Canoe Diamond Gorge, its OK but the canoeing a 2 man canoe with one man is not .
Fri
Canoe Diamond Gorge, its OK but the canoeing a 2 man canoe with one man is not .
Sat
Work on the bike, air cleaner is dirty, gear box oil is OK Most people are working on their bikes. Lunch. Reg & Manfred arrive, having replaced the ignition sensor unit at Mt Barnett Roadhouse this morning and the rear shock at Halls Creek and some earth? problem else where. They say they are ready to burn the bike! K100 RS arrives from Darwin, its a loan bike while his K12RS is repaired... they don't know where its going.
The local goanna about 1.5 metres long comes and visits the bar and kitchen. Keep your tent closed as it will go for your food.
We have about 30 people, mostly bmws, and most of the bmws are GSes. Not one Honda, nor any British, American or Italian motorcycles this time. Sometimes the odd MG, Honda and/or MZ show up. But not this time. Bear holds the 9 pm meeting deciding on Urindange in Qld for the next meeting, and wants the 2004 meeting to be Innamincka where the off centre started.
Sun
The Queenslanders leave, as does Reg & Manfred, Peter & Paul. The rest socialize. Craig arrives, he is from Melbourne the only Victorian to come. He came through Kununurra and said the Pentecost was not a problem, just large rocks. Craig is a stutter and loses the stuttering if he slows down, puts his helmet on, but is excited to tell us his story, so we listen patiently but I tell him he should move to Queensland (Queenslanders are held to speak slowly).
Mon
Pack and go. I take the now widened and much traveled side track at deep creek crossing, other than that all the others are straight through. No problem. I switch to reserve and back off to 70 km/h crawling into Derby for the last 60 kms. Have some lunch , fill and go. Stop at the prison tree - a hollowed out boab tree used as a jail. Then a small tour to the jetty and on to Broome. It's a tar burn!
Out to the pistol club (over flow camp site - the pearl festival is on so things are crowed) and set up camp, do the shopping.
Tues
The next day Rob Milton and I go in for breakfast. Selected a table on the street side. Wait say 20 minutes and a waitress walks by and asked "Are these yours?" has two full breakfasts, Rob responds "no, but we would like to order". 10 minutes later we figure out you go inside to order. Breakfast arrives, we eat and sit. No one comes to get rid of us in any way (eg by cleaning up around us to make us feel uncomfortable). We must have been there for over 2 hours. Just relax, you want to sit at the table, then you just sit! About half the people using a single lane tight roundabout signal their exit... amazing. In Sydney the number would be zero.
Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat
During the ensuing days I see the following things
The historic museum - good value $3 and I spend 2 hours there.
Out to Willie creek- the colours of the sand and sea with the sound of the sea breaking on the shore ... you can camp out here for 3 days without payment... A sea eagle flies over head with its catch held in its feet. The fisherman on the shore has caught nothing. There is a pearl shop out here, nice pearls but the site is better.
The bird observatory has few (in quantity) birds at this time of year. But a good view of Broome over the bay. They have camp sites out here...
A film in the open air cinema, the toilets are out the from to the side of the screen so every one can tell whose been drinking.
Stair case to the moon, nice but why do people take flash photos when the flash only covers the first 15 metres and they are taking things over 100 metres away?
See the dragon boat race, as the boats are all the same the race may be even but it looses some of the appeal of different types of boats. Sammy the dragon is much more entertaining.
And generally put my feet up.
You can e-mail me at Yahoo. File dated 2 November 2000
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