Wide open spaces

As we headed off this morning we were all exited about crossing into Western Australia. Although we had loved Central Australia, we had been missing the coast and to us, WA signified the start of a long stretch of travel along the beautiful WA beaches. We soon crossed the border and after passing through the quarantine station, we pushed on to Kununurra. We arrived at Kimberlyland Caravan Park and after finding our site, quickly set up the camper as we were keen to get to emergency to get my leg looked at. Being a small town, the hospital was only about 5 minutes away, and thankfully (and surprisingly) when we walked into emergency there was no one in the waiting room. I hobbled over to the window, spoke to the triage nurse and was told to wait. About 20 minutes later they called me in and after taking my vitals, the nurse took a look at my leg and straight away told me I would need to get a doctor to look at it (not a good sign I thought). She stuck a new dressing on it and sent me back out to the waiting room to wait until a doctor was available. The kids were happy to wait as there was a TV in the waiting room playing cartoons, so they wouldn’t have minded if it took all day. About another 20 minutes passed before I was called in again. The doctor took a look at it and after cleaning it up a bit, gave me some antibiotics before getting the nurse to dress the wound. They told me to come back Monday morning for a checkup. We had previously booked three nights at Purnululu National Park, where the Bungle Bungle Ranges are, and were only planning to spend one night in Kununurra before heading down there, but clearly my leg would stuff those plans up so we headed back to camp to let them know we would be staying a few more nights. The site we were on was not available but there was one a couple of sites down, so we packed up the camper, moved it about 15 metres and set it up again – just what you want in 30 degree heat with high humidity! A beer would have been nice after that but antibiotics meant no drink so I had to settle for a refreshing glass of luke warm water instead.

The place we were staying was actually really nice. It was set on a lake with stunning views and had one of the best camp kitchens we had seen yet. We moved all our frozen stuff out of the car fridge and put it in the campground freezer so we didn’t have to worry about keeping the second car battery charged. We spent a lot of our time over at the camp kitchen as it was nice and shady and there were lots of midgies where the trailer was so hanging at the tent was not so nice. There was also a pool for the kids, and a playground across the road.

On Sunday Kat caught up on washing while I played a bit with the kids. In the afternoon, the kids kept themselves amused with one of their many inventive games involving their bears, so we took advantage of that to plan a bit more of the Gibb, mainly working out when we would be in Broome so we could book that. We also locked in a couple of nights at Kooljamin Campground, right on the tip of Cape Leveque, the peninsular north of Broome. It was supposed to be an idyllic place with crystal clear water and loads of marine life. We had been told about some beach shacks they have, where you still set up your camper, but have a big private shady area in front of it right on the beach front. Although they were pretty expensive, we decided to go there for a couple of nights (they didn’t have any more availability than that). The kids were really keen to get to the coast and the beaches, so we figured after a few weeks in the dust and corrugations of the Gibb, we would all be ready for (and deserving of) a bit of beach front camping.

Although they had made an appointment for me for 8am Monday morning for a dressing change, that was dependent on emergency not being busy. After turning up at 8am to see the waiting room full already, it didn’t look good. They suggested I come back about 10:30am when the doctor was due to start so it was back to camp to kill a couple of hours with the family. After returning at 10:30am things didn’t look any better. They told me it might be a couple of hours wait, but I decided to just stay as I needed to find out how long we might be stuck here. Unfortunately every couple of hours someone would come out to tell us that it might be a couple more hours wait. Apparently it wasn’t a good day in Kununurra with lots of emergencies in the hospital that kept pulling the doctors away. After chatting the afternoon away with the other people waiting, as well as catching up on quality TV such as Robot Rumble (or something like that), Britain’s Got Talent, and Dawson’s Creek, I was finally seen at 5pm. At least I could enjoy the air conditioning all day. The prognosis was that it wasn’t looking much better, so I needed to come back on Wednesday and again on Friday, and they gave me some new antibiotics that also fought the more resistant strains of bacteria. Although they took a swab of the wound when I had first been to emergency, as it had to go all the way to Perth, they didn’t expect the results for about a week, so the shotgun approach to antibiotic treatment seemed to be the way to go up here.

Fortunately Kat and the kids had befriended another family back at camp and played with them a bit in the afternoon. There was free entertainment by the lake in the late afternoon which consisted of a guy with his guitar playing a few classic tunes, so Em was in heaven dancing up a storm with a little boy from the other family. They started timidly, dancing separately, then moved a bit closer, and by the end they were dancing hand in hand. Just as a romance was looking to blossom, the show was over and I got back to camp so we headed to the camp kitchen, which felt like our new home, and prepared some dinner.

For the rest of the week, we just mooched at camp most of the time, playing scrabble, cards, and other games. There were daily visits to the pool, and long, slow meals in the camp kitchen. We made a few trips into town to get supplies and check out the $2 shops which the kids always loved to do in case they found something they would like to spend their fortunes on. We made friends with people as they came through, then they would leave and head to the Gibb while we just hung out, ready to greet the next wave of people coming through. To say we were getting restless was an understatement but we were still pretty pragmatic about things. Stuff happens, and you just have to accept it, so we enjoyed a lazy week spending lots of time with the kids. My next visit to emergency was better, and it appeared at least that the antibiotics were now working. This time I saw the wound nurse, which was not a role I was previously familiar with but I guess it makes sense. She was (not surprisingly) very knowledgable about the course my wound would take as it healed, but when she told me it could take a month to heal, and until it was healed I would not be able to get it wet, I was less that impressed, given the Gibb was full of spectacular gorges with amazing swimming holes.

On Friday there was a fete going on in town to celebrate NAIDOC week, and although we weren’t really sure what it would have to offer, we were happy to take any excuse to get out of camp for a few hours so headed in around 9am when it was due to kick off. It mainly had information stands about things related to aboriginal issues but was really interesting to chat to the people there about things such as health, education and culture. We saw an amazing map of Australia which shows the different mobs around the country, as well as their associated languages. It was fascinating to see just how many there are, and a big focus of the theme for this year was protecting those languages that are still around. The kids also loved it as most stalls were offering free things like pens, bags, etc so by the end they had amassed quite a stash, including a surprisingly large calculator each, not ideal when space is at a premium. There were also new kids books that the kids could sit and read, and they were even allowed to each keep one. The stalls were good, but things got better as we headed around the corner. Firstly there was a free jumping castle, which the kids went nuts on for about half an hour. Em emerged and was then ready to go on her free pony ride, something she had been gagging to do for ages, before getting her arm painted by the local face painter, again, for free! Oli then emerged with a face as red as a beetroot, keen to get some face painting, but also keen to stay in the jumping castle – oh, the stress of being a child. Eventually the jumping castle won out as we decided that getting his face painted, and then getting all sweaty again might not work so well. Once the jumping was over, he headed over to the face painter and got a big green snake painted on his arm. By this stage we were smelling some great smells coming from the food truck, so while I sat with my leg up, Kat set off to investigate. On the way over towards the delicious smells she spotted a BBQ full of cooked sausages so a minute later she returned with 4 sausages in bread, and they were, you guessed it, FREE. Still curious, she then wandered over to the food truck and returned with a kangaroo stew and a chicken curry, also both free. This fete was great, and we once again saw the evidence of where at least some of the extra funding goes up here. As the day was heating up, we headed back to camp and enjoyed a relaxed afternoon by the pool, watching the kids have fun while we enjoyed a conversation together that went more than one minute without interruption. The man and his guitar returned again that afternoon so we sat by the lake enjoying the tunes for a second time while Em danced up another storm, although this time alone.

Saturday was market day so we headed in to wander through the stalls. As usual there wasn’t much that we wanted to buy, but it killed a few hours nicely. We treated ourselves to a coffee, and the kids ended up finding bouncy balls connected to a string that you could attach to your wrist so they had great fun playing with those while watching the local kids on at the adjoining skate park. We drove up to a lookout on the way home which offered a view over the town, and stopped in at an aboriginal art gallery, but the heat was getting to us all so we headed back to camp for a swim. The kids made friends with a bunch of other kids in the pool and they all played tip for hours before we headed back to camp for dinner and bed.

I had another appointment at the hospital on Sunday afternoon, and had been told there would need to be a final one the following Wednesday at which time we should be given the all clear to get going. We had decided to head up to El Questro the next morning, which was the first stop on the Gibb and only 100km away, and I would then drive back on Wednesday morning to Kununurra to go to my (hopefully) final appointment which would give us the all clear to continue along the Gibb. Oli and I spent the morning playing with his Ollie Robot Racer, writing programs using an iPhone app which allow you to control him, change colours, talk and make sounds and can get pretty advanced. We had great fun coming up with challenges to make Ollie do, and then trying to work out how to write the programs to make him do what we wanted. Although we didn’t always get it right, we were pretty impressed with how much we could get him to do. I left everyone after lunch and headed back to hospital, a drive that was becoming way too familiar, and after a short wait was seen by the nurses in emergency. They were very impressed at how the wound was looking, and the doctor even swung by to confirm that things were looking great and that I wouldn’t need to come back again. I could even get it wet now, as long as it was water that I would be happy to drink. I raced home, excited to share the good news with the family. Although we had planned to leave the next morning anyway, we had factored in that I would return on Wednesday and could pick up a few supplies at that point, so we headed into town that afternoon to pick up the last few things we would need for the Gibb now that I wouldn’t be returning. The kids enjoyed one more swim in the pool that afternoon, and after a week of showering with Glad Wrap around my leg and trying to keep it out of the water, I enjoyed my first normal, Glad Wrap free shower in a week.

On our final morning in Kununurra, Kat headed into town to buy the last few things that we couldn’t get the day before as many shops weren’t open on a Sunday. I slowly packed up the trailer, and by the time we had packed everything up and gotten ready to go it was almost 11am. One thing we hadn’t planned very well was alcohol. We had a few cans of beer left, but no wine, and we were about to head off on a 20 day trip down the Gibb, with almost no shops, and very expensive alcohol in the few places that did serve it. We had discovered this problem the day before, but being a Sunday, there was nowhere open that sold alcohol. The other issue was that the bottle shop didn’t open until midday every day. We had accepted that we would just cope, but now that there was only an hour until midday, we decided to hang around at a local cafe and treated ourselves to some iced coffees, while Em ordered mango ice cream in a cone, and Oli got a mango smoothie. We all agreed it was a great idea and cooled us down before heading to the car. We grabbed a few bottles of wine, wrapped them up in towels and after 10 days, were finally on our way to the Gibb.

Views of the lake from the campground