The trip in the truck back to Kunannurra didn't eventuate after our neighbour had a thought at 4 am in the morning. He hooked his car to ours with jumper leads left them charging for nearly an hour & Eureka, we started.
The two families were travelling together from Perth, doing the Gibb & heading for Cape York. They took sympathy on the old couple stuck up on the plateau. They performed miracles by turning my water rations to wine & starting the car. We had flattened the battery, leaving doors open & not turning off the lights - dum!!
You do meet some nice people on the road!
Luckily when Tony got in touch with the tow truck driver via the Rangers satellite phone he was just fuelling up & hadn't left town. If we hadn't got him then we would not have been able to get in touch with him at all. We would ave had to sit & wait two days for him to arrive.
So setting off without a spare tyre left us feeling a little vulnerable to the wrath of the rocky road. The choice was 188 kms to Drysdale or 100kms to Kalumburu in search of a spare. Deciding on the shortest option we carefully as possible made our way north over unforgiving roads.
On reaching Kalumburu not a tyre was to be found. The first guy we asked where to get tyres started to laugh. As the smile creased his black face he grinned "I don't know, I don't own a car". It turned out the only tyres were govt owned.
After speaking to a women involved in the new housing project we decided not to stay in town due to a bit of unrest in town & headed over even more corrugated roads to the romantically named Honeymoon Bay.
Kalumburu started as a mission back in the early 1900's. the mission is still there in a conglomeration of beautiful local stone buildings. The brothers & nuns have a store attached where they sell some groceries, drinks, lollies & the indigenous favourite of fried chicken & chips. The shop had just opened at 1.30pm after the lunch break and talk about absolute chaos as the kids all clamoured to get their orders in. The noise of the voices, perpetual motion of their little black bodies & one young fellow bouncing his football left your head ringing.
We stocked up in the local supermarket run by the local community. It had just opened at 2 pm & wasn't much quieter than the mission shop. Les, the checkout boy, full of personality recommended to stay at Honeymoon Bay, so off we went 17km of more corrugations to our next tent site. Guess who collected the money that night for the family? Yep, Les! He told me we were Goobli - same, same! Old George came around after sunset with fresh oysters off the rocks much to Tonys delight.
The amenities were far from salubrious but the best thing I have found is to just wear shoes & don't look. The water dribbled out of the shower & flushed the toilets - mostly!
Just love the artwork painted directly on the wall.
Our wash up water one morning! The water is bore & this lot must have just been pumped up. Luckily we had some drinking water with us.
What the place lacked in amenities was compensated by the nice people especially the kids that lived there.
Not sure of the exact names but the closest we got was l-r Roo, Lara & Assari. These kids go to school in Kalumburu. They spent the weekend just pottering around from home to the beach, not an electric game to be seen & not a harsh word. Lara the eldest was very quiet, but the "boss" Even Assari, the cheeky little fellow did what she told him in her quiet way. Roo was far from shy and as you can see from her photo didn't mind posing. "I am a princess" she told me as she posed.
This gnarled & weathered old tree bleached grey by the sun was washed up in wet season. The kids said when it was in the shallows they played on it in the water & it was their "Honeymoon Titanic"
Honeymoon Bay was named in the early days of the Mission after the first Christian marriage in the church in town. The missionaries sent the couple out to here on a traditional honeymoon. When the worried locals asked where the couple were they were told they were on their honeymoon, hence the bay became romantically named.
Despite obvious reservations we enjoyed ourselves. If the family could upgrade the facilities I think visitors would stay longer after the tough treck to get there.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment