Broome Broome

 

Well it seems I’m back to starting my blogs with the weather report. We’re in sunny Broome and it’s PISSING down – seriously.

 

I last left you in Denham and 35 degrees. From there we moseyed over to Wooramel Station and shady camping by the (dry) river bed. Wooramel is known for its natural hot tubs full of good stuff (allegedly). Call me a sook if you will, but the idea of sitting in hot tub of bore water in 36 degrees just didn’t appeal.

 

Wooramel Station

The sign on the rustic ablutions indicated that there was hot water available from 4 pm-8pm. Deciding I didn’t need a hot shower, I went over at 3.30pm and am extremely lucky that I didn’t sustain 3^rd degrees burns, the water was SCALDING. Can’t imagine what it would be like if they turned the hot water on…

 

As our priority was for shade, we decided to head straight to Point Samson – almost 500kms away. Of course that was the day that the aircon packed in – and it was 36 degrees.

 

A cold beer and a swim was a life saver.

 

Camping at Point Samson

 

 

 

From there, it was 2 days at 80 mile beach, a lovely campsite and a great beach for low-tide walking. Early one evening a couple pulled just by us and starting to unpack. The guy came over to ask if we were happy for him to park his car in a certain place, and would you believe it - they were old friends of Lawrence’s from NZ. We had a great catch up and will hopefully see them in Broome, if not then next year in Margaret River. On the other side was someone who recognised Lawrence from his Cheers tours in Margs. Small, small world.

 

80 mile beach

Onto Barn Hill station and that lovely beach. This is a great spot about 150km south of Broome. You can even get a good pizza.

 

Barn Hill Station

Our first day in Broome was spent shopping. Replacing the terrible (and expensive) outdoor gas cooktop with a smaller, simpler version. Replacing the inline water filter that Lawrence left in Pt Samson and various other things that have broken down or no longer fit for purpose. After spending a King's ransom on Boris before we left, we can't believe how tmuch there is still is to replace. 

 

Our first night in Broome was spent listening to Steve Pigram, eating great food, drinking good wine at the Golf Club with my old friend Sandie, complete with the best views in town.

 

Sunset from the Broome Golf Club

Saturday morning was spent at the Urgent Care Clinic to get 6 stitches in Lawrence’s big toe after the bread knife fell off the bench and onto his toe. Ouch.

 

Sunday was the obligatory lunch at The Mangrove, still my fave place in Broome, despite the cloud cover.

 

Lunch at The Mangrove with my friend of 50 years!

So Monday morning sees us awake at 3.30 with water dripping on us from the skylight – oh dear another leak. As Boris was booked in to have the aircon fixed, we asked the guys to silicon the 3 roof lights and we’ll pray that it can withstand Kimberely rain. 

Update: It's now several days later and no, the bloody thing leaked again so more silicone was rapidly applied to the inside. Much cursing ensued and we hit the brandy. I hadn't posted this blog coz the signal wasn't strong enough and it was too wet to put out the Starlink. We had 120mls of rain.

We're now at a Station called Larrawa and Starlink is working well. Thank goodness as Lawrence left his phone at a rest stop and we used Starlink and 'Find My Phone' to track it down in Fitzroy. Luckily a lovely South Australian couple had picked it up and delivered to us in Fitzroy Crossing. God bless the kindness of strangers.

Next stop is Kununurra. We've decided to skip Purnululu as the rain has made road worse and it just seems like too much effort. UPDATE - road is CLOSED. HEY HO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On The Road Again…

 

Well after a bit of a hiatus, we are on the road and blogging again. We had a very bumpy start with quite a few dramas, some major, mostly small annoying ones. I won’t bore you with all the details, except to say we are several thousand dollars poorer, but at least we have new, dry mattress.

 

Our first stop was just north Bunbury, a big 125 kms from home. We hadn’t planned to go far, as we needed to get the house up to scratch for our renter. Next stop was Lancelin, once again not as far as planned as we needed to do more running repairs on bloody Boris. Just a vacuum hose, but crucial to progress.

 

Next stop Wooleen Station, so it really felt like we were getting somewhere. Wooleen is well known for its regenerative farming practices and informative station stay. Only spent a couple of nights here and headed for the coast – Denham in Shark Bay.

 

 

 

It’s unseasonably hot, and as we are camped a 2 minute walk from the beach, we decided to stay for 5 days and get ourselves sorted a bit. We had a bit of last minute rush before we left, so I didn’t feel my usual organised self.

 

 

 

 

We’ve changed plans a bit because of this unrelenting heat, and are simply looking for shade – priorities! Next stop Wooramel Station. I’m not sure how much use I’ll make of the ‘naturally heated therapeutic artesian bore baths’. A hot bath is way down the bottom of my list at the moment. A cold beer more likely.

 

Our latest addition to Boris is a pair electric bikes. It’s cost more to attach them to vehicle than the actual bikes – hey ho. But you should see me fly up hills!! I’m a hopeless cyclist so am loving these. I almost look like a I know what I’m doing.

 

Just back from a life-saving swim. The water is divine, crystal clear and cool. Even Lawrence is swimming everyday (well dipping). Being raised in Glasgow, the beach wasn’t really part of his life. He’s no beach babe.

 

We’re having dinner out tonight at The Pearler – the only booking we could get was 5pm, so we are treating it as Spanish lunch.

New blog

Hi there - if anyone is still looking at this blog, you might like to know that I have started a new one.

This is for our travels in Australia, starting with the Canning Stock Route, a remote 1800km trek through Western Australia.

Check out www.slowcamperoz.com

We're ba-ack...

Hello Stranger. If anyone is still reading my blog, you'll have noticed that we disappeared in Vladivostok. I was locked out by Google and Lawrence has just finally worked out to get back in - bless him.

We spent 2 wonderful weeks in Korea before getting Boris shipped to New Zealand. I may post a short piece on that trip.

I'm starting a new blog called Slow Camper Oz which will follow our travels in Australia - starting hopefully with the Canning Stock Route.

www.slowcamperoz.com

Glad to be in Vlad

Well, we’ve done it. We have arrived more-or-less intact at our destination of Vladivostok- 27,000 kilometres and 7 months (and 4300 litres of diesel) after leaving Spain.

I have to admit in the last couple of weeks, it was more about the destination than the journey. We just wanted to get there, dammit.

It was great to see the ocean again – we haven’t seen the Pacific for 4 years.

Since my last post, we been driving, driving, driving. Jeez Russia is big. 17m square kilometres as opposed to Australia’s 7m sq km. Siberia seems to go on forever, as does Far East Russia.

It’s all quite lovely with forests and fields and hills, just endless and a bit monotonous.

We spent 2 nights in Blagoveshchensk and got our battery problem sorted. 2 new marine-grade deep cycle batteries at less than the cost of the original, so we now have double the power – yippee, more chilled wine. Still not sure what happened to the other one.

This city is right on the Chinese border, so you can wave to the Chinese but not fraternise. There’s no way across the river unless you swim and probably risk getting shot. The water didn’t look that inviting.

Waving to the Chinese

Next stop Khabarovsk after 3 nights wild camping with the Siberian mosquitos and other large flying critters. We loved this city with San Francisco style streets, great restaurants and lovely river frontage. We got really good coffee – the first in a very long time.

The staff at the hotel were fascinated with Boris and we had to keep giving tours!

Khabarovsk

The next 3 nights were spent wild camping. It’s quite difficult to find good spots. It’s hard to get off the road and because a lot of the Trans-Siberian Highway hugs the Chinese border, there are restrictions as to where you can actually stop. One night we thought we’d hit the jackpot – away from the Trans-Siberian railway (which is really busy) away from the road and away from the border, we thought.

At 2am we had a knock on the door – that gives one a fright! It was the bloody army wanting to know what we were doing there. Smuggling a small Chinese family perhaps?? It was all sorted quickly but not much sleep was had after that.

Our last night camping was also our wedding anniversary. I had visions of a beautiful camping spot and cooking our last tin of Confit de Canard. However as always these things never quite work out. It was pissing rain and our spot was not glamorous. We had some delicious bubbly bought in Georgia and a tin of cassoulet. Oh well.

Instead we had celebratory lunch on Sunday with a glass or two of Prosecco as an aperitivo.

I think we have a lot to celebrate.

Today Boris had to go to the docks in readiness for our ferry to South Korea on Wednesday. 2 days at the docks has something to do with Russian customs paranoia and chance to get more money out of us.

We’re staying at Vlad Motor Inn which is brilliant. Styled on a North American motel, it has a kitchen, laundry, plenty of space and good bar/restaurant. The other night I cooked an awesome speck and red wine risotto. Yum. It's a bit out of town but there's train and taxi is about 600 roubles.

 

Beach (?) at Vladivostok

Vlad main square

Tips for Travellers

As most travellers heading to Vlad will tell you, Yuri and Svetlana at Links Ltd are brilliant. They have organised our ferry to South Korea and this morning Svetlana took us to the ferry terminal to organise our tickets, customs etc. Very efficient, it took about 2 hours.

Be prepared to shell out money left and right

• 800 USD for the vehicle
• 600 USD for 2 people in a junior suite (you can go a bit cheaper if you are prepared to share a 4 berth cabin) Must be paid in roubles or by credit card.
• 2500 roubles for a cargo loading fee. Payable when you deliver the vehicle 48 hours ahead of ferry departure.
• 560 roubles per person for the privilege of walking on board (on top of ticket prices)
• South Korean compulsory vehicle insurance and guarantee cost us around 370 US.

They also liaise with Wendy Choi in South Korea regarding shipping and air freighting from there.

If you would like any more info/details on our journey, please feel free to email us at boris@slowcamper.com

Boris in prison at Vlad customs