I am writing from Quondong Point on the Dampier Peninsula North of Broome. Our last Hinchy.org update seems like an eternity ago, we have covered so much ground and done so much.
One leaving Shark Bay, we were headed to Exmouth to await the arrival of the repaired main sail and to sail the idyllic coral waters of Exmouth Gulf. The sail did arrive but the expected trip didn’t eventuate. After days of frustration, caused mainly by the failure of Toll Transport to deliver the sail at the address in Perth, we finally got it back. Rigging the main halyard down through the inside of the mast proved to be a cow of a job. It took 6 hours, most of which consisted of inventing different ways of getting a fine leader down through the mast to draw the big one through. Once up and running, we sat for another couple of days, looking forward to the promised abatement of the ever-present fresh Easterly winds. Every day or so, the bureau of meteorology would add another couple of days to the current run of winds. Finally, getting worried about the amount of time we had left before we needed to be in Derby for work, we left Exmouth, bound for Dampier.
Dampier was experiencing a different weather pattern. One that included rain. The fresh water was welcome as it gave the car and boat a much needed rinse. After a day of provisioning and preparation, we launched at the public ramp in Hampton Harbour and left the car and trailer at the Dampier Transit Caravan Park for safe keeping.
We spent 6 nights in the Dampier Archipelago, visiting a myriad of islands and secluded coves. The Archipelago is extensive and we really only explored the Western half, sailing out as far as Rosemary Island to the North. We experienced dead calms, fresh breezes and all points in between. Only one day was overall too windy to sail much and even that was spent in a wonderful bay that saw us catch plenty of fish and squid. The beauty of the area is somewhat spoilt by the profusion of ships in the area. A great many of the vessels are strange looking beasts, straight out of some futuristic movie. They no doubt service some aspect of the off-shore oil and gas fields but we could only speculate on the exact purpose they serve.
There are many wonderful bays out amongst the islands. Some of these harbour “beach shacks”, elaborate affairs with lots of rubber matting pathways, incredibly creative out-houses and decorated with lots of seashells, floats and bits of old rope. We got to see some of these get-ways in action because we were sailing over the June long weekend and the Karratha locals came out in force to frolic on the clear sands, consume the amounts of alcohol that the Pilbara demands of people and show off the sort of boats only mine workers can afford. It was heartening to see so many people having so much fun that was inclusive of the whole family unit.
By the time we pulled Sandpiper out of the water, we had honed up our sailing skills, gained a lot of confidence in dealing with all sorts of weather and tides and lost a healthy amount of weight through good diet and lots of exercise. We felt that maybe we had “done Dampier” but in hindsight, I feel that there may well be another Dampier trip in us yet.
From Dampier, we headed to Derby, stopping only at 80 Mile Beach for 2 nights to fish for threadfin salmon. The fish were uncooperative but the beauty and peace of the place worked its usual magic and we had a thoroughly relaxing time.
Once at Derby, we caught up with our friends the Thorsbys, whose hospitality we were going to heavily rely on over the next three weeks. We had a weekend before commencing work at Derby District High School so Chris Thorsby and I went out to the May River on Meeda Station to try our hand for a barra or salmon. Shortly after turning off the Gibb River Road, we came across a mud crab walking down the middle of the track, still some 5 kms off the river. We could only suppose he escaped from a bucket on the back of a ute. We put it in our bucket for later consumption; not his lucky day. On reaching the river, we tackled the mud flats with cast nets until we had enough mullet for bait. No sooner had we started fishing, than a croc showed up and exhibited none of the shy behaviour that many do. This fellow was a baby, only around a metre and a half long. It didn’t represent a huge danger to us but it was still a wake up call that we had not sighted it while we were bait collecting on the edge of the water.
As the afternoon progressed, the little croc became more and more brazen and got closer and closer to us. At one stage, Dean Thorsby dragged a mullet bait across 20 metres of mud flats. The croc launched itself from the water and covered the ground across the flats at around twice the speed that a human could. I was amazed at just how fast it could move. The croc took a huge dislike to the feel of a 6/0 hook in its mouth and thrashed, rolled and shook its head until the hook dislodged. I imagined it would go away and sulk but it immediately resumed its stalking behaviour. The fishing did not look up much although I did take home food in the form of a small barra. The next day we learnt that a family camping further upstream from us had lost a family dog to a 3 metre croc on the same day. It came out of the river and took the Labrador only metres from where the children were playing.
We spent 3 weeks working at Derby District High School. I was a fill-in administrator because they were going through a period with numerous absences from the administration team. I took on responsibility for overseeing the Primary School Reporting process, despite the fact that it was only last December that I swore to myself that I would never again have to do reporting. Christine worked as a paid teacher about half the time. The other half, we worked together on our “2 for the price of one” deal. Christine found herself out at Birdwood Downs station on a couple of Thursdays with a group of senior high school boys who are doing a TAFE course on horse management and general cattle station duties. It seemed to be hard work but she enjoyed the experience. I got to drive a bus load of Year 2,3 and 4 students to Broome to tour Malcolm Douglas’s Croc Farm. The speed and power of the huge beasts he looks after is awesome and very scary. They seem to delight in chewing up the large black plastic floats the workers throw at them.
A highlight of the time in Derby was the Theatre Restaurant. As a fund raiser for the Derby District High schools Miss Boab Quest entrant, the staff planned and ran a huge theatre restaurant with the theme “The Sound of Musicals”. Together, the staff produced 3 hours of music, dance and comedy to entertain and feed a crowd of around 350. Fortunately, we arrived on the scene too late to get a performing part but we both spent the night as “wait persons”. The performances were an excellent standard, especially a group of blokes doing a scene from “Cats”. I never did hear the final figure on fund raising but it would have been well over $20,000.
The final week of school is being spent up on the Dampier Peninsular, North of Broome. We will return to Derby from here to rejoin the Thorsby family for a 4WD trek into some seriously remote country around Walcott Inlet. I already find myself slipping out of work mode and back into travel mode.
Tag: Broome
Bidyadanga (La Grange) proved to be an absolute delight. The school Principal, Mark Williams, was an excellent host and soon had us settled into the “donga”, perfectly acceptable accomodation right on the school grounds. 
Mark gave us a whistle stop tour of the local beaches after school on Monday and had notified the community of our presence so all was clear to explore the environs. Unfortunatley, the tides were not at all favourable for after-school fishing and the one attempt we made was greeted by a hungry horde of sandflies.
Despite the fishing set-back, the school and community is wonderful to work in. Given that it was the last week of term and that 20 secondary students were away at Kimberley Cup, the school had an excellent tone and we thoroughly enjoyed working across the school, giving staff some much needed preparation and planning time. We left on Friday morning, feeling very much valued and appreciated. We both look forward to visiting again sometime.
We headed off to Fitzroy Crossing, stopping in Broome along the way to stock up on a few essentials. Once at at Fitzroy, we found Trevor and Emma in the early stages of packing. We spent some time sorting out a battery charging system on their camper before they set off on their trip to Darwin.
The Thorsby family also arrived in Fitzroy to take in the annual rodeo. None of us had ever been to a rodeo before and it proved to be really entertaining. The sight of huge bulls throwing cowboys around is a lot better than I thought it would be. The most entertaining part is actually the superb horsemanship displayed by the organisers who are left with the job of getting the bulls back into the enclosures. The Thorsbys camped overnight out at the rodeo and headed back to Derby on Monday morning.
Christine and I suffered a little as the colds we had nurtured in La Grange really cranked up to full force so we didn’t do much except laze in front of the TV. Ron and Dorothy rang to say they were on the road and headed our way. We calculated about a four day wait before they arrived.
With Ron and Dorothy at Fitzroy, we launched into a busy schedule of sight seeing and fishing. We made a trip up to Tunnel Creek and Winjana Gorge. It has been a while seen any of us had visited these beautiful spots and not much has changed except the crowds of tourists. The road from the Highway to the Gibb River Rd was badly in need of a grade and heavily corrugated on the Southern end. After a walk through the gorge and a lot of crocodile spotting, we cooked up a terrific BBQ of chops and snags.
We went off one evening to a very pretty spot on the Fitzroy to catch some cherrabin for barra bait. They proved scarce and we only managed a half a dozen or so. The next day, we set off into Gieke Gorge in Trevor’s boat, determined to catch a barra, or at least a few sooty grunter. The fishing was very slow and we tried many good looking snags along the river without success. Finally, Dorothy got a good barra on, only to have it seek cover amongst fallen timber and become firmly snagged up. This disappointment was followed by another hookup. 
This time she got the fish alongside and I was staggered by the size of it. I seriously doubted our ability to get it into the boat. It solved the problem by itself by tearing off down river, jumping a bit then breaking off. At least we got a good look at it. Definitely a metre plus fish.
With Ron and Dorothy preparing for the long drive home, we all headed off to Derby for a couple of days and a mud crabbing trip. Since we were still dog-sitting Tamala for Trevor and Emma, she had to come too. Tamala is not a good traveller and spends a lot of time sitting in the car shaking. However, she proved to be very well behaved in the caravan park and seemed to settle in to our nomadic lifestyle.
Crabbing was just as good as a few weeks before. We managed 12 good sized “muddies”. This was followed up by a huge meal at Thorsby’s where we did major damage to the stockpile of mud crabs. When I think about the hours we have put in further South to catch a few crabs, Derby makes everything else look like a waste of effort. The Derby tides are difficult to manage, however, and all boating and fishing is governed by access to the water and avoiding getting stranded on the extensive mud flats.
A highlight of the visit to Derby was Christine’s birthday present to Chris Thorsby, who shares the same birthday. 
She had knitted him a most attractive woollen G String, equipped with white lacey straps. With a Geelong Football Club emblem on the front, it looked just like one that Gary Ablett might wear. Chris refued to model it for the camera so we had to get Gary to fly over and put on a show for us.
We farewelled Ron and Dorothy, bade a fond goodbye to the Thorsby family once again and headed South once more on the now very familiar road to Fitzroy Crossing. Trevor and Emma had arrived home during our absence and Tamala was overjoyed to return to her safe environment.
The rain followed us across the Pilbara, not heavy and inconvenient in itself but creating other problems for us. We had planned on staying on at Cleaverville but with the rain came the sandflies in large numbers. We were driven out and decided to head Eastwards away from the rain.
Alas, it was not to be. We tried Pardoo station stay, beyond Port Hedland. It looked like a likely place to stay with the map showing a terrific coastline of mixed beach, rock and creeks. Unfortunately, the rain had been there before us and closed all the station tracks between the homestead and the coast so visitors were confined to the camping area. With more rain looking likely, we pushed on for 80 Mile Beach.
The 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park is a true delight. It is clean, well organised with very friendly staff. The fish are usually friendly too with threadfin slamon being the main target. Unfortunately, the smaller more common blue salmon were missing this time and 100 or so anglers competed for the 4 or 5 giant threadfin that were caught each high tide. These fish are trophy fish, running between 5 and 15 kilos each. We lucked out this time and I was so jealous when the guy right along side hooked up.
Coming out of 80 Mile Beach, a large black headed python tried to make a meal of Benjy but found the taste of bear too much for his refined reptilian ways.
From 80 Mile, we dropped in to Bidydanga (La Grange) to discuss some work further down the track before pushing on for a couple of days in Broome. Along the way we discovered that our MP3 player had been “borrowed” from the car (along with 3 fishing rods) while parked at Cleaverville. Armed with this excuse, we hit the shops in Broome to buy an iPod. Mary Dawson was visiting with her mother so we managed to catch up for a meal out, rounding off Broome as the usually expensive stop on the trip. We were horrified when we took a near empty vehicle down to the fuel station and filled LPG and Petrol tanks with $218 worth of fuel. And it’s only going to get worse.
We head for Derby.
During my trip to Perth last week, I had to drive through yet another bush fire. The trusty phone camera captured part of the fire that engulfed both sides of the road as I drove through it. About 500 metres up, shire workers were madly moving their loaders and equipment to a safer place.
Saturday 30 June to Friday 6 July
We have had a wonderful week, covering more than 2000km on a Kalumburu-Broome and return trip and enjoying the company of 3 other teachers and 13 students from Years 8 to 11.
We left early on Saturday morning, expecting a long slow trip South to the Gibb River Road then West to Mt Barnett for an overnight stop. In fact, parts of the road were the best we had ever encountered. The recent rains had smoothed out the corrugations and some grading work had removed the worst of the rock outcrops. We had three drivers with the necessary 4WD qualification and so we set up a 2 hour rotation system. This also allowed us to change cars, which was a good thing because the kids had only brought one tape per car and the music became very repetitive. I’m not sure how the kids manage to sleep in the back of a Troopie pitching and bumping over unsealed roads but they manage. While awake, they never tired of spotting all manner of wildlife and encouraging the drivers to "bump" anything from a brahman bull to a monitor lizard. We encountered a fair bit of mud and slush along the way so the white Troopies were soon a uniform orange. After a lunch stop at the Gibb River crossing, it was on to Mt Barnett to set up camp in the classrooms at Wannanami School.
The next day we pushed on to Broome, much of the journey being quite boring having reached the bitumen some 50kms out of Derby. The camp school at Broome is incredible. Situated right next to the Cable Beach Resort, it commands beautiful views of Cable Beach and has bunk houses and tents well designed for the climate. We had been allocated two large tents and I found myself sleeping on a top bunk in the first time in many years. The food was first class, with varied ample meals, coffee and tea facilities for staff, packed morning teas and lunches every day and friendly staff. The first night was easy, with only Kalumburu and Fitzroy Crossing in camp. The kids occupied themselves with a basketball game while we renewed aquaintances with teachers that we had worked with at Fitzroy. The following morning saw the arrival of kids from La Grange, Wyndham, Oombulgurri and Looma. Broome SHS, St Marys Broome and Kununurra DHS rounded out a big competitive field. With so many schools in camp, meals were staggered and we were unlucky enough to have the 5:45 breakfast slot. This meant getting up in the dark, although being so far East, the sunrise was not too far off.
Day One of sports saw both the boys and girls thrilled with first up wins in basketball. Unfortunately, they were brought down to Earth again with losses in Indoor Soccer. The day was long and hard. Most other schools had enough students to field separate teams for each sport and have plenty of subs. We were forced to play the same teams for basketball and soccer with only one or two subs. By 5pm, the students returned to camp very tired. Some of students were lacking warm clothing, socks and towels so Christine and I snuck away from the sports in the morning to go to St Vincent de Pauls and stock up. They were very good to us once they knew where we were from and we got some much needed clothing very cheaply.
Day Two was a light one for sporting fixtures so we slotted in a walk on the Broome Jetty and a bit of shopping. It was back to St Vinnies for some real bargains. Down in China Town, we broke into small groups and prowled the shops for sports shoes, DVDs, sweets and other items that teenagers everywhere crave. The matches we did play saw some further defeats so talk of finals was on the back burner. After a quick shower and change, we headed out for a meal at the Roebuck Hotel. The kids really enjoyed eating out. Fish, Chips and Salad or Fisherman’s Basket was the main attraction with a couple of jugs of squash. The kids were on their best behaviour and several other diners were complimentary.
Day Three saw the girls soccer team back into finals contention. Playing in finals would mean staying on until after lunch on Thursday and a night drive back across the Gibb so it was with mixed feelings that we watched the girls draw their last game and lose the chance at a finals berth. All teams had performed very well, with a good number of wins against some much bigger schools. It is a hard and tiring week of sport and a great credit to the organisers that everything runs so smoothly. After tea, the kids went off to the pictures. Christine and I dropped them off and took a much needed break to ourselves with a paper to read and a soda water at MacDonalds. As expected, half the kids fell asleep during the movie anyway.
The trip back went very smoothly and we make excellent time, reaching Mt Barnett around 4pm. The weather had improved and the night at Barnett was noticeable warmer than the 5 degrees of the night spent on the way out. The following day, we made excellent time, arriving back in Kalumburu just after lunch. With gear sorted, cars cleaned and students disbursed, it was off to an early night. We had an early morning charter flight booked and most staff were heading off on holidays so there was little in the way of social wind up. One of our fellow Kimberley Cup teachers was driving out the next morning to Broome, going straight back over the ground he had just driven. Distances seem to take on a new meaning up here. As we took off for the return to Kununurra, we both felt pleased that we had once again returned to Kalumburu and had such an enjoyable week with kids we knew from our years here. One gets the feeling that the worst of the days are now thankfully behind Kalumburu and the pain that the community is feeling now is at least the begining of a rebuilding.
Sunday 3 June
After shopping, clothes washing etc, we explored around Port Hedland a checked out a few possible sites for launching the boat and doing a spot of fishing. None proved inviting, with the 20 knot South-Easterly ruling out almost all options. In the end, we opted to try for mud crabs in the creek at Redbank. The final score was mud crabs 0, sandflies 100. In fact, we barely got out of the creek in time before the rapidly falling tide left us stranded in a mud heap.
Monday 4 June
Today we tried a spot of shore fishing at the “Spoil Bank”, a large expanse of flat land created from the dredging of the harbour entrance. It proved to be VERY frustrating, with a number of solid fish (almost certainly salmon) hooked but not landed. Despite this, the session was a lot of fun and certainly helped to relax us. The sight of huge ore carriers entering and leaving the harbour throughout the afternoon kept us entertained.
Tuesday 5 June to Friday 8 June
Another week of work, with Christine in her same 6/7 class at Cassia all week and me working at Baler and Cassia in a variety of roles. We both enjoyed terrific hospitality and a strong sense of staff unity at Cassia. Christine was thrilled to receive a small gift in appreciation of her efforts at the end of our stay.
We have decided to push on without having the car looked at because no one will look at it. This is certain to be the case until Darwin. Fingers crossed!
Saturday 9 June
We left Hedland (Hooray!) and drove to 80 Mile Beach. The car performed well and the automatic transmission gave no problems. I drove all the way with the overdrive turned off. It uses a bit more fuel but seems to be the way to go. The caravan park here is one of the best appointed anywhere. Given its very remote location, it puts many town based parks to shame, with numerous ablution facilities, local TV broadcast, lots of grass and shade and a well stocked little shop. It is also a pleasure to find such friendly staff.
We set up in time to catch the afternoon rising tide for beach fishing for salmon. The “brag board” of photos showed that late May had been the time for large threadfin salmon, with many 5-10kg fish being caught every day. Unfortunately, things have fallen off in June and we didn’t manage any.
Sunday 10 June and Monday 11 June
Two wonderful days of sleeping, fishing, bike riding and relaxing. We had one good fishing session, landing a couple of nice blue nosed threadfin for tea. We also met yet another satellite man who helped us get our dish tuned. I am ready to make a barbecue out of the thing. Still, he gave us some useful tips so next time we may do better.
Tuesday 12 June
It is tempting to laze away at 80 Mile Beach but we pushed on today. We had planned to put in a couple of days at Langi Crossing on the Fitzroy but changed our mind at the last minute and opted for Willie Creek, just North of Broome. Again the car performed well so I am hopeful the problem is solved. After a hurried shopping trip in Broome (overcrowded and chaotic as usual) we negotiated a corrugated track out to Willie Creek and set up in a terrific spot with shade and ocean views. It even proved sand fly free, although a few mozzies came in with the dusk.
Wednesday 13 June and Thursday 14 June
We launched the boat mid-morning on the falling tide and spent a terrific two hours catching all manner of small fish (and losing a couple of big ones). A nice little cod assured us of tea. The variety was amazing, bream, queen fish, flag, flathead, brown sweetlips, trevally, and 3 species of cod. We failed again with the mud crabs and were disappointed when another boat came in with 5 big ones. They had picked up 3 on handlines.
On Wednesday afternoon, a couple arrived in our camp on foot, requesting assistance with their bogged vehicle. It was a ute with a tray-back camper and was well and truly anchored to Mother Earth. Worse still, they had bogged while trying to turn around so they were broad side on to the track and there was no room at all to use a “snatch strap”. I used my exhaust bag to lift the vehicle up and we tried packing rocks underneath. This advanced us about a metre or so. After two of these manoeuvres and still well and truly bogged, we drove down to the Willie Creek Pearl farm in the hope they had a tractor. No tractor but they did have some planks so we managed to get them out just on night fall. Wishing them well, we went back to camp.
At 10am the next morning, the couple reappeared and sheepishly announced that they were bogged again. In fact, they were only 25 metres from the previous bogging. After we left them, they tried to turn on some hard looking ground, broke through the top layer into the powdery stuff underneath and spent an uncomfortable night perched on an awkward angle. This time, I could use a snatch strap and managed to get them out in about half an hour. The last I saw of them was driving away from the beach area.
Friday 15 June
We were up at the crack of dawn to give us enough time to break camp, drive into Broome, shop for Trevor’s extensive meat order and drive on to Fitzroy Crossing. All went well with our timing and we rolled into Fitzroy just after 4pm.
Having spent most of the fishing charter with a fishing rod in my hand, rather than a camera, I was struggling to post any pictures of our adventures. Luckily for us, Claire (another teacher from Fitzroy), was less dedicated to the fishing, and did manage to snap some shots. She has very nicely offered them up for viewing here!
After a few weeks of busy school-work (I can see why Term 4 is called the “silly season” up here), a group of us booked into the Broome Beach Resort for a weekend of fishing and relaxation. All up, there were 16 of us there – 10 for a deep-sea fishing charter, 6 for a day spa with massages. We were all there for the drinking and swimming.
Piling into the bus straight after school on Friday, we rocked up a four hours later a little hungry, but with our thirsts well quenched. Saturday saw the girls off to their day spa – they insisted on being driven to the place via bus, which turned out to be a good 500 metres from where we were staying. The remainder of the crew hit the shops, stocking up on all the things Fitzroy shops don’t offer (read: everything).
A quiet Saturday night for most with dinner out at the Zoo Cafe, then it was up bright and early for the fishing on Rare Breed II with a 6am pickup. The swell was quite large, which accounted for quite a bit of extra burley from those used to the calmer waters of the Fitzroy, so we only ended up travelling about 25 miles off shore, instead of the promised 40 for the big red emperor. Regardless, there were plenty of fish on offer, with catches including Spanish Macs, Mackeral Tuna, Coral Trout, Blue-Line Emperor, Silver Snapper, NW Snapper, Rankin Cod, Sea Perch, Spanish Flag, Green Snapper… need I go on?
There were also the undesirables, such as the hard fight, only to pull up the head of a large Spanish Flag, one NW Blowie and even a very ugly Monkey Fish (also known as a Stargazer… do a Google Search and you will see why!)
Although I was far too busy to take photos of my fish, or anyone else’s for that matter, we did catch enough to feed everyone – as the fish-cleaning table shot shows.
The moment we got off the boat, it was all stations go as we quickly packed up the bus, and made the trek back to Fitzroy. We hit home just after 8pm, and having promised to fillet the fish for everyone on returning home, it left me a very busy boy as I worked feverishly until 11pm, filleting and skinning the fish, while Emma bagged and labelled them for everyone. A big weekend, but a fantastic one! I look forward to making it an annual event!
Click the thumbnails to see larger versions.
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