Pic above: My Clapsticks, with a piece of scratchy Wattle on the right.

13th July - 17th July 2009

Camped at Millinbinyarra for a few days. Lazy days - sitting around campfires chatting, relaxing & beach walking.

18th July - 29th July 2009

We left Millinbinyarra & headed back up into the Dampier Peninsular, this time via the Manari road to Quondong Point & beyond. Quondong Point is a popular free camp spot for travellers, a lovely spot, but relatively crowded compared to our camp spot on private property where friends we made on the trail live. In fact we are camped in one of our Lurujarri Trail camps, with views out over the ocean & we have spent a good deal of time watching the large number of humpback whales that cruise past on their way to their calving grounds north of here.  Some days we see just an occasional single whale, but on some days they have really 'gone off', with sightings of more than a dozen at a time, with lots of tail & fin slapping, as well as total breaches. These are huge animals & seeing one jumping right out of the water is spectacular. Seeing two breach together, peeling off from each other in mid air is more so! Most of these can be easily seen by eye, but binoculars certainly enhance the view. The friends who live here are part of the community who are active in the fight to prevent the destruction of this coastline from the proposed building of a huge gas processing plant. A collection of passionate & strong people doing what they can. We have been able to offer our support whilst here.

A gas plant would destroy this pristine coastline, cut indigenous people off from their culture, block the whale's 'highway' to their nursery, (16,000 to 20,000 whales per annum pass here travelling northward & again travelling southward with their new offspring.  Broome would become another ugly industrial dormitory town.

We have been very lucky to experience this region as we have, most travellers arrive in Broome to find very expensive & crowded accommodation in caravan parks. 'Grey nomad' websites regularly bemoan lack of suitable accommodation. However Broome does not rely on tourism for it's survival, & the tourist season lasts just a few months each year, so it is really not viable to increase the amount of caravan park accommodation.  Our experience has been to 'sidestep' this issue & to see the area through local eyes which has allowed us a very different view. The longer we stay, the harder we think it will be to leave.

This is such 'strong' country & fascinating to just sit & watch. For example I sat out whale watching this morning. Apart from the spectacle of the whales leaping & splashing, there were the hundreds of hermit crabs scurrying around me, dolphins between me & the whales, Frigate birds swooping over the waves, following the watery contours, occasionally grabbing a fish, an osprey using the gentle sea breeze hovered just a few metres above me with a clear blue sky background & was then joined by two more, a mob of large black cockatoos landed in a nearby ghost gum behind me, flashing their bright red 'petticoats', a fat silvery blue tongue lizard rustled through the leaf litter at the side of the soft red pindan sand on which I was sitting, nearby the track of a snake curled across the path. Could have been a small King Brown, but more likely a snake known locally as a 'one eye snake' - it has one milky eye & one clear. Great bower birds, a variety of honey eaters, finches, hawks & other birds we cannot identify visit us throughout the day. This is such a dynamic environment.  30deg.C  during the day, cool enough for a jacket in the evening when away from the fire. Hot & dry every day with very heavy morning dews. King tides see the ocean coming in hard & going out a *long* way. The coastline looks different all the time. The ground on which we walk around our camp is 'cleaned' every night by the crabs, removing any food scraps & all footprints. This is healthy unspoiled country, nature doing just what it's always done. We have seen more spectacular, prettier etc etc. But this spectacular & pretty place really is a case of 'the sum of the parts being greater than the whole'.  At night the sound of whales slapping their tails on the water carries across to our camp.

We are camped under a rare 'Murrel' tree,  one of only 8 known to exist. Murrel trees are common, producing a fruit known as a blackberry. However 'our' tree is a rare natural cross between the Murrel & the Gubinge tree. The fruit is a little bitter & very high in Vitamin C, best eaten when the fruit has turned dark red, & the flesh takes on a yellowish tinge. It's spreading branches provide us with ample shade, making our awning unnecessary. There are other trees with shiny golden coloured bark close by, can't recall their name. We were advised not to sleep under them, to do so would result in bad dreams/nightmares. These are the trees that spirits use to travel around country. Short walks into the bush behind the dunes take us into fairy lands of trees & shadows, bushes fruits & seeds. Whilst passing a stand of paperbarks & large owl, in broad daylight swooped over our heads, landing on a nearby high branch, where he sat & watched us watching him for a while. Fishing off the reef saw us eating 'Bluebone', Mangrove Jack & Cod. Natural baits abound, but I lose a lot of gear in the sharp rocks. Richard Hunter, lawman for the Goorabooloo has his camp a short walk away, he visits us regularly, sharing his friendship & knowledge of the bush & telling stories from Bugarregarre (dreamtime) around our camp fire. The fish are cooked whole on the coals, no gutting or descaling needed. Damper 'chapatis' are also cooked directly on the coals, as are the large mudcrabs. We have also been putting our camp oven (dutch oven) to good use, roast lamb, roast vegies as well as baking bread. Like our wood fired stove at home, the taste of anything cooked in these ovens on the campfire is far superior to that cooked in a gas oven.

Whilst walking the Lurujarri trail I had made a pair of clapsticks, they looked ok, but did not have 'the sound', because I had made them too small. Richard took me, from here, out into the bush to search for more Scratchy Wattle, the wood of choice for clapsticks. Without him I would almost certainly have been lost very quickly in the thick scrub. Having found a suitable tree we obtained what we needed with a hand axe, returning to our camp via the beach. Whilst the tide was out we took the opportunity of collecting a heap of oysters off the rocks, which we later ate after throwing the full shells into the ashes of our fire until the juices started to escape from them. I spent most of a day sitting on the ground in the shade of 'our' Murrel tree fashioning my clapsticks with the axe & a knife, it was a painstaking process, a form of meditation, the direction being set by characteristics of my piece of wood. Once complete I oiled them after listening to their sound which thankfully has a nice 'ring'.

Difficult though it will be, we have decided we need to 'press on' & will likely leave here in a couple of days time, on the 29th. We'll head back into Broome for an overnighter to restock, & a luxurious hot shower at Collyn & Maarit's before continuing on to Derby.

For more photos please click HERE