Ready for the adventure to begin
A quick camp set up
Have football - will travel

16^th June, 2011

After the last pack of the car, a final farewell to Dad (with a reminder to pick up our mail) we are gently reminded from the back seat that we haven’t yet bought him his “early birthday present’. Good grief – we must be the worst parents in the world. We ducked into the Boulevard while Steve did a top up of fuel and air. Running straight to Target and Dick Smith, we came out 10 minutes later with a new 3DS and 12 volt charger and a smiling – soon to be 7 – Daniel.

Heading out of Broome I counted about 27 caravans coming in and that was just the first 30 km’s. Fleetingly, I felt the first pangs of guilt at leaving my work team in the busiest part of the year, but I soon snapped out of it. We’ve been building up to this holiday since we arrived in Broome and it feels fabulous to be back on the road.

For the first couple of hours we were so unorganized with nothing where it should be in the car. Cripes, how did we get so out of practice.

We spent the first night at a free roadside camp at Ngumban Cliff Lookout, between Fitzroy Crossing and Halls Creek. We chose the only solitary spot away from all the caravans, safe, so we thought. As we built our campfire, some van up the road started their generator. Our tolerance of generators in the evening is very low at the best of times, but on our first night of camp it was obvious there was going to be grief. By 6:30 pm Steve and Cam armed themselves with a head torch and set off on a stealth mission to find out which van was breaking the code of silence. As they left I could hear them whispering what they were going to do about it. Best case scenario, a quiet conversation – worst case, well let’s just say the wire cutters stayed in the toolbox because the noise stopped at around 8:30pm.

Life is good, and you gotta love these free camps!