Melbourne

Dear Porky,

After turbulent flight to Perth we had a smooth sailing in an airbus. As we were running late with the first section of the trip we had to run to get our connection to Melbourne. Uncle Stewie picked us up and we were welcomed by a smiling Jo wine bottles in hand. THEY had a long night and of course lots of, you no what. The next there was a lovely breakfast followed by, you no what. In the evening friends of Uncle Stewie and Auntie Joanne came for a farewell dinner for Uncle Stewie combined with a tragic football game on the flat screen tv where the Saints got flattened. In keeping with a footy event the spread included party pies, sausage rolls and spicy chicken drumsticks, beer and more beer and wine of course. Sunday lunchtime Uncle Stewie left for Broome to start his strenuous trip of prospecting with his boyfriend. SHE went to have lunch with Friedel, Pia and Tom in North Melbourne and afterwards to Friedel's place to meet Hank Solo, the new addition to the household. Hank is a cute 9 months old Staffie Corgy cross and will become a playmate for Dolly, a miniature dachshound. Mike was so kind to drive HER back to Sunshine West where a delicious homemade pizza was waiting for her. It got late again, because Pia and Tom dropped in to have a little chat before continuing to Geelong. What a lovely host Jo is and a great conversation partner , never a dull moment. Thank you to both Sunshiners. Well Porky, tomorrow we will see each other again and I can't wait that you swing tour eight arms around me and guess what, we are bringing Jeronimo with us on the plane to Tassie. He will be staying with us for a few months till Pia comes back from the bear sanctuary in Romania. So long, yours truly

Petunia

Jeronimo

 

Good to be back with you Porky

 

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Broome to Melbourne

Dear Porky,

It is not long now before we see each other again. Everything is packed, the van cleaned, the clothes washed and even I got a dusting to show off my pretty fabric. Unfortunately I am not tanning so easily. So it is bye bye Broome and hello Melbourne. It is very exciting for me to fly in an aeroplane since I have never done this before. See you very soon, your Petunia

 

My travel bag

Our caravan park

 

Time to go

Broome Airport Terminal

Happy hour at the Pistol Club, you got to join in

The Pistol Club's landmark

 

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Staircase to the Moon

Mud flats at Broome Beach

Staircase to the moon

Dear Porky,

Last night we went to the mud flats at Broome beach. At full moon and particular low tides you get the reflection of the moon rippling across the mud flats. It is awesome! We sat on a dune with wine and about 80 other oldies enjoying the spectacular view. Tomorrow more cleaning because the red super fine dust creeps into everything.... I now, SHE is a little anal. All the same it makes her feel good. Not long now, dear Porky and I'll see you again.

Cheers Petunia

 

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Lovely Lizard

Dear Porky,

Just a quick note to tell you we are well and busy cleaning up the car and Innovan ready for Uncle Stewy, be are leaving for Melbourne on Friday. Tonight we are going to watch the 'staircase to the Moon'. I will report about it later. This morning we went to watch the moon set on one side of the beach and sunrise on the other simultaneously. It was great. Today HE discovered an enormous lizard on the way to the showers at the pistol club campsite. He was drinking water from a large trash can lid. The sun is already below the yardarm, so THEY have a quiet one.

Talk soon, Petunia

Moon setting over Gantheaume Point, next to the lighthouse

Sunrise on the other side

Lovely lizard

 

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Whales

Dear Porky,

I thought I mention to you a little bit about whales. As you know they went on a whale watching excursion, but last night just before sunset we had the most spectacular display from our ' camp site' here in Quondong Point. The Humpback Whale is the fifth largest of the great whales. Adult females grow to 19m, slightly longer than adult males. An adult humpback may way up to 40 tonnes. The humpback whale is a vulnerable species, which has been protected from whaling since 1963. Since then,the eastern Australian population is estimated to have reached about 8000 animals, while the population in WA now numbers about 15000 animals. Both groups spend the summer in the Antarctic, where they are believed to live separated from each other, although some limited exchange may occur between them. It is believed that they learn from each other certain songs during their time at Antarctica and therefor have a general recognition for each other or eventually mix their different songs.

Somewhere along the song lines I am sure you can here me. Kiss Petunia

 

Our spot

 

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19.th July

Dear Porky,

It is Jeronimo's birthday today. He is 4 years old now, Pia rang us to remind us of the big event, even though she must have left a reminder on HER mobile some time ago, it rang this morning at 6:30 to tell us that it is his birthday. Just making sure I guess. HE is gone for a beach walk without flippers or goggles or spear gun, which leaves us 2 girls to chat about the trip so far. We met people of all walks of life: there was a elderly couple at South Lake Eyre taking 3 months of their farm on a yearly base, 4 people ( brother, sister and their partners) travelling from Adelaide and Melbourne. The brother fell in love with his wife when he was 12 years of age back in Ireland. His parents migrated to Australia with him, but he returned to Ireland to marry her when he was 16 with special permission and both returned to Australia. They still holding hands 43 years later. While he sounds definitely Irish is sister has the Aussie slang, she married her boss 30 years ago while she was his secretary and 25 years his junior.she says she is the luckiest girl in the world. They were off to Kununurra and later to Darwin. From there the fly out to Bali to celebrate her husband's birthday with all extended family invited. We met in Coober Pedy. At El Questro we camped a little distance away from a couple who travel around Australia jobbing here and there to finance their travels. She is Israeli and has not seen her parents in 2 years and studied viticulture and wants to settle in France because she does not particular like Israel, but wants to be a bit closer to her parents. Jerome, her partner, is Parisian and married an Australian girl, is divorced now and waits for his Australian citizenship and does not really want to go back to France. Ellenbrae Station we met a couple in their mid sixties, him an alrounder ( wool classier , caravan sales person),her mathematics and physics lecturer both retired now. He taught HIM about weight distribution when travelling on the Gibb River Road.At the same time we encountered a German family, father mother and a grown up son, little did not enjoy their travels, but did not enjoy each other. As a matter of fact we had the impression they new nothing about the other even after 25 years. What a waste of money and space, their negativity could be seen through the wind screen on arrival. Another couple we bumped in frequently over 3 stations, which is not hard on this road, is the CEO from Tassal who frequently comes to Margate for meetings and lives with his wife in Northern Victoria. They like it rough and wild and when pointed out the corrugation on the road they only grinned and said ' what corrugation?' I mentioned the single traveller with welding equipment, Hans ,the Dutch ,who loves the desert and in Broome at the Pistol Club overflow camp site a gentleman is next to us who travels Australia for years. He has a colourful past, driving race cars, met Nicki Lauda in Sicily when they were younger, ran the franchise for Villeroy and Boch at theEast coast ofAustralia. Spent a lot of time in Europe, got very wealthy, had a messy divorce, went bankrupt and now he is travelling. His children living in Mt. Isa and Brisbane and he is visiting them frequently, however after a few days of enduring grandchildren he longs for solitude again. Recently he spent time in Tassie to get his bowl cancer seen to and during the past few months he checks in at different locations for his follow ups. This is only part of our more the interesting trip. Here you find people who escape their suburban lives, but some of them to enjoy the caravan parks is an extension of exactly the same, the only difference is the way how they go about and it is much more exposed. What they all have in common is the drive for a little bit of adventure and joy of meeting people and improvise (some more than others). All in all, to travel with your partner in a confined space 24/7 can make a relationship or break it. THEY have a ball with each other and seem to have recharged their relationship. To be comfortable with yourself, being able to talk things over without distraction is one of the wonderful experience of this journey. HE likes to snorkel, collect firewood and generally be physical, HER sitting in the shade or sun continuously reading and THEY love each others company even in silence. Apropos reading, she started her 4th book: ' And the Mountains Echoed' from Khaled Hosseini who wrote the Kite Runner, before she got at the Broome newsagency Emma Donoghue's ' Room', she got absorbed in. The 2.nd book she read after 'The Border Trilogy' was ' One Day' by Nick Hornby a complete antipode to the border trilogy, all about the 80s,90's and early 2000's in London with designer labels emerging, brushed stainless steel and people wondering what to do with their lives. Room is a gut-wrenchingly compassionate novel about 5 year old Jack who lives with his Ma in a single, locked room. Highly recommended by HER.

HE is back now and brought HER a beautiful collection of shells he found at the beach, like he picked a lovely pink flower yesterday for HER to match her bathers and sarong. As you can see we are happy and I hope you are too. Big kiss from your Petunia

 

Shells for HER

 

Thank you

 

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Quondong Beach

Dear Porky,

THEY are in heaven, it seems they found the beach of their dreams. THEY are all by themselves, no water supply, no showers, no trash container. Nobody here, but should someone approach THEIR side HE shows up naked and people reverse immediately. We are safe!!!! I hope THEY don't want to watch another sunset. Someone gave them a lot of sandalwood to burn, so they will have steak and salad. tHEY don't even feel guilty with 5:2 diet, sad really. OK porky see what the next few days will bring. to me THEY are almost silly. Talk soon. Petunia

 

 

 

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Barn Hill Station

Dear Poky,

We are now at Barn Hill Station 120km South of Broome. What an unspoiled beach. THEY went without me to watch the sunset yet again, THEY don't seem to get enough of them. This time even chairs, table, food, wine and citronella candles went with them to the cliff. Serves HER right to be covered in mozzie bites and sandfly wee. SHE is itchy all over. I could have told HER that before. Any way they had a special time out there and stayed there well into the darkness. We will be returning to Broome after 2 nights here and possibly explore the beaches north of Broome because we are all Gorged out.

 

 

All my love, Petunia

 

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Me in the cinema

 

 

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Broome 2

Dear Porky,

THEY took me to the open air cinema after all. What a fantastic venue, it is Australia's oldest still operational open air cinema, with old fashioned deck chairs ( a bit trying for grey nomads) so most of the oldies arrived with some sort of cushioning material. As the theatre is situated in ' China Town', not a town a all and china town lies in the direct landing strip for the international airport we had some exciting moments when Qantas approached within 20 metres above the screen. Sensational!!! Very fitting. Broome is the most disappointing place we have been to and it still is a bit a culture shock. We are staying at an overflow camping place, run by the members of the pistol club.every Thursday is shooting from 7:30 pm to 9:30pm it is ok because to people are extremely friendly, we have a terrific site under a gum tree, toilets and showers super clean and everything is easy going, not like top part of cable beach, where at 6:15am the bronze bodies of the middle aged fitness obsessed Bondi Girls did their kick boxing and jogging and run the dogs. Rather boring beach, the Southern part has very appealing rock formations and and wilder back drop, not as groomed and regulated as the other.

SHE found a beer she really likes. It reminds her on Diebels Alt.

Outside the Broome open air cinema

Looking in from the screen

The Great Gatsby with the moon above.

 

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Broome

Dear Porky,

What can I say every so often let me out of the car. Broome is packed with all sorts of people surging for a caravan park, ranging from mega Riggs to small duds like us. Open cinema tomorrow for THEM without me, watching ' The Great Gatsby' under the stars ( how fitting), went to the market and she took a photo for Uschi, otherwise same ol' same. Food delicious: spicy Phillipino food, Thai and Indonesian. The display lacks true aboriginality, SHE is sad not to be able to find any trinkets for the flash mob girls. But then again THEY went on a cruise on a catamaran to do some whale watching and what spectacular 3 hours it were. When returning we watched the sunset over cable beach and what can I say, I was aloud to see it too.

 

 

 

 

HE is taking 10000000 photos of the sunset of cable beach south

 

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Derby

 

 

Derby prison

2 cells forged loops for the chains to lock in, looks like a cattle station, awful!

 

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