The long and NOT winding road…

Hello, hello, hello my faithful 5 followers. Been a while since I last wrote but fear not, Charlie’s adventures are not over, not by a long shot! Interesting, and slightly ironic, how over the last 7 weeks we’ve been living in the big smoke (Perth) with my blog updates amounting to zilch. Now that we’ve hit the open road again with miles and miles of space, there’s a ton to write about. Grab a cuppa and a biscuit as this could take a while to read!

I’m sure you’ve all heard but in case you haven’t Charlie and I (well I – ’cause Charlie actually doesn’t really get a say ’cause he’s a dog and doesn’t speak human – one of his many endearing qualities) have taken a job teaching at another remote Indigenous Community called Purnululu, or Frog Hollow. It’s set on the edge of the Bungle Bungles, 250kms south of the town of Kununurra and around 130kms north of the town of Halls Creek, relatively close to the Northern Territory border. Whilst I’ll continue to teach, Charlie will assume a new role as Assistant Principal. Word got out from Parnngurr how amazing he was and he was snapped up rather quickly – who can blame them.

Since leaving Perth, Big Bessie has managed to clock up just over 3,000kms. There was a stop in Newman for one night followed by a couple of nights in the beautiful, currently muggy, town of Broome. As I sit in my new abode writing this post, I can’t help but think about the few hiccups that were encountered on this trip – great fodder for my blog mind you.

FIRST LEG – Perth to Newman. We had planned to leave Perth around 6am so we would avoid arriving in Newman after dark. Dawn and dusk are dangerous times to travel as all the animals come out to play chicken! Cows (affectionately known as moo-moos to Charlie) kangaroos, more cows, more kangaroos, lovely and cute and all, but also a bit ‘Tim nice but dim’. With this in mind, you can obviously understand why I was keen to hit the road (and not an animal) early. Nek minit…..9:30am we drove out of Perth. WHAT THE ACTUAL? My fridge blew a fuse and of course it took 3 hours to figure this out and wait for a shop to open so we could buy and instal a new one. What did I say previously? NEVER EVER EVER EVER TRAVEL ON A SUNDAY….EVER EVER EVER! With a few stops along the way, we rolled into Newman with almost 1,200kms clocked, at around 10:30pm.

SECOND LEG – Newman to Broome. We managed to leave Newman around 7:15am. Got up, got out of bed, dragged a brush across my head, made my way to Radio Hill for a walk with Charlie then took off along the long and not winding road to Broome. Hoorah I thought, now we’re rocking! Nek minit….a bloody 20km train decides to cross our path. AARRRGGGGHHHHH. Well it looked like 20kms long. I tell you these trains are unbelievable – they go forever. Once it had finally passed we were on the road again and decided to have a little fun with the CB radio. It was ‘wide load’ rush hour on the Great Northern Highway between Newman and Broome which provides for fabulous entertainment courtesy of all those fabulous truck and pilot drivers. With a rather long stop in South Hedland, including a very rare serve of McDonalds chips for lunch (obligatory on-the-road sausage roll for Charlie), we were off again. As we drove the last stretch (600km last stretch) we came up against a random bush fire. The smoke was pretty thick and from a distance it was difficult to make out how close to the road it was. Turns out very close and I can now see how fires jump across roads however, thankfully we made it through. Arrived in Broome around 6:30pm.

THIRD LEG – Broome to Purnululu School. We had blown a fuse in Perth, encountered a 20kms long train outside Newman, drove through a fire out of Port Hedland…what on earth did the road out of Broome have in store for us? Rain and a locust plague. Setting off was fine but then about 100kms out we were literally hit with random dark clouds of locusts. Poor Big Bessie – she was caked with the critters. Oh well, on we went together with our newly acquired load of dead locusts. As we progressed the clouds up ahead grew darker and darker and what started as a pretty relaxed 800km drive, turned into a race to beat the rains. There were moments when we couldn’t see a couple of meters ahead of us because the rain was so heavy but we sauntered into Frog Hollow around 6:30pm. WOO HOO! MADE IT.