Hello, hello, hello! Charlie and I made the trek into Broome and arrived yesterday. Made pretty good time, around 8 hours and that included a relatively long stopover in Fitzroy Crossing. Being Good Friday (bet Jesus didn’t think it was that good btw) the Fitzroy Roadhouse was the only place in the entire town that was open and cars were banked up waiting to fuel up. As we waited the thought did cross my mind; “shit, I hope they don’t run out of fuel,” but thankfully Big Bessie was able to have a lovey drink of diesel right to the top of her tank. During our stop I went in to pay for the fuel and wanted to buy Prince Charles the obligatory ‘on-the-road-sausage-roll’ but alas! NO SAUSAGE ROLLS! The shop had literally been cleaned out! I couldn’t even buy fruit so BBQ crisps it was then and for Charlie a steak pie. At least I managed to get hot water so I could make myself a coffee (have plunger, ground coffee, milk and a fridge…will travel).
A few weeks back I was fortunate enough to go to a Joonba dance – a traditional Gija dance which was performed to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the massive flood that affected Warmun. The school children performed as well as members from the community and it was incredible to watch. The children were powerful, strong, confident and formidable in their culture and it was very different to see them in this light as opposed to in the classroom. I felt very privileged to be able to watch. When the evening came to a close it came time to round everyone up and drive from Warmun back to Frog Hollow…OH MY GOD…I shall never forget that drive. The rains had fallen not too many days before and the road was a carpet of cane toads – ewwww – so many of them. Never seen anything like it. The Buddhist in me wanted to dodge every single one of them even though I know they are such a menace to the environment, plus it would have taken me 2 hours to drive back as opposed to 25 minutes. The students in the back of the Troopy kept telling me, “misss-ah…..kill ’em…..they’re a pest….run ’em over…,” so with that I proceeded to just drive straight. It was the most disgusting thing ever. Squish, splat, squelch. It was totally hideous and I cringed in my driver’s seat all the way home. Not nice.
The following week I decided to check out Black Rock Falls (see photos from previous post) and when it came to the turnoff, 4WD had to be engaged. No problems. Driving along, driving along…lah, lah, lah, then we come to a slightly wet crossing and I’m worried. NO WAY am I going through THAT! Let’s just stop here. Charlie was fine with that. He had a bit of a swim, happy days. Something inside me though really wanted to check out Black Rock Falls. Just then another Prado drove past and went through the water. If they can do it, so can I! I quickly jumped in the car and went for it…..made it. A couple more flooded crosses came and went with my stomach in my mouth but finally got to Black Rock falls. With a return slippy, slidy, muddy, all over the shop detour to Ivanhoe crossing which turned out to come to an extremely overflowing watery dead end, we returned to the welcomed sealed roads into Kununurra. Lesson learnt? Not a big fan of 4WD when I’m not mechanically minded in the slightest. Too freaky for this lonesome little adventurer. Happy to stick to mostly open road with a few pull in, less than 5kms dirt road caravan stops! Oh and nearly forgot to mention the tape part of this blog – my spotlight fell off whilst 4WD-ing so got creative and put it back in place with some green tape – noice! Good job. Daddy would be proud.
On the road with my dog 
That a better kind of posting, but next time show the pictures amongst the text again.
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