It was straight to the air-conditioned mall when we arrived in Karratha. The kids needed a few clothes as they’d grown out of many of theirs, or they were just falling apart but more importantly new boots were needed! Friends of ours in Sydney Helen and Julio, had put us in touch with Helen’s cousin Haydon who lived in town and as we were shopping, he called to see if there was a good time for an introduction and meetup. We’d agreed the following night. Hearing that we were staying at a roadside camp that night, he offered his garden verge as a more salubrious alternative and we agreed we’d see him about 7pm after we’d done what we needed to do and had dinner out.

After being welcomed by Haydon, we made ourselves very comfortable on the verge and introduced ourselves to his mum Charlene who was over from NZ for the school holidays and his 2 children Caleb and Tegan. Again, initial shyness in the kids lasted all of 30 seconds before they were all squealing and dressing up as pirates, cat girl and a few other characters that were pulled out of the dress up box. We’d initially planned to stay 2 nights as we needed to get a few bits on the car tweaked at ARB further north in Port Hedland. Haydon then gave us the lowdown that Karratha was far nicer and there was also an ARB in town. He may have secretly regretted giving us that nugget of info as after a quick call the next day, they could fit us in as long as Haydon was OK with us staying another night on the verge!

We made use of their proper washing machine – no top loader here and the wash was about 2 hours long… amazingly, the colour of our clothes after the Pilbara red returned to a shade resembling their original colour! Haydon begins his day at 4.30am so we tried to respect the early bedtimes, although I will admit there were at least a couple of nights where we cooked up dinner for all and chatted the night away over a few bottles of vino! One night Haydon took us up to a look out where we had cheese and biscuits and a drink to watch sunset over the town, it was a lovely evening.

We took a morning driving up to Dampier, home of Red Dog, a red Kelpie / cattledog well known for roaming the area in 1970’s and hitching rides to nearby towns. A well-known Australian movie has been made about it and there’s a statue of the dog at the entrance to the town. Watching the movie went on our ‘to do’ list. As we’ve only watched 2 movies to date and they were the first Harry Potter movies with the kids, it may be a while before we complete this task! The other main attraction in this area is Murujuga NP, hosting the largest concentration of rock art in the world dating back many thousands of years. Reo came into his own here with his active imagination.

Many weren’t easy to come by, you needed to scramble up the rocks, but even when you did, you had to really concentrate hard on the picture to try and depict it! For one picture Reo suggested that it could be a kangaroo coming out of a fish, which Lexi thought was just ridiculous! We biked to the library while Tinfish was having her spa and packed up Minty to make sure we were ready to move on the following morning. A huge thank you to Haydon and his family for opening their house to us and being so welcoming to strangers put upon them!

Next stop was still Port Hedland. We needed to stop here anyway, as we’d had items posted to town for pickup. Initially reckoning on a night, we ended up staying 3! The council have set up a great free camp at the Turf Club and after the restock, watching the races on Ladies Day, visits to the library and the swimming pool with slides, time passed quickly. Wanting to do the Seafarers tour with FMG which only ran on certain days, we detoured to Marble Bar (touted as Australia’s hottest town) for a couple of nights to kill a bit of time before returning to Port Hedland. It was a nice way to kill time.

We found the best overnight camp for the way out and return journey which we aptly named Boob Mountain and explored a little bit of the region where mounds of Jasper are just lying around. It’s very colourful and when wet the colours look amazing. While the name Marble Bar seems at odds with what lays there, explorers originally though they’d come across a marble ridge line and once they’d discovered the true origins, the name had stuck!

Exploring the area further, we made our way down a 4WD track to Coppins Gap. Arriving late afternoon, we were more than a little surprised, well more disappointed to be honest, to find campers already set up. So far out, I’d secretly hoped this would be a camp all to ourselves. However, instead of sulking like a petulant child, the scenery more than made up for campers 20metres away and we dragged wood to our camp to set up a fire. Such a scenic spot, as the other campers left the following morning, we decided to stay on another night.

The kids decided they were going to draw the new bedrooms they’d like on returning home to Sydney and spent the morning planning, discussing and drawing their dreams [think swimming pools, climbing frames, field to keep the horse in, all in their bedrooms – you’re starting to get into the mind of Reo now!!]. In their eyes, school was done – art class – in my eyes it was an easy morning that was a lot of fun, school was out for the day!

We explored the gap and had a plunge in the cool water and I took the drone for a spin. I had a little scare when I nearly flew it in to the rock as Alex was trying to give me directions. Two more inches and it would have been in the drink too! I think the adrenaline rush took all my energy as I found myself asleep with the kids that night, a most unusual turn, as it’s normally Alex snoring away before anyone! As Alex was absent from art class that morning, he stayed up and did his class by the fire that night.

Returning to Port Hedland for the Seafarers port tour, schooling was quickly underway – an introduction to the Australian economy in 8 easy steps; Train from mine ⇒ ore car dumper ⇒ conveyor ⇒ stacker ⇒ reclaimer ⇒ conveyor ⇒ ship loader ⇒ slow boat to China = new Land Cruiser!! I think Alex enjoyed the tour the most but it was a good insight in to all these mining areas we’ve passed and piecing it all together. The trains carrying the iron ore are 4.8km in length with 528 cars in total, all remotely operated from Perth! It takes 5 train loads to fill a boat. Traveling further north, we saw more and more road trains carrying their wares to and from the mines which interested the kids. Toot toot!

We’d heard of a little gem of a working homestead from another family which was off the well-travelled road (i.e. not in wikicamps), straight on the edge of another iconic Aussie destination; Eighty Mile Beach. Initially we thought it was a mirage, there was this green stuff all around, but upon blinking some more, it was true, we would be camping on grass! This is a real novelty. It’s the simple things in life; grass on our doorstep instead of red dirt or black dusty sand. The kids soon made friends while they were splashing in the pool and at late afternoon it was feeding time for the Poddy Calves (orphans). Reo was beside himself with excitement when he was allowed to help feed, another feather in his farmer hat. Lexi then plucked up courage to have a go too.

The following morning, the little feet in our van were wide awake early and eager to go. They’d been told feeding again would be at 7am, it was if they’d set their internal alarm clock as they couldn’t have got closer to the time. Hurriedly dressed, off we set in search of our farmer, alas to no avail. We did spot a couple of others walking in another direction and quickly followed. It was hen feeding time, asked if they’d like to help with this, no sooner had they nodded in reply, they were handed a big bucket of feed and left overs and asked to share it around. We never did find the cow farmer that morning. After breakfast schooling was done and dusted in a flash so they could go and play with their new friends (why can’t it be this easy every day?), while Alex and I pottered and did jobs.

We took the car down to Eighty Mile Beach. It was pristine and the shells are something else. I’ve never seen such huge ones and so many of them. We all had fun collecting them into piles and making patterns. There are also hot spring on the property and it was just the place to soak our weary travelling bodies. Before heading off, I baked a sour dough and we returned to the beach with it for brekkie, it was eerily foggy and we had to drive really slowly to make sure we didn’t hit a cow on the way there visibility was so poor.

We’d ummed and ahhed about whether to stay another night but decided to stop further north at Barn Hill Station, it had been raved about by so many other families [which we always take with a pinch of salt], but they did a Sunday roast which we’d timed perfectly. On checking in Alex asked to make sure the roast was still on, “yes” came the answer, we just needed to bring our own cutlery and chair. We parked up and went to have a look and play on the beach. Alex returned to the office to double check the time of the roast to be told by the same person from earlier they were fully booked with 200 people! Grr, the main reason we’d stopped was for the roast! It was bangers and mash for tea for us then.

Broome is renowned for expensive caravan parks so we were up and out early to try and get in to the pistol club which is an overflow camp in peak season. Offering practically the same as the parks at half the price, this was the camp for us. After a bit of a look round town we headed to Cable Beach to catch sunset. The last time Alex and I were here on our last big trip, upon entering the beach you were greeted with a board approximately 4m x 2m (I’m sure this is no exaggeration) showing all the things you couldn’t do whilst on the beach! We had a good laugh about it at the time given that we never followed rules in any of the other countries we’d driven through, but had also given ourselves a stern talking to knowing that we would certainly get our comeuppance if we’d continued in the same belligerent manner. There was no such sign this time.

All built up with a bar blaring music and people chilling on the grass out front, we followed another couple of cars on to the beach, in full anticipation of the tranquillity we had enjoyed over a decade ago. We drove into a car park. It appeared all Broome residents, including the wider surrounds and every travellers had the same idea, all fourby’s lined up, rears facing the sea for the sunset. There was nothing else to do, we settled ourselves in the same manner and joined ‘em 😊 Synonymous with Cable beach are the camel rides. A string of camels linked together walking across the sand as the tourists bobbing on top tried to look as comfortable as possible whilst all other tourists (aka us and the rest of car park attendants) continue to gawk at them and take the obligatory photos. It would be us joining this circus in a few days!!

Next stop was exploring the Dampier Peninsula. We had a few days to kill before another bucket list adventure, so we headed to Barred Creek just a few KM north of Broome. Our camp was situated on the edge of a small craggy-rocked cliff where some kind soul had put a little bit of concrete on the sharp rocks so you could venture down easily to the beach. It was time to relax and it was another camp that we had all to ourselves. We had a great vantage point for Humpback spotting and spent every morning, sipping coffee watching for the whales. We weren’t disappointed. There seemed to be a cycle with the wind; when I woke it was calm and you were lucky if you saw an occasional splash in the distance, then mid-morning the wind would pick up and the whales seemed to be invigorated by the swell & waves and they came out to dance!! The afternoons tended to bring calmer weather again and the whales disappeared to the deep blue. Cursing the wind as I felt it was too strong to get the drone up, we admired from afar through binoculars.

One morning the whales appeared so close to shore that we thought we’d give the drone a try, what could go wrong!?!? After the Coppin Gap near-fatal miss I was a little reserved, but we’d seen footage from another traveller and it had looked so good from air, the wind was blowing yet excitement overrode trepidation. 😊 Alex had eyes on the whale we were pursuing, who by this time was just plain taunting us as it breached the water and I set the drone off for the chase. As it turns out, trying to find a whale in the ocean isn’t as easy as I hoped it would be! They were much further off shore than we thought (distance is really hard to measure when you’re just looking out to the horizon) and it’s more like looking for a black cat in a coal cellar!

Alex could still see the whales but lost sight of the drone and it was near impossible to see the blow spray on my small phone screen. Battery was getting low and for the whole flight I’d been getting high wind warnings, it was time to bring it in. Not to be deterred, a quick change of battery and off we went again. More whales were in the bay so again Alex had eyes on the whales and drone and helped guide me to where they were. Alas, before we knew it, time was up, they had eluded us again. One last battery, one last try – third time lucky right? This time a mother and her calf, bingo, we were a well-oiled team by now and after a few minutes of searching we got them. It’s such an adrenaline rush finding them, knowing there isn’t long to get some footage and ensuring you get the done back safely as you want to squeeze that battery for everything its got! Certainly a high staying at this camp.

Schooling was on the opposite end of the spectrum. Reo pleasantly settled into it well and nutted it out every day, Lexi was a different kettle of fish. She did have a cold, so I put it down to this as usually she’s pretty good at getting on with her books, but we had fight after fight every day to get her to sit and focus. It’s completely tiring and frustrating for us all. Reo had an air of “gloat” about him as he polished his imaginary halo after he’d finished and was then chastised by myself or Alex for goading Lexi!

One afternoon we went hunting for dinosaur prints at the next camp round the bay. We’d read at low tide you could see remnants left from a dinosaur related to the man-eating Tyrannosaurus Rex and of possibly the largest dinosaur of them all, the Sauropod who’d left behind a huge 1.7m print. It actually didn’t take us to long to locate some ‘holes’, some other prints definitely looked more dinosaur feet like, others, well, let’s just go with Reo’s imagination again! Our time at Barred creek was up. Sad as it was to wave goodbye to our neighbours the whales, it was time for another exciting adventure, a glimpse into the Kimberleys – Horizontal Falls.

We returned to the pistol club to a lot of loud noise. The club was in action! Lexi & I went to buy lunch while Reo and Alex decided to go and explore the noise. Reo was really intrigued by the shooting and before they knew it one of the guys offered him a go on a 38 Super… the biggest pistol they had! 5 rounds later and a somewhat overwhelmed little boy cracked a smile that soon spread from ear to ear. Next it was daddies go and he actually managed to hit the target with all 5 rounds – just..! It was a lot of fun and Reo kept the target as a keepsake.

We were picked up for the airport just before 8am for our day’s excursion. It wasn’t long before we on the runway ready for take-off in a little propeller plane that squeezed in 14 of us including the pilot. It was an exciting taking off as we bounced around a little and soon we were flying high leaving Broome as a speck behind us. Over the Dampier Peninsula, with its long, straight red dirt roads a stark comparison to the flat bush plains around them, it was much greener than I expected. As we continued over the second peninsula the typography changed dramatically to large rolling hills as the Kimberley wilderness came into its own, then the dramatic landscape of the thousands of islands making up the incredible Buccaneer Archipelago came in to view. The scenery is absolutely breath taking, with turquoise waters surrounding the semi-arid isles.

We looped around Horizontal Falls. Spring tides is the best time to visit where you can clearly see the fast moving tidal current of Talbot Bay squeezed through the two narrow gorges of the McLarty Range. As we continued to Cockatoo Island I was surprised to see they were mining, the ‘Iron Islands’ as they are known hold the purest iron Ore in the world, the dark pits like a black scar on the flawless surrounds. After disembarking on Cockatoo Island, we were taken to a custom built 750hp Air Rider where we shot across the water towards the falls. Life jackets on, it was show time! As the skipper powered up the boat we were soon on the plane and skipping through the white wash of the falls. Such an adrenaline rush! Again! Again! The skipped obliged as he bounced back and forth through the gorge as we all squealed in delight. The gap through the second gorge is only about 6m wide and too narrow for the boat to get through, so instead the skipper reverses in and holds the boat in place. He needed to power the boat at 20knots just to hold it steady, which when you realise that 2 million litres of water per second funnels through the gap is not surprising, he was very skilled coxswain! We had timed it just right as we had a 10m spring tide, the biggest they’d had in 3 months. It was quite exhilarating riding through the falls and over all too quickly. The skipper and tour guide on the boat were so friendly really engaging with all the group, super fun and great with the kids.

After lunch we leisurely meandered through the estuaries of Yampi sound, hoping to spot a Saltie lurking somewhere, before returning to Cockatoo Island. The skipper allowed Lexi & Reo to both have a go at driving the boat – brave man. I volunteered to be co-pilot on our return flight, I had to promise not to touch anything which was really hard as there were SO many buttons in front of me calling out “touch me, touch me”, but being the rule abiding girl that I am (and wanting to see another day) I resisted! We flew over Cape Leveque then down the west coast of the peninsula past Pender Bay which was going to be our next destination and Barred Creek where we’d just been. It had been a fantastic day. We all went to sleep with smiles on our face that night.

Next day it was our turn to join the sunset circus, but first we had to get ourselves organised for going more remote up the Dampier peninsula. By mid-afternoon we were packed to the gunnels with fuel, water and food, we were ready to go. We’d organised to meet up with our ‘Cruzin’ Round’ buddies who were coming to the camel circus with us and headed on down to Cable Beach. Shaky & Kerry had already had the privilege (?!?) of riding camels before so they nicked off for an hours R&R and left Bella and Chloe to ride with us. Reo had bagsied the camel with Bella & Lexi and Chloe rode together. There are 3 outfits roaming the beach and apparently, we had the most authentic and fun one as we got to climb on them while they were sitting down and have the entertainment of getting up. We must have looked like trouble makers as we were positioned on the last 3 camels in the chain.

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Making sure we didn’t kick the camel in the face behind us as supposedly they don’t like it (who would?), we lurched upwards as the camels stood. You actually had to hold on quite tightly to make sure you didn’t fall off. It took an age to get all of us on the camels then finally we were on our way, we started parading down the beach. They have backpackers as helpers offering to take photos of you which is a really nice idea, and they were knowledgeable too on the camels. It was like having your own personal tour guide and photographer, you’d give them your phone and they would run up and down the beach taking photos and videos from every angle. They were well practiced; the photos were great. The ride wasn’t half as uncomfortable as Alex had led me to believe (although not sure how he was so well-informed) and it was a fun way to spend a sunset. The kids loved it too. We returned to camp for dinner before collapsing in our beds, it had been a busy couple of days. We needed to be well rested for our next adventure, the top banana on any big lappers’ wishlist, it was time to start exploring the Kimberley and head up the Dampier Peninsula to Cape Leveque.