Broome - A chance to take stock, repair and refit, oh and take the pocket rocket into the GDEC fold

For a journey such as ours, finally reaching a point of civilisation after 6 weeks in the bush is more an exercise in logistics than a sight seeing event. It gives us a chance to resupply, service vehicles, repair, refit and reequip. Our arrival in Broome was exactly this. A chance to take stock, do a lot of washing and welcome the newest team member on board, my better half Queen Vikk. Vikk was doing the final month with us, her mum moving to town to look after the crown prince while we were away. It was Vik's first holiday away from the prince and the longest break she'd had in her working life so the next few weeks were bound to be exciting dealing with separation anxiety and de-programming from the high pressure work environment.



15th July, 2010
Broome WA

I was up early into a beautiful morning and commenced the day with a climb to the top of the low hill behind us. On the eastern side I located what appeared at first to be the remnants of a track running a short distance down the lower slope of the hill. The more I looked at it the more it resolved itself into more of a giant furrow than a track. It appeared far to symmetrical to be natural, was less than a hundred meters long and went nowhere, leaving me perplexed. It was a bit of a mystery. A quick breakfast and we were on our way west once again. The overgrown conditions continued for most of the morning before the track began to improve. The first hoof prints on the track indicating that bovines were replacing the camel as the dominant animal in the area. As their numbers increased, so the track condition improved. The eastern boundaries of the cattle country are in disrepair, the supply of water being the principal vassal used to control stock movements rather than fences. Another 40 minutes and we were onto the well maintained station tracks and we bade farewell to the parallel dunes of the Great Sandy and moved onto the dusty flats and plains of the coastal fringe and the Callawa intersection.


Very much a day without incident reaching the northern highway and the thin ribbon of bitumen that would carry us north to Broome. We’d secured a number of sites at the Tarangau caravan park out at Cable Beach. It was certainly a bit of a shock after so long in the bush. People, vehicles, noise and light. We must have made quite an impression on our arrival, gathering quite a crowd to look at the vehicles and enquire as to just where we’d been to end up looking in such a ragged (I prefer rugged) condition.

We were all looking and feeling a bit rugged so project clean-up began. A dinner down at the local hotel and a few loads of washing when we got back to camp. I’ve got some vehicle cleaning to do in preparation for the arrival of the princess tomorrow.



16th July, 2010
Broome WA.

Not much asleep due to the constant “buzz” associated with a town. After sleeping in near perfect silence for many weeks, it doesn’t take much noise at all to make a big difference to the sleeping patterns.


It was very much a clean-up day today. Loads of washing, airing mattresses, cleaning out the back of the ute and taking stock of the current state of supplies. I had an annoying slow leak in a trailer tyre. One of the welded rims was again leaking slowly. I caught up with John and Suz who had located a welder to assist with the rear shocker mount they had lost on the trailer. I managed to get three replacement ROH steel rims at the local tyre power place and had my tyres fitted that morning. Then it was around to drop my Speedy’s up to the welder who would attend to the cracks. Got talking to him about the quads and he was most interested having wanted something for his local fishing expeditions. I’ll have to send Scottie back up to see him. I also got him to weld up the broken carrier mount on the quad. A fortuitous find indeed.


After having a wander about town, I had timed a much needed haircut to coincide perfectly with Vik’s midday arrival at Broome. Unfortunately I got to the airport with 10 minutes to spare to find the plane already on the ground. It was a general fluff around in the afternoon. I pulled off the leaking Cepek on the trailer and got that patched. Sunset down on cable beach enjoying the view and a few cold brewskies before heading up to a Japanese restaurant for a feed.

17th July, 2010
Broome WA



The ute was dropped of at the Toyota place first thing in the morning for its 10K service. Wandered into town with Vik and enjoyed some breakfast and a bout of shopping (as one must). Finding Scotty at the hardware store, I got a lift back to Toyota. The girls went to the market while a fair bit of maintenance of varying types was undertaken about the vehicles. Then it was down toCable Beach for sunset drinks with everyone.