This is Rio Tinto country!

Forgot to show you this photo last time. This was taken on the long, long journey from Katherine to Broome. This is a boab (boabab) tree, and you can see how it dwarfs our car and van. It was huge, and in flower, just so amazing to see in this wilderness. The landscape between Katherine and Broome was so much like we imagined the landscape in Africa to be (it's called the Savannah Way for good reasons). There were times we would not have been surprised if a giraffe had appeared, or a pride of lions! This is the only place the boab trees grow.

And Broome - well, we loved it. The above picture is of part of the Japanese cemetery, where hundreds of Japanese pearl divers are buried. The main industry of Broome is pearls, and there are lots of shops where you could spend a fortune. We really liked the feel of Broome, very laid back, no-one moves too fast! We got used to "Broome time", very quickly. Don't expect things too fast and you won't be disappointed. And Cable Beach, just stunning. We saw all these 4WDs on the beach, and someone looked longingly at them, so you can imagine the smile on his face when a bloke driving up from the beach said "no problems mate, you can drive down there in the Falcon". So that was that! Guess what we did every day.

In the photo below you can just see the camels getting ready to take people on camel rides along the beach at sunset.

And the Cable Beach sunsets - yes they are as good as you've heard.

We went to the outdoor picture theatre. So different to sit in deck chairs and watch the movie,. particularly when the planes flew overhead! The theatre sits right under the flight path.

After ten days (and the fridge breaking down, lucky it works on gas as well!), we dragged ourselves away from Broome and headed for Port Hedland, Rio Tinto country. Port Hedland, Dampier and Karratha were all purpose built by the mines. Port Hedland we found very ordinary, you would only be here for the work! But interesting to see how people live and what they do.

Pinch of salt on your dinner sir? Massive salt works, just outside Port Hedland.

And this is where the money is - iron ore, heading to the docks at Dampier. About twenty years ago Woodside Petroleum went searching for oil off the coast of Dampier (the North-west Shelf), didn't find oil, but did find natural gas. It is pumped ashore to the refinery below, where it is turned into liquified natural gas, stored in massive tanks, then shipped to Japan. The monument below was built to honour the men killed during the building of the refinery. It is huge, and set to get bigger. We spent a fascinating hour at the information centre, talking to a girl from Melbourne who works there, there are heaps and heaps of Victorians on this side of Australia!

This is just one part of the refinery. The domes are where the liquified natural gas is stored.

And so we drive on......and on......and on.......the distances between towns are HUGE! We get up nice and early in the morning, try to be on the road by 4.30am (watch out for kangaroos and cattle!) Now you know you're in the wilds of Australia when the sign on the roadside says "emergency airstrip for Royal Flying Doctor Service"!

Yep, we just drove over the airstrip!

At Exmouth this mother emu and her chick were just wandering around the town. We had never seen so many emus, lizards, feral cats - this is a wildlife paradise!

And then to Coral Bay; just glorious! And there she is snorkelling again. So much fun. Warren managed to talk me into going out on quad bikes to snorkel at Oyster Cove, yes I nearly needed clean undies! I hadn't been on a motorbike since I was 18 (a very, very long time ago!). But once I got over my apprehension it was great fun, even though I was very relieved once we got back to the van in one piece.

Just one part of Coral Bay, it's absolutely beautiful. The water is the most stunning torquoise colour., and you can just walk out into the water, and where you can see the darker colour, that's coral. Whack on the snorkel and flippers and go snorkelling! We had a lovely few days here.And so we headed on down the coast to Carnarvon (next blog), Monkey Mia, and Geraldton where we are now. The sign below says it all (and it's lucky you can still read it, considering the amount of graffiti and stickers covering it.)

At this point I'll say happy holidays to all my CRC Sydenham pals - have a great Christmas and New Year people! Enjoy the Christmas break. To everyone else, we'll ge another blog in before Christmas. See you then ...........................

KAKADU'S BETTER THAN KATHERINE!

Following on from my "signs you don't see in Victoria" collection! I think the one above is very good advice, ha ha.

Mmmm.....horses, better watch out for them! And they were around, that's for sure, as you can see from the photo below. One had to drive past them very slowly, in case they got spooked. The stallions are really flighty, and so protective of their harem!

You remember the first crocodile sign....."danger, crocodiles COULD be in these waters". Well, how about this one, leaving no doubt at all. Very large crocodiles inhabit these waters, and believe me folks, they do!

We had a wonderful time at Kakadu, what a great part of Australia. The area of Ubirr is famous for its Aboriginal rock art, it is pretty amazing to be looking at something that someone painted at least ten thousand years ago.

A drawing of a thylacine, proving that these animals did indeed inhabit australia thousands of years ago ...............

Some of the artwork is just stunning, a visual insight into the lives of Aboriginal people many, many years ago. For many of them life is no longer busy and fruitful, providing for the tribe and their family - they have slipped into a circle of welfare dependency and it is appalling to drive around these parts and see how this has affected so many of them. Anyway, enough of that! This is not the appropriate place to dwell on such political issues.

Wind and rain have done a great job of eroding many of the rock formations around Kakadu, leaving monoliths such as the above and below - just paradise for picture takers!

Kakadu is so lush and tropical, despite the fact that the wet is so late this year (luckily for us). It is just vast, and the birdlife is amazing, as indeed is the birdlife in the whole of the Territory. There are birds up here I have never seen before, and the parrots and lorikeets are stunning.

And did I mention crocodiles - we went on the Yellow River cruise. The poor guide lady was trying to point out all the different birds, but of course all the people on the cruise wanted to see (really) was CROCODILES! We followed this fulla for ages, just moseying on down the river, checking his terrain. I kept my arms and legs safely inside the boat!!!

And here he is, Mr Jabiru, the symbol of the Northern Territory. Quite unperturbed by the danger lurking by. Peripheral vision is a wonderful thing!!!

More crocodiles, laughing at us no doubt!The scenery as the sun started to set was breathtaking - we took so many photos, and it's always hard to choose the best, so here are just two.

As they say, you'll never never know, if you never never go, so we've been, and now we do know! It's beautiful.

From Kakadu we headed back to Katherine for a couple more weeks in the mango sheds, then set off for Western Australia, which is where we are now. We did a cruise of the Katherine Gorge, so that will be the next lot of photos on the blog, then we will be up to date. Broome is great, we are having a lovely time. We can actually drive down onto Cable Beach in the car, someone had a big grin on his face once he was told he could do that by the ranger! So that's what we do at least once a day - drive onto the beach, park the car, and hit the surf! Life is good!

The far, far north .......

When you go to a fish feeding show in Darwin, you get to hand feed the fish! Great fun and very safe! However, when you go to a Crocodile farm in Darwin, THIS is how the feed the crocodiles ........

I would not like this to be the last thing I get to see!

We had to keep telling ourselves that this was a crocodile farm, not Australia Zoo. They breed crocodiles here for their skins and meat, so it's not pretty and sanitized like Australia Zoo ...there are crocodiles, crocodiles and more crocodiles ..........fancy jumping in the middle of this??????

We really liked Darwin. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that we had been landlocked in katherine in the mango sheds for around a month! It was so nice just to stroll the streets, shop at Mindle markets, go to a decent shopping centre! Swim in a swimming pool, relax, all those wonderful touristy type things. We enjoyed the World War II history of Darwin and the displays at the Museum were fascinating. Warren had been in Darwin for a year and left the night before Cyclone Tracey hit, so it was an interesting time for him, trying to find familiar landmarks after more than 35 years and realising that most of them had probably been blown away.

Darwin's port was really interesting ..................we left when the sky turned THIS colour!

Yep, "the Wet" is well and truly on the way!

Ever seen an oil rig high and dry? we hadn't - it was enormous. the photo below does not do it justice, we would have been fascinated to see them actually towing it out to sea again. It was in port for repairs.

Down the road from Darwin is Litchfield National Park - an amazing area which we really enjoyed visiting. We swam at Wangi Falls - yes, my husband and I paddled across that vast expanse of water to swim under the falls, I was happy there were lots of other people around, so the crocodiles would have a choice of who they would eat first. We both used the grand-kid's noodles - we could have sold them! We carted them from Melbourne to here, just for this one day, and it was really worthwhile, as we were able to stay under the falls for as long as we liked without getting knackered, while others swam across and were too tired to stay for long! So many people commented that they were a great idea! There was a sign there explaining how they monitor the crocodiles and remove any saltwater ones - Warren steered me past this sign very quickly. I must admit I was happy to reach dry land once more, and was a bit nervous each time I saw bubbles coming up from below, but the swim under the falls was so worth it! Just feeling the force of that water pouring down on top of us was something I will remember forever.

The sign says it all!

We had a lovely time at Buley Waterhole - no crocs here!

We thought we'd seen big termite mounds until we got here - these are just massive! Here I am doing my tourist act! This is a cathedral termite mound.And these are magnetic termite mounds - (built by magnetic termites). The build them to face north-south - it looks like a cemetery full of headstones. The Territory sure is a very different part of Australia!

Yes I know it's ages since we did the blog, and we were going to do it while we were doing the second lot of mango packing (remember the photo of the outside washing machine?) Well, 30 ks out of Katherine the internet coverage was not good, so we just could not upload photos. We are now in Broome ( a bloody long way from Melbourne!!!), and coverage is great again. So here we are, and we will do another update next week, with our photos from Kakadu and Katherine Gorge. This area is a photographer's delight!

It takes two to mango .........

Well we have now been away 6 months - 6 months to go! Where has the time gone? Haven't done the blog for a while because we have been working! No rest for the wicked. We have now been working for Manbulloo mangoes, about 15 ks out of Katherine, for two weeks, with about three weeks work to go. Well, we wanted to do something that would take us out of our comfort zone, and this certainly has! very very different from what we were doing 6 months ago. the hardest part is standing all day - my legs have stopped aching, luckily, but my feet still get pretty sore by the end of the day. The work isn't hard, just tedious - and HOT! oh my god, i cannot believe you can sweat so much. yes, i know 'women merely glow', but i'm afraid 'glowing' disappeared on the first day!!! we drink lots and lots of water each day - I've never drunk so much water in my life! We had some fun the first week, with four different people telling us how to grade the mangoes. (warren and I and two other girls are the graders and sorters.) Each of these four people had their own idea of how the mangoes should be graded, so you would just get used to how one person wanted it done, them someone else would come along and say - no, you should be doing it this way! grrrrrr.......plus it was stressful, just when you thought you had it right, you were told you didn't - the four of us were getting pretty shirty I can tell you! however, we finally have one guy who has come in and he is the head honcho - we only have ONE person telling us what to do, not so confusing! though he stills changes his mind on a daily basis. we now just find it all very amusing! Going to the toilet is interesting, you have to make sure the seats are left down, or else the frogs (hotly pursued by the snakes) get in. the first time i lifted up the toilet seat and there was a frog looking at me, i just squealed and shut the toilet lid quick smart!
haven't seen a snake yet but there was one outside the packing shed the other day, so I wouldn't have gone to the toilet even if i was busting! such a different life to the one I used to have, ha ha! we start most days at 12.00 or so, then work until 7.30 at night. We sleep very well, and have the air conditioner on all night. it doesn't drop much below 30 degrees or so .....

so now for the photos ..........first one is our canteen! Yep, this is where we have smoko - never complain about your tea room again! at least it's open air! behind you can see the mango trees. they have, wait for it .......48,000 trees. can you imagine it.

We made the newspaper! I am signing autographs whenever you're ready, ha ha!

There are about forty of us staying at the same caravan park - the pickers start early in the monring, i cannot imagine picking mangoes in this heat, but they do it. the money is apparently very good, it would want to be! We packing and sorting people are an interesting bunch - we are the oldies, of course - there are a couple of aussie girls who are travelling around australia, and also about 12 - 14 Korean and Taiwanese - they are great, very hard workers, never complain. Their spoken english isn't very good, but their written english is great. One of them explained to me that at school they read and write english, but of course never get the chance to actually speak it, hence the poor standard of their spoken english. Add the fact that (a) we speak so fast, and (b) use so much slang etc, and it makes it doubly hard for them to converse with us.

Here we are waiting for the bus ......................... (under the tree of course, the only cooler place!) It's 11.15am, around 37 degrees by this time.

And here's the bus!

Outside the packing shed - and another load of mangoes goes off to Woollies - if you buy a mango with a Manbulloo sticker on it this summer, I can guarantee you that Warren and I have seen it - we grade and sort 75 bins of fruit each day, thousands and thousands of 'em.

Inside the packing shed -- the packers work along this row.

And the boxes - I have never seen so many in my life, this is just one small stack! We pack for export (the good stuff), the local market (the second best stuff) and for bulk - the crap stuff.

This is where the fruit is washed - it's tipped it down the far end, comes through the wash, is dried, then tumbles out ................................

of this machine - you can just see the mangoes peeping out. And then falls on to the "table" below ......................this is the sorting table - every piece of fruit comes across this. We have started a 'family' of distorted fruit - you can imagine what some of them look like! The things you do to keep yourselves from going nuts!

So although there are days that we look at ourselves and wonder what on earth we are doing here, it's been an amazing experience. Good to do something very, very different - (good for the figure too!)

Gotta fly, it's just about time to start, lots of love to all.! x x x x