Larry the Charmer

 

Thursday 24 June 2021 – Larry the Charmer

Another early start for H&M as they wanted to get to Derby to see if they could get more substantial repairs done to their van.  We took our time and did an early morning walk into Windjana Gorge.  As we just managed to beat a tour bus group into the Gorge we walked quickly as far as we needed to and hence managed to spot one freshwater crocodile in the water before the noisy hoards arrived and scared him off.

Jenny spent quite a long time trying to get a close up photo of the tiny birds shooting along the shoreline.  Larry called them the Red Bull Birds as they darted along with little bursts of energy meaning that just when they stood still enough for focus in the camera lens they’d dash off again.  Hence it was very hard to get a non-blurry bird photo.  I must try and work out what species they were – INSERT HERE!!

Having fulfilled our quota of nature for the morning it was back to the van and then back to the Gibb River Road but the nice western section which is all tarmac save for a 9km final stretch of bounce.

We made Derby about 10am and saw H&M’s unhitched van at the auto electricians on the way into town so knew they were in Derby somewhere.  They had managed to talk the auto sparkies into fixing their van today so they will have a chill day exploring the delights of Derby and we pushed on for Broome after getting fuel for the car and hot chips and drinks for us.

As we were back on the bitumen Jenny drove stretch from Derby to Broome with the only excitement being the requirement to overtake a three trailer cattle truck.  Not too difficult though as we radioed the truck and he let me know when it was safe to overtake so all good.

We got to the caravan park in Broome and were dismayed to see they had given us a shell grit site on the opposite corner to the shell grit site we had with Kate two years ago.  Right towards the bottom of the list of preferable sites in other words.  To add insult to injury when we pulled up next to it the adjoining sites already have vans on them even though we had expressly booked two sites next to each other back in December last year. 

Larry went back up to the office and worked his usual charm on the Manager to wangle two sites adjacent to each other around the corner from where we had been by explaining that our friends were having issues with their van and we were helping out with storing food/cooking dinners for them etc (only slight truth stretch really).  His charms worked as the Manager spent about 15 minutes playing caravan Tetris and we were able to move to a much better site with an empty one next to it.

We had received texts from Hendrik asking if we could try and source new coils for their van in Broome as no-one was answering his phone calls so after a quick set up on the new site it was back in the car and back to the Broome Industrial Area to see if Kimberley Trailer Parts had the required coils.  Jenny sat in the car while Larry popped in to make some enquiries and thought Larry must not have put the brake on properly as the kind of moved around and ‘settled’ a bit oddly.  Nothing too serious though and it stopped after about 10 seconds.  As Larry was taking a while Jenny rang Kate and had a chat and then caught up with a bit of Facebook having been deprived for the last couple of weeks.  Amazingly the first post to pop up was by ABC Kimberley asking “DID YOU FEEL THAT?” and reporting a minor earth tremor in Broome a few minutes before.  Well that explains the weird ‘settling’ of the Jeep a bit earlier!!

Larry came out having charmed yet another person into dropping tools and helping him with Hendrik’s trailer part requirement with two bright new coils for the Goldstream.  Not quite the right part but they will do the job and that is the main thing as we still have another couple of weeks of rough roads through the Pilbara coming up.

Headed back to the van via Macca’s for a quick burger as by this time it was getting on for 3.30pm and all we had eaten all day was the hot chips in Derby.  J did a load of washing and L some setting up and maintenance on the van before we headed down to Town Beach to the night markets.  This was a new experience, firstly because the markets have moved to the newly upgraded foreshore park and secondly because there was an icy wind blowing so that it felt about 14 degrees.  A significant contrast to the other times we have been at these markets with Ben in 2016 and Kate in 2019 and had sat eating satay and listening to live music on balmy, summer evenings.  This time we sat huddled over our satay in the shelter of one of the market tents and gobbled it down quickly so that we get back to the warmth of the car!

We had bought extra Pad Thai and chicken with noodles for H&M and they made the caravan park about 7pm.  So whilst they were setting up J went up to the camp kitchen and heated up their noodles and then we were all happy to sit down and chill and catch up on our respective days.  They have brakes and suspension again now so their van is now a lot more roadworthy and tomorrow the boys will have a go at installing the new coils.

A nice hot shower in the ablutions was a well deserved end to the day.