Broome to Darwin

My first thought about Broome was that I was going to die - the place was sooooo hot. The humidity was unbelievable, so we spent most of our time seeking out places with aircon. Although this was fairly limited as Broome is very small, at the top end of Western Australia and pretty much ignored by Australians like everywhere else on the West Coast!! Although we were lucky as this place did have at least 2 roads of shops!! Despite this we did enjoy our time there. My highlight was going camel riding on Cable Beach at sunset. It was a great experience, regardless of the fact that when the camel stood up (2 people sit on the camel and I sat at the back) I head-butted poor Marisa as I hadn't 'braced' myself enough!! If she hadn't been there then there is no doubt about it - I would have gone flying over the top - so thank you very much Marisa for saving me that embarrasement!! Although me head-butting Marisa was enough for everyone else to chuckle about it for the hour long ride!! But at least getting off the animal was a lot easier (despite it being pitch black and you weren't sure where you were landing - luckily we avoided the camel poo!!). Other than that we just relaxed in Broome. We went to the outdoor cinema which was cool, although the mosquitoes come out in force despite you emptying half a cannister of insect repellent on yourself - I swear that the repellent actually attracts them!! Anyway, watching a movie under the stars was great.
After Broome I was heading to Darwin. I was getting there by plane which all seemed rather straight forward to me. Although, unknown to me when I was booking it, my flight actually had a stop over half way at a tiny place called Kununnura. Kelly was also flying to Darwin on the same day as me, leaving 2 hours after me, but getting there about 40 mins after me (her flight was direct and only 1.5 hours compared to my 3.5 hours - I'm not bitter!!). Anyway, I make my way to the airport, and walk up to the check-in desk. I place my bag onto the weighing machine - and from here on my problems just kept coming thick and fast!! My bag was apparently over-weight - no surprise there really, I have travelled all around the world and never once has it been under the required weight, but I have never had a problem about that as every other carrier has let me get on with no extra charge. But guess what - not this time!! It turns out that as this is a small plane the weight limit is 13kg (not the usual 20kg). So the lady makes me remove 9kg from my bag (it was 22kg). So after putting the bag a further 4 times on the weigh machine she finally lets me get away with 13.5kg (wahay!!). Now what I was supposed to do was put the 8.5kg into zip up plastic bags which would go on standby and maybe not get to Darwin for several days - great!! Well I wasn't going to do that (they had already pissed me off enough). So I got one of my spare bags and filled it up as much as I could and only ended up putting about 4kg into a plastic bag to go on standby. I might also add that you were also only allowed to take one piece of cabin luggage at 4kg. I had 2 - one was 4.5kg and the other was 8kg!! So eventually we were allowed to board this tiny plane. Also at check-in they wanted to put me in the emergency seat (i have had experiences of these seats before and know that on quite a few planes the seat doesn't recline). So I asked to change to a window seat and she assured me that the rest of the seats do recline. Well I got onto the plane to discover she had put me at the very back, where if you perched at the edge of your seat and leant forward you could just about see out the window and the seat did not recline!! Anyway, I managed to get away with my two bags and I was getting some luck as my standby luggage had also got on the plane. So we took off and the flight was no problem. We landed in Kununnura and had to disembark for 30 mins before we would be loaded on again and then fly off to Darwin. 30 mins went by and still nothing happened. A further 15 minutes when finally they announced that on landing the plane had hit a bird and they were worried about one of the engines, but no need to worry we would be going in 15 mins! 15 mins later - 'Actually there will be a bit more of a delay. We are now flying an engineer from Darwin to have a look at the engine - that will be another 1.5 hours!' 'Err, actually we now have to get another plane to fly down from Darwin as the problem with your plane cannot be fixed in time!' Well this was just great!! I will also point out that Kununnura airport has to be one of the smallest airports every. There were not shops, in fact pretty much nothing except a little kiosk thing where you could by crips, soft drinks and chocolate!! So I was pretty pissed off by all this and I figured I had a few hours to kill, so I went up to the manager and said 'since you guys made me unpack all my stuff and put it into 3 separte bags and since all that stuff is technically on the plane, can I please have my bags back so that I can put it all back into one?' Well he couldn't really argue with me, so he went off and found my bags and I spent 45 mins repacking the bl**dy thing (at least I wasted time!!) So much for their 'we cannot have any bag weighing over 13kg'!
Anyway, after spending a 'glorious' 4 hours at Kununnura airport, we finally got our new plane and were allowed to go - yeah!! But first we had to go through security (I think this was my fault as I had taken my bag off the plane, repacked it and I think they were checking that I hadn't removed anything sharp or dangerous!! So sorry everyone on that flight for making you go through this!!) Anyway... Once again this did not prove an easy task. I have been through countless security checks and never once during my travels have I been pulled up. But guess what, I was this time. It turned out they were suspisious of the coins in my hand luggage. I am carrying a lot of spare change from all the countries I have visited and have yet to get rid of them. So once we found the source of the 'potentially dangerous object' - I was allowed to pass though. Eventually we borded the plane and took off. Once again the flight was pretty boring and we eventually landed in Darwin at 10.10pm (I was supposed to arrive at 6.10pm!!). Well during this time when I was having a laugh - Kelly caught her flight 2 hours after me and arrived 3 hours before me. She had sussed out the town, and most importantly found the bars!! I got into the city centre, checked-in to the hostel, dumped everything and headed straight for the nearest bar. But as I was so knackered, we only managed 2 drinks before we headed back to bed. I'd also like to point out that Kelly's bag also weighed 22kg, but her carrier did not make her unpack it, she had no problems what so ever. So my advise to any of you who are thinking about travelling in Western Australia is to never ever ever ever fly with AirNorth - they are terrible and apparently they have problems all the time. Sky West is a lot better!!
After all this hassel, it turns that Darwin isn't that exciting anyway - oh well!! Kelly and I visited Litchfield Park where we saw massive termite mounds, swum in some lakes and also saw jumping crocodiles (the dangerous kind) which was actually pretty cool. I also ate some crocodile which tastes like overcooked chicken (or apparently KFC, but I've never eaten there!!) Tomorrow we are heading off on a 7-day camping trip to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock - wish us luck!!

Photos

Well I have posted a bunch of photos so I hope you all appreciate that!! There is also a huge post of me waffling on about what I have done for the last couple of weeks below all the photos - sorry if it bores you to death!! Also a tip for everyone, don't bother going to watch Spiderman 3 - it has to be the worst movie ever, I can't believe it has broken all box office records! Save yourself the money and go to the pub instead!

The dolphins at Monkey Mia

Me at Monkey Mia

The snake I killed - impressive or what!!

Me riding Woody

Karijini National Park

Kelly and Me on the boat looking for Whale Sharks

Me at Karijini National Park

The Whale Shark!!

A lion fish I saw when diving - very cool!!

Well hello Mr Angle Fish

The turtle we saw at Coral Bay

Coral Bay to Broome

Well I left Monkey Mia and we drove all day to Coral Bay. I met two girls on the bus - Marisa and Kelly, who have been unsuccessful in ditching me for the last couple of weeks. (For those of you who remember me - especially my 5.30pm university hyper hour - then you will understand when Marisa says that she has 'never met anyone more hyper and nutsoid than herself' (nutsoid is her own word btw!)) Anyway, we arrived just in time for a pizza dinner and a few beers. The problem with the west coast is that it is a lot quieter than the east coast and far fewer people live here. Therefore everything closes a lot earlier. For example the only pub in town (which was actually at the resort as no separate pub existed) closed at 11pm - this was late as it was a Friday night!! Anyway, the next morning after little sleep as I was sharing a dorm with 9 other people (oh the joy of backpacking!!), we decided to spend most of the day at the beach as there was, to be honest, absolutely nothing else to do in Coral Bay!! The 'town' (although I would call it a village) consisted of one road with everything on it - a supermarket (the size of a small newsagents) which also doubled up at the post office, a dive shop, couple of restaurants and a petrol station - how exciting!! So the beach it was. We went for a snorkel as the reef was literally a few metres from the beach. We saw lots of stuff, including a turtle, sting rays, starfish, angel fish and on our second day a shovel nose shark.
So we spent 2 days at Coral Bay, snorkeling and on the beach and as there wasn't much else to do we decided to move onto Exmouth.
Exmouth was slightly bigger than Coral Bay but not by much. They have one nightclub which apparently is only open on Friday - unfortunately we missed this one day of excitement:-( On the first day there I got up very early and went diving three times and saw huge black tip reef sharks, and loads of other cool fish including lots of nemos. The second day we went on a boat to hopefully find Whale Sharks -these are the largest fish in the ocean. We started with a snorkel to make sure we could all swim, then just as we were getting out of the water, we were notified that the spotter plane had spotted a whale shark - yeahhhhhhhhh. So, our boat raced across the water - so fast that we were the first to arrive (there were 3 other boats to follow). Therefore this meant that we were the first to swim with this whale shark. Kelly, Marisa and I were in the second group (only 10 people are allowed to be in the water with the shark at any one time - we had 20 people on our boat). I have to say that I really didn't know what to expect, the skipper shouted to us, 'jump jump jump'. So we lepted into the water and followed the guide. I will never forget first laying eyes on this amazing creature. It was definitely very big - but only a baby by whale shark standards. Because, it was young, then it was interested in us as it had never encountered humans before, therefore instead of swimming off which is what they tend to do, he just kept on circling around us. In total we managed to swim with him 3 times and I got loads of cool photos, which I promise to put on the site soon. I have to say that that was definitely one of the highlights of the west coast - it was truly amazing :-)
After Exmouth, we got back on the bus and spent the next three days driving to Broome, We didn't stop much on the way as we had a lot of ground to cover, plus the scenery was pretty much the same - red dust everywhere!! The first night we stayed at a campsite in Karijini region (the outback). I have to say that it was bl**dy freezing and I had my sleeping bag and three blankets - some people only had the blankets!! On top of that, when we arrived we were assured that there was a new restaurant nearby where we could drown our sorrows,and forget about the cold, bugs and other nasty aussie creatures. Well we soon found that that was not the case! As we were in aboriginal territory, that no licence had been granted and therefore no alcohol for miles - brilliant!! So we went to bed early, wishing for morning to come round quickly!! The second day we went for a walk around the beautiful gorges, then we set off on the road again - I have to say we were getting a little frustrated with sitting around all day, but there was little we could do about that!! But to add to the excitement, our front, right tire blew while we were driving along a road in the middle of nowhere. Our driver handled it very well, especially since he had to control the trailer as well (the people I went diving with in Exmouth had lost one of their vans 2 days before, because a tire blew and the van flipped because it had a trailer). So we spent over 30 mins fixing the tire, because the company neglected to provide a jack that actually worked!! But eventually we managed to change tires and we were on our way again. Due to this setback we arrived late at the place we were spending the night - Paradoo Station (a station in Australia is a massive farm - like well over a thousand plus acres!). We spent less than 12 hours here, so nothing exciting happened. We got up early, and started our last day of driving to Broome - yeahhh. This was a pretty, uneventful drive. We drove through the great sandy desert which really wasn't that sandy. Apparently they had had a cyclone through the region a month or so ago which had brought a lot of rain so the area was in fact quite green!!
So this afternoon we arrived in Broome, which is actually very hot and humid, and once again I'm sharing a dorm with 9 others - yeah!!

Monkey Mia

Well after Kalbarri, I hopped back onto the Easyrider bus (my transport to Broome) and made my way to Monkey Mia, after spending a night in Denham. There is only one reason to go to Monkey Mia - and for those of you who don't know - it's for the Dolphins!! They come right up to shore to be fed three times a day by the waiting public. I was spending the night there, so I was around for at least 5 feeds. We got off the bus and were happily walking towards the beach when we say that the dolphins were already there, so we legged it over and began snapping. You stand ankle deep in the water and the dolphins are so close - I finally have photos of dolphins - yeah!!! There were also 3 babies, who were adorable and came really close. Once the feeding was over we decided to have a quick walk around the resort to see what it was like, but within 15 minutes the dolphins were back for another feed - they were obviously hungry!! So we rushed back over and this time I got to feed a dolphin called Shock a piece of fish. It was soooo cool. The dolphins proceeded to come back another 3 times that day. The next day they came in again for their feeding and this time I fed a dolphin called Puk.
After all the feeding, I was just wandering around, when I bumped into Cornelia and Ross (they were staying at the Big River Ranch in Kalbarri). Ross (who is a pilot and the one who had flown me around the islands a couple days before) had flown some other customers up to Monkey Mia and Cornelia came as well. So I spent a couple of hours with them before I had to jump back on the bus and head up the coast to Coral Bay.

Kalbarri

Hi Everyone, I have been spending the last two weeks in a little place (although it is bigger than most of the other places I have been in the last month!!) on the west coast of Australia, called Kalbarri. Here I have been working on a horse ranch called the Big River Ranch. I have been having a great time riding everyday and helping with the horses, and then having a swim in the afternoons - it has been a tough life. Luckily there haven't been too many nasty creatures around - just tons of mosquitos. Although the girl I am working with, Cornelia from Sweden started screaming at me yesterday - 'Sara, Sara - there is a snake over here - ahhhhhh'. So I walk over - not overly keen on coming face to face with this snake. I figured that with all the noise she is making that it must be at least 10 foot long!! I get there to find that it is about 7 inches long and only a baby. Anyway, as Cornelia is terrified, I go off and find a shovel and then start jabbing at it, hoping to somehow kill it. Eventually my efforts pay off and I kill the thing. It was pretty cool though - yellow and black stripes - apparently pretty deadly when fully grown!! I have to say that I feel I am becoming pretty hardcore with all this 'animal control' I am practicing!! Although, I don't think I'm ready yet if I come face to face with a fully grown snake!! I also went up in a plane today to see some of the coastline and gorges in the area which was pretty cool. Although the plane was very small and you could feel every bump - nice!
I would also at this point like to thank my family for the early morning calls I have had the last two mornings. I really appreciated being woken up so early by lots of noise and screaming - thanks!! I will get my own back!! But it was good to hear from you, despite my lack of sleep - hope you enjoyed the bank holiday weekend!!
Anyway, there isn't much else to report as all I have been doing is looking after horses. Tomorrow I head furthur up the coast to hopefully see dolphins and sharks - yeah!!