It's amazing how much we squeezed into our short holiday to Broome and the gorgeous Kimberley region in northern Western Australia.
On our first day in Broome, while the other adults were stuck either at work or getting the cars and supplies ready for our big Kimberley camping trip, I was the lucky one who got to take Elliot and Oliver and my handsome nephews Vincent and Dominic to glorious Cable Beach for a fantastic morning full of sand castles and boogie boarding and frozen yogurt. It was pretty awesome.
The rest of the day was a bit more frantic as we shopped for rations, packed and fueled up the vehicles, and got ourselves ready for three glorious night in the Kimberley.
And then we were up (way before the sun) and on the road headed for a pretty remote and very stunning part of Australia. But you don't get to pristine remote places without a lot of driving, and in this case, a good part of our road to paradise was dusty and pretty heavily corrugated. It was also full of a lot of potty stops because Ollie was going through a phase when he thought he had to do a wee like every eight minutes!
But we also had some fun stops exploring dryish river beds and looking for crocs.
And finally we made it to our destination, the Charnley River Station, a working cattle station and campground 563 kilometres from Broome (300 of which on the famous Gibb River Road). And it was heaven to kick back (once camp was set up) playing cards, and watching the boys play footy or huddle around the ipads.
The next day was full of beauty and adventure as we explored the amazing gorges and swimming holes on the station. We saw dingoes and baby bats but thankfully no crocs or snakes; I had my eye out for those. I was also very grateful that we managed to keep everyone from falling off cliffs, no easy feat when Elliot and Oliver were trying to keep up with their older cousins!
The next morning we broke up camp and after a roadhouse stop to fill up on petrol, we set off to explore yet more gorgeous gorges and stunning swimming holes and even some spectacular aboriginal rock art.
Then we were back on the road headed to the Windjana Gorge campground on the way back to Broome.
Susan, Rich and the boys headed back to Broome first thing, but we Thomases had a bit more exploring to do before heading back. Windjana Gorge is a gorge cut through what was once Devonian era coral reef which is now a smallish range well above sea-level. It was such a worthwhile stop and not just because it was stunning, with heaps of crocs for the boys to marvel at, but mostly because it's possible to see some pretty spectacular fossils in the limestone cliffs.
And then we were off for Tunnel Creek which is a tunnel made all the way through another once-coral-reef-now-small-mountain-range by a creek. We donned our head torches and waded through the full length of the tunnel and it was just awesome. Along the way, I told the boys the story of Jandamarra, an aboriginal bush ranger who had led a guerrilla war against the police and European settlers using Tunnel Creek as his hideout for three years before finally being found and shot dead there. (I made it kid-friendly of course. We also kept it to ourselves that there was at least one crocodile in the creek with us.) And Paul and I were once again so proud of the bravery of our two little adventurers. Ollie wasn't so sure about wading through the water in the dark at first, but after Paul carried him through some of the deepest bits he began to relax a bit. Elliot was keen the whole way and only admitted after we left the cave that it was actually kinda scary. I had to admit that I felt the same way too, but darnit I wouldn't have missed exploring that amazing cave for anything.
And then after a quick lunch of whatever bits and bobs of food were left over from camping, we zoomed back to Broome to unload the car and make it to the beach just in time for this beautiful view. I celebrated the end to a pretty perfect birthday sipping cocktails and watching the boys happily run around on the beach. Bliss!
