After the fleshpots of Sydney, we are happy to be back in the outback again.
The northwest of Australia is known for its picturesque bottle trees. Essentially baobabs, like in Africa.
The endless vistas and empty roads suit us down to the ground.
After returning from Sydney, we spend a last evening with Lauretta at Darwin’s Deck Chair Cinema. While lounging on beanbags at the front, one of the DCC’s famous possums casually strolls over Lauretta’s pillow and finishes off her dish of Middle Eastern salad – mere centimetres away – with the aplomb and casualness of a house cat.
We stop at Victoria River, NT overnight before arriving in the state of Western Australia the next day. One of the first roadhouses we come to has a chute for disposing of live cane toads, a real pest here.
We flee Hall’s Creek early in the morning of my birthday after – barely – escaping the predations of larcenous locals around the caravan park. We stop for breakfast at a roadside halt that is covered with corella parrots.
We never tire of seeing parrots everywhere here; we’re such tourists. There’s something uplifting about parrots.
We arrive in Broome, WA, a relaxed sort of town.
After learning about local history at the Broome Museum – the pearl industry, dinosaur footprints, and aircraft relics from WWII Japanese air raids – we head to Cable Beach.
The next day, we spend an unexpected night at the Roebuck Plains roadhouse caravan park when the road south to Port Hedland is closed because of a bushfire.
Eventually, we carry on to Eighty Mile Beach.
Like the beaches of Broome, the waters of Eighty Mile Beach are a lovely turquoise.
I recall stopping at this pub my previous time in Australia. I got a multi-day lift with someone named Risto (a Finnish name). He worked at the Goldsworthy iron ore mine. He drove a green VW 1600 fastback. It never ceases to amaze how the brain retains such trivia when sometimes I can’t remember which day of the week it is.
Sight or Insight of the Day – Back in the Outback
We see a shark. Close up.
