Travelling on the big yellow bus

From Exmouth to Broome...

(Travelling on the easyrider bus with 21 people from Coral Bay to Broome. It was fun, a nice group of people. I was the only one left in Broome (arrived in Sydney today), as everyone else have left to travel further up north or down south. Parting is never nice when you meet people while traveling. You are on a different mindset from back home and all on the same and you make friends. And then saying goodbye is never nice. That is one of the hard parts of travelling. You never know if you are gonna see one another again. I met Carol in Kalbarri. Carol is from Melbourne and we spend newyear together with other nice people. Lousie and Kieran are from Ireland and I met them in Denham. Ben is from Australia and he drove the big yellow bus . Aaron and Amiee are from England, Esther from Germany and we met in Kalbarri. Julie is from England, so is Joe and we met in Coral Bay).

Ningaloo reef is the baby sister of the Great Barier Reef. We snorkeled ( I am becoming an expert on that :-)) in the clear blue waters......again it was beautiful. Aaron had a close encounter with four sharks. Two of them (they were all reefsharks, so harmless they say) swam towards him and they scared the shit out of him. He made lots of movements and then they swam off. Not far from were I was snorkeling so I was soooo happy it did not happen to me.....Emu's walk in the streets of Exmouth. Funny sight. Not much else to say about Exmouth...

So just one night in Exmouth and then off into Karijini NP. Beautiful, stunning and all that. Gorges, waterfalls, natural swimmingpools (which we all jumped into to escape the heat), rocks. Yeah, I'de say Karijini rocks. Spend the night in a safaritent. Beautiful going to sleep underneath the stars and waking up with the sunset.....

Next night, cattlestaton. With a stopover at 80 mile beach....it is really that long. The cattlestations up north can be as big as 500.000 acres. This one was that big. We had a nice barbeque where Mexico met Australia. I had a fusion fajita. A fajita with Kangaroo beef. Tasty. Kangaroo tastes almost just like beef. The 12 year old son of the owner chatted up to the ladies...

Broome. Hot, humid, with aboriginal people inhabiting the streets and parks. That is where they live. The parks. In places like Derby and Fitzroy crossing alcohol is abandoned so they come to Broome. It is actually quite scary when you walk around at night. We (Louise and Kieran, an Irisch couple travelling with Easyrider as well) had a not so nice experience the other night walking around the park on our way to the Irisch pub. Some aboriginals followed us and were making intimidated remarks. A few days before a few tourist were attacked. They advise you not to walk around by yourself at night. I think that says enough. It is just so sad to see how lots of aboriginals ended up after their land was taken and alcohol was introduced into their lives. Growing up like that you do not know better. There are so many sad stories about babies being born with alcoholaddiction. Sexual abuse of babies and children is quite common and that brings tears to your eyes, to say the least.

Five tips for staying safe in Broome.

Hostelrules :-)

Did a tour in Broome upto the Dampier peninsula with Carol, Louise and Kieran. There we did some mudcrabbing and eating. Cathing crabs with an iron stick, pulling them out of their holes. Ripping of their paws in the process, throwing them on fire alive, no not for me. I said sorry to the one I caught. We drove into two aboriginal communities. The one at Beagle Bay is a mission. The stolen generation was brought to Beagle Bay. The priest, who is from Nigeria, came on the tour with us which was very nice! The abo's are in their houses, on the sea or in the bush. The priest has work on friday, saturday and sunday, but the rest of the week there is nothing to do. It seems like a hard life to me over here. 4 More months and then he will go to the Philipines. We also went to Cape Leveque, a beautiful beach! Had a lunch on the beach. The guys went into the sea wearing stingersuits, 'cos it's stingertime right now and you could die of a bite or at least it hurts so much because the poison travels through your blood you just want to die. I did not take the chance this time....a croc was spotted not so long ago into that sea and there are no crocodile suits :-). Crocs do not eat you right away, they will keep your meet to rot and then they can nibble on you. Sweet.

One night Kieran, Louise and I went to the outdoor cinema. It was built by a pearler in 1916. Very nice and especially very funny when planes fly over (low)! That's a first! Broome was a pearling industry. There still is a pearlingfarm at sea. The japanese pearlers kept aboriginal men als slaves on an island and made them dive for pearls. If they came to the surface without pearls they were smashed on the head by a stick. Nice.