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I think I can safely say our very disappointing wet season is but a memory. Although we had some glorious rain last Sunday and a tad during the week with much cooler temps (even getting down to 17 degrees Tuesday night) the humidity has all but disappeared. In fact we've had the air conditioner off during the day for most of last week. I thinks it's the first time since the beginning of October last year.
I spent November through to the end of February as a volunteer turtle monitor. The main turtle variety here is the flatback, and they're big and build big nests. The Broome area had a good season nest wise and although I can't remember the exact numbers, I think the number of nests this year quadrupled the number from last year which is encouraging. More encouraging is the percentage of predated nests that has come down. I have learned so much about turtles it's frightening!!!! Sadly (for me) I didn't see any female turtles; or any live hatchlings as they made their perilous way into the sea. It was at times hard hot and humid work at 6.00am monitoring and recording and I could have dragged myself out of my comfy bed and sat down at the beach to wait in the middle of the night, but gave that only a few seconds of consideration. Met lots of lovely folk who like me are trying to educate the locals about how to preserve the very important nesting areas and not drive over the nests in their 4WDs or let their dogs dig up the nests.......a work in progress! Sometimes I saw things I didn't want to particularly at 6.00am!!!!
I've continued my Wednesday volunteer shop assistant duties at the Red Cross Shop when I can and it's such fun. I've become a very good store detective. I'm constantly astounded by the number of people who try to shoplift from a charity store!!!
I continued my morning walks down the beach until mid November when it became too damn hot and humid but I have started back again this week (I've also been going to the gym 3-4 times/week and doing Pilates 1-2 times/week) with little to show for it sadly.
We had a great trip to Adelaide in early December to catch up with the Martin clan in it's entirety and create chaos fairly generally with some special friends. The trip started not quite as I expected. I woke up at 2.00am on the morning we were to leave (5th December 2014) and found there was no Kimbo sleeping next to me.......nor was he to be found in the bus, so I rang him. He was still working!!!!.......having started at 7.30am the previous morning. He'd been held up, as is often the case on the wharf, but instead of getting home at 11.00pm last night I was finally able to pick him up at 5.00am - 4 hours before we flew out!!!! No problem worrying about sleeping as we had to drop the car off at the mechanic by 7.30am, but he still had time to pack his bag. As our plane didn't leave until 9.00am we were the first ones breaking down the door at the airport.....but not early enough for me to get past the explosives scanning wand!!! Can't tell you how good my first cup of coffee was!!!! So that really set the tone for the day, we just hit the ground running and it didn't end until we fell into bed in the wee hours of the following morning, after making it to Francey's 50th birthday party.
We spent time in the Barossa Valley, Aldinga and the obligatory sleep overs in the 'big smoke" with hosts with the most and a few surprises. The weather was always unpredictable, and I was grateful to have packed quite sensibly for a change and was able to layer and therefore keep warm when necessary.
13th December turned on the most perfect Adelaide summer's day (36 degrees and dry dry heat) when we had a family catch up for Stu's 87th birthday (Kimbo's dad). Stu and Bet had their 3 kids (Christine, Kimbo and Craig), 4 grand kids (Amy and Michael; Taylor and Drew) and 5 great grand kids (Jack and Maya; Sonny, Eldwin and Beau). We had never seen the great grand kids and nobody could remember exactly how many years it'd been since we'd all been together..............would have to be over 25 years. We had a fabulous day after much behind the scenes organising to enable everyone to be there and provide surprises where required. From little things big things grow!
The following day we had what has become a bit of a ritual when we go to Adelaide....a catch up at "The Cliff" and it was another perfect Adelaide summer's day, a little cooler than what it had been yesterday and we were surrounded by wonderful friends and although it was a very long day we wouldn't have had it any other way. Lots of laughs and good cheer!
All too quickly it was time to come back to the humidity of Broome that I wasn't looking forward to. I was grateful that we didn't have an early flight as I was feeling a bit foggy! It had been a very BIG 10 days.
The humidity hit me like a brick and the storms teased us but no decent rainfall until after Christmas. We were told there had been a good downpour while we'd be away.....that didn't help.
We spent Christmas Day at Coconut Wells (about 25km from Broome) in the company of good friends, the food was to die for, and Veurve and Moet flowed like water. The pool was the place to be with lots of laughs and good cheer. The weather was actually perfect, with very little humidity and clear blue sky. We were very grateful to be staying overnight when we could just relax and take in the peace and quiet. Kimbo worked on Boxing Day so he was up at 5.00am and gone before I knew what was going on. I came back to town later in the day so that we could catch up with the Carolyn, Dennis, Sam and for dinner as they'd swapped a hot Loxton Christmas for a hot Broome one!
We said goodbye to more friends who have decided their time in Broome is up and they've
moved on to greener pastures.
A quiet New Year's Eve spent down the beach, I'm sure half the town was down there. It was hot and humid down there but the breeze did play havoc as we battled to put up our new car awning.
This year nothing much has changed. Kimbo still loves his job and re-hydrating with his mates after work!!!!! Not even the heat or humidity can keep him down! He's kept the till ticking over at the RSL club!!!
We go to the movies whenever there's something decent to see and apart from some quiet socialising and the odd dinner we've been pretty low key this wet season. A bit like a winter hibernation!
We only had one cyclone alert this year so that would account for the lack of rain. I was looking back through my diaries when we were here in 2002-2004 and there was much more rain then during those two wet seasons.
Last month I made a quick sad trip to Adelaide to say goodbye to my much loved proxy dad Ivan,before he lost his short battle with cancer. I'm very grateful to have spent quality time with him. My thanks and love to Janet for supporting me through some really tough times. It was an unexpected opportunity to catch up with Bet and Stu and let them know that Kimbo is happy and well.
The tourists have started to arrive and there are noticeably more people about and cars on the road and the locals are already getting frustrated by being held up for 30 seconds or so! Our peace will end soon as the caravan park starts to fill, oh well gotta take the bad with the good. Thankfully we have fabulous neighbours.
We attended the dawn service again yesterday and as it only got down to 25 degrees overnight it was perfect, even though I chose to wear my ugg boots. The morning didn't start well for me as a bat shat on my freshly washed hair as we were walking to Bedford park. Yes I had a bit of a melt down but was able to go back to the car and clean up with some wet ones and continue on. A huge crowd was there and the local Catholic school created a re-enactment of the landing at Anzac Cove and it was fabulously well done. We even had a fly over by 2 PT9 aircraft from 4th Squadron in Williamtown, there was supposed to be 3, but we didn't hear what happened to the 3rd one. We enjoyed the obligatory gunfire breakfast and a few bevvies with friends at the RSL club.
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