On Thursday and Friday we stayed at two different campsites at Fitzroy Crossing. We switched from one campsite to the other one, because the first one had a smelly well close to our van, and the pub nextdoor was not too appealing (a bit smelly as well due to the people visiting the pub).
From Fitzroy Crossing we did a walk and a boat tour around Geikie Gorge, a huge gorge with steep rocky cliffs, great views and many crocs. Better not to write too much about that, just have a look 
From Broome we drove to Derby, a small town not so far from Broome. Many people tend to skip it and brochures only mentioned the Prison Tree, but we decided to stop there anyway. Which turned out to be a good choice. We, of course, did see the prison tree, but we also drove up the first sealed part of the Gibb River Road (a former cattle route that stretches 700km through the Kimberleys; most of it unsealed) and we went to have a look at the harbour.
Both of which were great. The harbour was a terrific view, of muddy crocodile waters and old machinery. While we spotted a huge lizard on the Gibb River Road
On Thursday we left Eighty Mile Beach and headed for Broome. Along the way again counting the roadkill, and stopping to photograph really nasty ones when we pass one.
Broome turned out to be a really nice little town, with wide streets, many trees, lush green vegetation and a small lively center. The first evening we ended up at the local pub, having several pints, listening to live music, eating a pizza The other two days we just had relaxed days walking around, having a look at town, and we discovered Broome’s Matso’s brewery. A local brewery making beer from Mango (Man-Go), Chili Peppers, Chocolate, Ginger, etc. We tasted them all in tiny cups and decided to come back later.
I also suggested to Hilde & Jorinke to extend the campervan hire for two weeks and travel together up to Darwin. I also did not want to rush up and have to skip interesting things, and they felt the same. So we did extend the rental and paid it at the Britz office in Broome. Great! 
On Sunday we drove off to have a look at Cable Beach, the Broome hotspot. We had a pint of XXXX and enjoyed the nice weather and the sea view. Afterwards we decided to decided to have a look at the Dinosaur Footprints, even though they were probably not visible due to high tide. On our way there, we discovered the part of Cable Beach used by locals. They just drive their car on to the beach, have a couple of drinks, listen to music, and enjoy the sunset. This looked like a very good idea to us as well, so we skipped the invisible dinosaur footprints and stayed at the beach to eat crackers with cheese, have a beer, and watch the sunset Great to see all these cars and people just parked on the beach, having a barbie, watching the sun set
After the sunset we drove back to the campsite and walked over to Matso’s brewery to have a beer. Unfortunately their Chili beer was sold out, so I had a Man-go beer instead. And we got three bottles of ginger beer for tomorrow’s sunrise 
On Monday we woke up early in the morning to watch the sunrise from the edge of our campsite; watching it rise out of the sea, behind the palm trees. While watching, we enjoyed the nice ginger beers we got the day before
why is there so many beer involved in my blog posts?
From Exmouth we traveled further up north, photographing a really nasty smelly dead kangeroo. We stayed that night at the BIG4 holiday park in Karratha. Strange enough -for such an isolated town in the middle of nowhere-, the caravan park was almost completely occupied. Not by tourists or elderly people, but by people working in the (iron ore) mines. Apparently many people do seasonal work in the mines because it pays so well. Definitely not a town to stay longer than for the night.
As we drove further up north on Tuesday, we decided to pass Port Hedland (another mining town) and to head for Eighty Mile Beach instead. It was an exciting ride, driving for about 1 hour through the dark (keeping in mind all wildlife is active at night and seeing all the roadkill -cows, kangeroos- on our way there), then a 4 km dirt road to the campsite. It turned out to be an excellent choice as the campsite was really nice, and we had a couple of stubbies (bottles of beer) and crisps on the beach, the Milky Way clearly visible above in the sky full of millions of stars. As we had a stroll down the beach we noticed several crabs running around, and a huge heremite crab crawling over the beach.
On Wednesday we went to see how the beach and the sea looked, as we could not really see it the night before. It was indeed, as the name suggests, a very long stretch of beach, full of people fishing. As we wanted to go for a swim but were unsure if it was safe or not, we tried to find out. While a sign at the office said ‘we advice you against swimming’, the guy at the reception put it a little differently and said ‘I would never in my life go in there’. Not really specifying why, we assumed his remark was more likely due to his physique (he had the body mass of a small whale -while one would think he would actually be in his natural element in the sea-). We inquired a couple of times with other people on the beach, but nobody really knew whether it was safe or not. Some mentioned a strong current, others mentioned that some big sharks were caught two weeks earlier, but apparently no salties. Nevertheless, we decided to go in but stay in shallow water. It seemed like a good choice as we are still here I even spotted the tail of a small shark surfacing above the milky water, 2 metres from where I was standing. Seemed like there indeed where sharks swimming around No big ones though (bummer)…
On Sunday we were picked up at the caravan park to go on a while shark tour with 3 Islands Marine (AU $ 345,-). After pickup we drove to the boat ramp on the other side of the peninsula where a small speedboat took us to the larger vessel.
Our first stop was a snorkeling stop on Ningaloo Reef, about 1 km from the coast. It was great to snorkel around the coral and the tropical fish, frequently duck diving to the bottom; about 4 to 5 metres below.
After about 30 minutes of snorkeling we got the call from the spotter planes that they had found whalesharks, so we went for it. When we arrived at the location we were divided into two groups of 10 people, as only 10 people are allowed to swim with a whaleshark at one time (government rules). As there were also two other boats present, every boat had to take turns to have a group jump in to swim with the whaleshark.
When it was our turn we jumped in the water for our first swim with the whaleshark. At first I could not see anything but bubbles, and gazing around I could only make out deep blue water with the sun’s rays beaming down below to an endless depth. When looking into the direction of the guide, I could make out a giant mouth appearing in the distance, swimming right towards us. I swam to one side of it, getting close to the huge fish. It was really amazing to see such a huge creature swimming beside you. It was gently swimming forward while foraging for plankton with it’s mouth wide open; it’s (in comparison) tiny eyes watching us swim along.
I’ve frequently seen whalesharks on in documentaries, and I’ve always wanted to see and experience the sensation of seeing one myself. And today we even swam with 3 different whale sharks of about 8 to 9 metres in length. Small considered they can grow up to 18 metres in length. It was a very impressive experience
Afterwards we made another stop at the Ningaloo Reef for another snorkel round. This time we spotted a giant cod of about 2 metres on the bottom below the boat, and the massive sea turtle swimming around.
That night, back at the campsite, we had dinner with cheese, crackers and couple of bottles of rosé. It turned out to be a strange night, ending up with more rosé at Andy’s (the guy who made the whaleshark video that day) caravan. Us having too much to drink, Hilde & Jorinke singing Aussie songs, Andy trying to get them to stay for the night, us buggering off, etcetera
Today we went snorkelling in Ningaloo Reef. I bought a couple of flippers at the local sports shop and we left for the Ningaloo Marine park, on the other side of the peninsula. As we left the main road and drove over an unsealed road to the coast, we found ourselves our own private beach.
While it was a bit tough to get into deeper water (it was quite shallow and covered with rocks and coral) it was good fun snorkeling. We saw many fish, sea stars, sea cucumbers (no, we did not put the spots on it Hilde and even a octopus hiding in a hole in the ground. I tried to tease it out but it wouldn’t come out of it’s hole.
As the sun was setting and Hilde was already on the beach, Jorinke and I left for the beach as well. On her way back Jorinke even encountered what she thought was a huge fish; but later turned out to have been a reef shark On shore we watched the sun set into the sea; a great view!
When we drove back we had to drive really careful as there were lots of Kangaroos past the road and we sure as hell did not want to hit any of them or make some sudden manouvres. As we noticed -what appeared to be- a snake crossing the road we turned to have another look at it. Unfortunately it was already gone.
Us turning around to see the snake appeared to be the lucky chance for two smelly German lesbians, as their car broke down just in front of us. As we were probably the last two cars leaving the park, it was already dark and we were kilometres away from civilization, they were extremely lucky otherwise they would have been stuck there for the night. So we gave them a ride back into town in the back of the campervan.
That night Hilde & Jorinke got themselves a small holliday house at the campsite, and I parked my campervan in front. We had a lovely dinner of vegie pancakes and a good bottle of red whine.
In the morning (apparently Hilde & Jorinke had killed a number of cockroaches that night) we set off for Exmouth. Along the way we were noticing vast numbers of termite mounts; something we had not yet seen before on our travels. We were entering Termite country
At the end of the day we arrived in Exmouth where Hilde & Jorinke stayed in their own private dorm room, and I had a campervan spot close to the hostel rooms.
On our way to Carnarvon we made a stop at Shell Beach, a long stretch of beach in Shark Bay, not made up of sand but of the deposits of countless small bivalve shellfish over an immense period of time. The deposits occur to a depth of 8 and 10 metres along approximately 110 km of coastline. Shell blocks are mined and used for building material. Shell Beach is a gorgeous white crispy beach.
On our way out of the Shark Bay Heritage area we wanted to have a look at the stromatolites; brown rock like formations made up of modest microbes almost identical to organisms that existed 1900 million years ago and evolved into more complex life. Most people thought these organisms where extinct, until they discovered a few of these pools around the world, the most well known (and accessible) being these in the Hamelin Pool.
When we drove over to Hamelin Pool, the access road had a big ‘Road Closed’ sign on it. Stubborn law breaking Dutchies as we were, we just drove into the road and soon noticed why it was closed Apparently the heavy rainfall had not only flooded my campervan, it had also flooded the access road to the stromatolites. Bummer…
So we decided to move on to our night’s stop: Carnarvon. Along the way passing through several floodways (which you see here regularly) which were flooded with red colored muddy water. Interesting experience; so much water in the bush / desert.