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Fitzroy Crossing - Tuesday 26th August
Fitzroy CrossingCar Kilometres: 172,754
Distance Travelled: 367km
Total Distance Travelled: 4503km
From Broome, we're up and about at 7ish, packing up quickly and dropping into the shops on our way for some cheese and vegemite scrolls and a bottle of squash to make our six bottles of warm journey water a little more appetising.
It's a 450km drive to Fitzroy Crossing, our stopover on the way to Kunnunara, and aside from a lengthy and rather aimless argument about whether we can still benefit from listening to the Spanish CD without finding the book, we arrive in one piece.It's too hot to argue anyway, as we are really starting to feel the heat and humidity kick in now... and once it's gotten humid, there's no escaping the heat in the shade anymore.We settle down and listen to a few chapters of Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' that we've burned onto CD and try to think cold.On the way, Dave gets a snap of the Broome - Derby road sign for amusement, although the window is wound up again quickly for us to feel the benefit of the air conditioning once more.
Although we admire the thousands of termite nests that again accompany us on the roadside and land beyond, we can't help but feel that we wouldn't fancy camping near one of them.Some are rusty red from the pindan sand on the side of the road; others are mid- or pale-brown depending on the soil they're built on.They are bulging over in layers, one looking alarmingly like Mr Staypufft.
We are relieved to see that the Fitzroy Lodge campsite doesn't appear to contain any termite nests, although there's a fair bit of what we assume to be kangaroo or wallaby poo on the untented grass areas.The site is huge, and it's nice to put the tent up in soft soil and grass rather than the dusty sandy rocky areas that we've been experiencing for a while.After the business of the west coast up to Broome, we'd called ahead to reserve a space, and been told not to worry... we realised they were right when we had the tent pitching field more or less to ourselves, so we picked a shady tree area not too far from a cooling sprinkler and set up.
After putting the tent up very s-l-o-w-l-y, we can't face the 160 hand pumps that the airbed requires to be comfortable, and decide to leave that for a while and head to the bar for a cold drink.I am stopped at the door for the faux par of wearing flip flops, and trudge back in the 36 degree heat to the tent to change my shoes... it does feel a bit random to be violating a dress code in the middle of b***** all nowhere, (and I do sulk a bit), but I suppose they have to keep their standards up to prevent the place turning in to Hicksvilleite mayhem.Bah.
Once we're in the bar however, it turns out to be a bit of an oasis - the air-con is almost too cold, and we sip on cokes - me admiring the lovely sketches on the wall by someone called Donald H Green, and Dave tapping away writing blog entries on the laptop.It's almost cosmopolitan for a town with a population of 1,100.We even order a hot coffee each - made bold by the goose-pimples on our now cold arms - and sip on our first non-tent brewed cuppa in a couple of weeks.Mmm.
We eventually have to emerge back into the heat of the day, although it's cooled a bit now as its almost 5pm.We brave pumping up the airbed and have prematurely early night due to the batteries in our fancy rechargeable lamp running out.Ah well, we've got an early start ahead.
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