Melting

(After a two week self-imposed computer hiatus, I have added more pictures to my smugmug homepage.)

Our initial arrival in Broome proved to be anticlimatic. Lora and I settled into what turned out to be a really good hostel, The Kimberley Club, which was more like a resort than a hostel, with a nice pool area, bar and TV and game room. Because of the heat and humidity, the building structure is open, which high ceilings in the bedrooms, and open reception and kitchen areas to allow air flow. The pool looked inviting as did the bar, but as it got later on our first night, the thought of needing to do laundry and getting a good night’s sleep won us over. Our main reason for being in Broome was to find a tour that would take us into The Kimberley, a remote area of Australia in the Northwest. Aside from Antarctica, the Kimberly is said to be the most uninhabited area of land on the planet, and remains mainly inaccessible without at least a 4WD, better still an airplane, boat or helicopter. Tours were unsurprisingly expensive because of this, and due to a late wet season, some weren’t even running yet. The northern part of Australia runs on the wet/dry seasons instead of the 4 temperate seasons we have in N. America. The wet should have ended at the end of April, but a late cyclone causing heavy rains and flooding put off the dry season by about two weeks, just enough for us to completely miss almost everything the Kimberly had to offer. [read on]

Lora and I arrived safely in Broome yesterday, after a harrowing day of driving that took us over 900km in one day. We began our journey up the West Coast of Australia from Perth to Darwin 8 days ago in our nice rental car stocked full of our gear, food and emergency water stores. The drive from Perth to Darwin is approximately 4400 km and can technically be driven in three days. However, we were going to “take our time” and travel for about 3 weeks through Western Oz, seeing all the sights along the way. Due to our lack of planning and research, we landed smack in the middle of school holidays, and our route was one that would be taken by thousands of families in campers and cars pulling trailers and boats up and down the coastal highway. Our route would be Western Australia’s equivalent to going to the Grand Canyon on 4th of July weekend, and as much as we tried to catch up, we never got ahead of the game. [read on]