ACCOMMODATION IN BROOME

Liz’s Blog June 23rd

Well, it’s been a couple of days and we now have a plan. We are still in Fitzroy Crossing and spent most of yesterday on the phone to Insurance, BMW Australia and freight companies. The only radiators that fit the bike are in Sydney and will take at least a week to get here. The Insurance want to assess the bike before they will pay for repairs so we have decided to freight it to Perth. We will ride the other bike 2 up to meet it there. Unfortunately we have to wait until Thursday to put it on the truck, but other than that it’s all g, as Rhys would say. Trevor is out there now changing the GPS to my bike and we changed over the bigger panniers, and top box to my bike as well. We won’t be able to take all our gear so I get to decide what we might do without. Trevor thinks we need it all !!!
Tomorrow we have to tow the broken bike down to the truckie stop and tie it on to a pallet for pick-up and then it’s off to sunny Broome, it’s only about 400km away.
I’m not looking forward to towing the bike tomorrow but once that’s done it’ll be all go.

Quick look at Geikie gorge this afternoon. It’s about 20km from Fitzroy Crossing. A naturally formed gorge with the usual red rocks, crocs, birds, bugs, snakes, frogs and tourists. It has lots of walks and runs a tourist cruise down the river for $28per person.
We decided on just a walk around, which in the heat of the day didn’t last long. We made it down to the river’s edge where we disturbed a flock of cockatoos , got chased by a huge wasp like thing and made a quick retreat back to the bike. The gorge was pretty but I’m afraid it was lost on us due to the heat and bugs. Now it’s back to the local roadhouse for an ice cream, something for tea, and bed.

Liz’s Blog 24th

Woke up this morning to the news that Australia was about to oust their PM – Kevin Rudd and replace him with his deputy Julia Gillard. The TV was full of it, and frankly we were really surprised as we had been watching him on parliament TV yesterday and he was an amazing speaker, no matter what your politics are. There had been lots of talk on the news about his unpopularity because of the mine super tax and failing to get an ETS through but nobody thought it would come to this, especially when there is an election due in the next few months. What was really fascinating was the reaction of the Australian people, they felt it wasn’t the “aussy way” to oust a PM and they didn’t know if they were ready to have a woman PM. His concession speech was very emotional, he was gutted.
However, enough of that, I need to turn the telly off and get going. Our first mission was to tow the bike down to the freight company. I was towing and Trevor on his bike. It started off well, we got most of the way but on the last turn it just got too much, you know the old whiplash thing so I chickened out and Trevor had to push it the last ? block. We then had to tie the bike on to a pallet. Not the easiest when the bike was bigger than the pallet. We decided to lie it down as it was the least likely to get damaged when lifted by the forklift on to the truck. After an hour of mucking around, tying and re tying we finished. Quick photo for prosperity. Now it’s quick, back to the lodge, pack up my bike and check out by 10am.
Finally on our way to Broome !!!
I must say it was a bit of a challenge to climb on – there were 2 large panniers, each with a camel back strapped on top, the top box on the back, and both Trevor and I in riding gear. We had to get our leg up high enough and slide it over the seat while hopping on the other foot until you are far enough over to push the last little bit and reach the foot peg on the other side. Then slide up so you can get your bum in the right place. Getting off is the reverse. Once there it’s a bit like an armchair, with the top box as a back rest and the camel backs on each side as arm rests, not much room to move but very stable.
Anyway about 400km later, lots of termite mounds, scrub surrounded roads and baobab trees we reached Broome, confirmed shipping with the shipping company, the bike should be in Perth Tues/Wednesday and found another very expensive cabin to stay in.
Tomorrow it’s Port Hedland.


Liz’s Blog – Friday 25th

Today is a long one – 613km, and the forecast is for 32 degrees.
We decided on an early start, a quick lap around Broome to see any sights that we might have missed, then the Roebucks roadhouse for fuel and go directly to Port Hedland. Unfortunately on our tour around Broome we spotted a MacDonalds, and worse, it’s open at 7am in the morning. Trevor’s big weakness – the MacDonald hotcake is calling to him, so much for our early start. We finally finished breakfast and managed to get to Roebucks an hour later, filled up , next stop the Sandfire roadhouse in 290km for more fuel. We went all out to get to the Sandfire as it was so far away, we wanted to get it under our belt/ We managed one rest stop, at which I managed to fall off trying to

One from the Archives,

The Lombadina Community was established as a partnering community for the monks Beagle Bay mission.

They constructed a church here also, using different materials from the area. The walls are constructed using wood from the nearby mangroves and the roof, now covered in corrugated iron, was initially paperbark.

In modern times, Lombadina and the neighbouring settlements have embraced commercial opportunities such as tourism and the manufacture and sale of hand-made items like jewellery, dugout canoes and other artefact's.
We stayed at this community for a couple of nights in clean 50's style motel unit/donga, It is a tidy and clean community with clean well serviced accommodation.
We did find however that they lacked in hospitality, nearly the opposite, the most we could get out of the locals was a forced return hello.
This was in contrast to the community next door (a couple of K) at Chile Creek, who were most hospitable, informative and only to happy to point out the local scenery, like the petrified Forrest (no it was not that frightened ::--)), We watched Porpoise train their young in the Lagoon and Chile Creek it was truly a photographers dream come true. One of the Managers John is on the board of the Broome Footy club.