was so beautiful and peaceful as the sun rose. We had a very leisurely breakfast and Caitlin had a bit of a sleep in, she had had a very restless night. With Port Hedland only 80km away we didn’t need to rush to pack up, so we took our time and enjoyed our location. After a while (and before we’d started the pack up) Tony suggested we stay another day here and rest, then we decided to stay 2 more nights, and just do a day trip to Port Hedland tomorrow. Everyone was keen on this plan, so we settled in for some more relaxing.

The girls wanted me to trim to their hair, so I did that then braided Caitlin’s in a fairly elaborate style that she’d wanted me to try. We pottered around the campsite, playing games and looking at the bugs and birds and things around us. The kids chatted to anyone they saw who had dogs. The cow came and visited us at one point, she was friendly and liked being patted. The kids named her Milky White. I went up to the picnic tables to use the wifi, I got a bit of signal and found out a couple of things I’d wanted to know about Port Hedland, and tried to make a phone call but didn’t have enough signal.

Around lunchtime Tony went for a bike ride to see if he could find any wood, Caitlin went with him and when she came back to get sunscreen and a top that covered her shoulders (the day was quite warm by now), she said that she’d seen the bull sharks from the bridge. LiAM walked back over with Caitlin so that he could see the sharks too, and then helped Tony with the wood. Tony came back to get the car to carry the wood in, and offered to drive Millie and I up to see the sharks as well. LiAM was walking back on his own, and when we saw him he was very upset. He’d been patting the cow and she rammed his head with hers. His nose was red and swollen and grazed and he was in a lot of pain. I stayed with him to get some cold onto it and gave him some panadol, he was quite shaken and upset. His nose was bruised and swollen but didn’t seem to be broken, which had been our initial worry. He and I played cards and that helped to calm him down.

When the others got back the girls played cards with us as well, and then LiAM helped Tony dig a fire pit. After a while I said I’d walk up to see the sharks, and LiAM and Caitlin came with me. Caitlin went straight to the bridge, LiAM and I walked underneath it first, and saw some big dogs camped nearby. We climbed up the hill to the bridge, then LiAM headed straight out to where Caitlin was and I was a bit slower. A truck came past so the kids yelled to me to hold on to my hat – it was safe but a bit scary as it rocketed over the bridge. LiAM came running towards me, very upset again – the slipstream had blown one of his thongs over the edge and it was floating down in the river with the sharks.

We could see it on the water so went back down to the shore to see if we could catch it as it got to a bit of a headland not far downstream. When we got down there we couldn’t see it at first– then realised it had got stuck on some of the water grass that was growing in the river. It was too far out to reach, and we could see a bull shark circling between us and the thong so we definitely couldn’t swim out to get it. LiAM loves these shoes, he finds it hard to find comfortable shoes so the thought of losing this one, on top of his sore nose and the shock of being knocked over by the cow, was too much for him (I know how he feels, I was so upset when I lost my favourite shoe earlier in the trip). Tony and Millie arrived soon after, and we discussed whether we could get a really long stick to reach that far. I liked the idea of asking a fisherman to help, and Caitlin happily wandered off to find one. She stopped to pat the big dogs we’d seen, and then noticed fishing rods – the guy was happy to come and help us out. He sat on the bank and cast off again and again, his hook skimming over the thong every time. He was incredibly accurate. After a while he realised that something on his line was making it hard to hook the thong, he took that off and very quickly caught it and brought it a bit closer. His next attempt got the thong all the way to the logs in front of us, then he was able to just dangled his hook down until he caught it through the strap, and pulled it up for LiAM who was so incredibly relieved. We stayed and chatted with the couple for a while, and played with their dog, a very pretty Staffordshire terrier. The fisherman tried to catch the bull shark next, he was keen to have it for a very tasty dinner. He didn’t have any luck while we were there, we left him trying to catch a catfish to use as bait.

Under the DeGrey Bridge

Bull Shark

We had a bit of a rest back at camp, then LiAM and I went for a walk to explore further up the river – there was another bridge there and I wanted to see what it was. The river bed was very wide and mainly sandy, and where we came on to it, the water had dried up completely. It’s weird because the water where the sharks are is flowing, but the river has big patches with no water at all – we wondered if some of it was underground or flowing through the sand beneath the surface. We trudged across the sand, and could see a large sand bank in the middle where the water level must have been at some point. Up the other side to the bridge, where we discovered it was a railway bridge which appears to be in use, the track was completely free of weeds and looked in good condition. There were walkways on either side of the bridge so we went out a little way on each side to get a good view of the river.

Railway bridge

We wandered back, LiAM wanted to go back to the water to see if the swans and cygnets he and Caitlin had seen earlier were back there. We found lots of really interesting rocks, and had a good view of the road bridge. Down on the bank earlier we had had great views of the road trains crossing the bridge – from this angle they were in silhouette and still very cool. We didn’t see any swans, just more of the jacana we’d seen earlier. I stepped in mud on our way back around the end of the water, and nearly lost my own shoe! We walked back through the trees on the bank along the edge of the river – obviously the water comes up this high sometimes, as the trees are all on a lean and there are banks of earth downstream of each tree.

Back at camp Tony was about to light the fire. The kids went up the hill and talked to an English brother and sister who had a dog, I read my book. Tony cooked damper and some potatoes on the fire. The kids played in the tent and we had a relaxing evening. LiAM was feeling a bit better although his nose was sore. He felt like it had been a good day overall though.

I was about to go to bed when we realised the fridge was turned off – we couldn’t get it back on at all. Tony thinks it is the cord so hopefully we will be able to replace that in Port Hedland tomorrow. In bed we read a couple of chapters of Inheritance. Tonight wasn’t as cold as last night, but we still had the windows closed and people were pleased to have their blankets.