Goombaragin, Kooljaman and One Arm Point

After a few days on our own at Goombaragin, we drove back to Broome to pick up our friend Julie from New York.  She'd been on a 15 day organised tour across the Gibb River Road. 

 It's the beginning of the tourist season so things weren't quite ready at Goombaragin, so Kathleen and John, the owners asked if while we were in Broome we could pick up one side of Julie's eco tent which was being repaired at the upholsterer.  Also waiting for us was her new shower rose so at least she had 4 sides to her tent, and could have a shower.  After our errands and shopping we drove 3 hours back to Goombaragin.  The scenery at Goombaragin is just amazing, they only have two camp sites and the Lookout (Site 1) is the absolute stand out. We booked this one of course and Julie stayed in one of their very nice eco tents near us.

Our site, which is on a point. Not too shabby!

A short walk from our campsite and we had our own sunset viewing point

The sunset options here are pretty cool

It's a short climb down to a deserted beach

Jayne's cow on the beach

Collecting sea sheels

Around the corner from Goombaragin is Whale Song Cafe

$56 for coffee and cake for 3 people! Remember where we are, all points considered it's not expensive.

Julie almost relaxing with one of her cameras in her lap

From Goombaragin we drove further up the Cape Leveque Road to Kooljaman, where we've stayed a few times before in a safari tent overlooking the ocean.  We were up here 3 years ago with our kids for Alan's 60th birthday.  We knew they didn't allow allow caravans in their camping area, so booked 2 of the 4 pre-erected dome tents in the general campground.  We left our lovely comfy caravan in the car park at the reception area.  The campsite was a dustbowl, and the amenities a disgrace.  3 toilets for about 150 campers and completely rundown. 

It's a short drive to watch the sunset, but Alan got very sick on the second night. Jayne managed to get him back to the car but had to leave Julie on her own with the sunset and to have dinner by herself in the restaurant.  We sneaked into the caravan and stayed the night in relative comfort, with the toilet close at hand! The bed was dripping wet the next morning after a terrible fever during the night.

Kooljaman sunset

One Arm Point

Broome to Derby (Horizontal Falls)

Our stay in Broome was upset by me being in hospital for 4 nights. After being so sick at Kooljaman I ended up with a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) which put ecoli in my urine and blood, not stomach so it wasn't from anything I had eaten. A very nasty Saturday night was spent at Kooljaman Resort Cape Leveque, sweating like a pig. At 1am, the sweating stopped and I felt at least alive.

We managed to drive the car and van back from Kooljaman to Broome, with Jayne driving the sealed road and me driving the 88kms of dirt. Don't ask how I managed that!

A trip to the doctors Monday morning and some urine and blood tests were taken. By 4pm we had 2 phone calls from the doctors with the final one saying, go immediately to the hospital. They will fax over the results so I get attended to without delay. I was called by the doctor even before I was able to complete filling out the admission forms!

The doctors were amazed that the ecoli had not got to my kidneys, liver and prostrate. A CT Scan confirmed they were all ok.

Jayne was a real trooper during this time, as she had to run to the hospital, take care of Julie, plus move the van from one site to another as we couldn't extend our stay on the site we were on.

We were very concerned that we would miss the Horizontal Falls overnight tour we had booked for Friday, but when my temperature was still above 38.5° on Wednesday morning I knew I wasn't going to be released before the 48 hour deadline.

So we changed the flight to Sunday. Horizontal Falls weren't going to allow us to do this without a 20% cancellation fee, but when I rang I was ready to give them what for, but they offered to change the booking without penalty! I think they knew I wasn't going to let them off that as previously they had said the cancellation fee holds.

Getting instructions from Ben our Seaplane pilot before flying out of Derby

Jayne was co-pilot both flights, lucky duck!

The Horizontal Falls is a thrill ride through a small gap in the mountain range.  We selected the original date for our trip based on the huge tide that day, but as we had to delay our trip we had a much smaller tide difference.  It was still a thrill ride from one side to the other at about 2 metres.

Our floating Hotel

We decided to do the overnight stay rather than a day trip, but after a terrible night's sleep we wished we'd flown back to Derby on the same day.  Everyone we spoke to who had done this tour beforehand gave glowing reviews.  It really was excellent.

Here you can see the 2m tide difference!

This is one of the boats for going through the Falls. 3 X 300HP Outboard Motors

This is a spectacular area of the Kimberley coast, and we can't wait for the day we can afford to do a 10 day cruise on the exclusive "True North".