ATGANI at large

After a couple of weeks in Tassie, we’ve come to believe that there are just two types of weather down here – furious wind with or without rain, hail and snow or magnificently calm sunny days.  When we arrived in Devonport, after a voyage enlivened only by watching the Barbie movie in the on-board cinema, the wind was howling.  To our delight, the Mersey Bluff van park people waited up until we’d arrived – we were pretty close to first…

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ATGANI was eventually granted, with great difficulty and expense, a berth on the Spirit of Tasmania FIVE months ago.  Even then, it was no sure thing – we had a ticket to come back from Tassie weeks before we had a ticket to go there in the first place.  Consequently, ever since leaving South Australia the pull of Tasmania had been getting stronger.  But…to rush would be a crime, so we trundled into Victoria and decided to take our time…

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While our Coffin Bay enterprise was being formulated, there were still places to go and things to see.  We’d never been to the Flinders Ranges, even when we lived in Adelaide, and we were keen – a bit like Karajini in WA, it was near the top of everyone’s list. We’d planned to drive to Quorn and then on to Flinders after a warm up walk.  But a bigger treat was in store – the Quorn Show was on the…

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We were covering ground that we’d seen before and, more importantly, there were blocks of time set aside, especially for the Flinders Ranges, and hard-to-get sailing dates set for Tasmania.  All that meant that we’d decided to move from northern WA to southern SA with vigour.  A quick blast down the previously seen WA coast, an essential stop for crayfish in Geraldton, a delightful overnight stay on the river near Mandurah and we were soon in Busselton.  Busselton is indeed…

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Way before we made our way to the coast and the associated salty sand dunes, we had the delight of spending time in Karajini NP.  But not before a “what could possibly go wrong?” went wrong.  After buying fuel, checking our tyre pressures, acquiring fresh milk and various other essentials and feeling pleased with ourselves, we blithely drove towards Karajini, thinking we’d be early. But, well out in the desert by now, Lesley announced, correctly, “We forgot to buy wine!”. …

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Broome is only 600km from Port Hedland, the scene of total failure in July 2022 on our first attempt.  If we could just complete this short trip and make it into Millstream Chichester NP, we could say that we’d completed our Circle, even though we hadn’t finished it by a long chalk.  But Broome is definitely the tourist capital up here. So we needed a few days to seed the economy in much the same way they seed the oysters….

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Unreliable witnesses are everywhere.  We had met a garrulous, youngish couple at Savannah Lodge who were issuing their own Gibb River Road (GRR) report, invited or not.  They had a new Nissan Patrol with big stickers all over the sides announcing YNOTTravel (sic) on Instagram or Twitter or somesuch.  In any event, they talked about how tough the road was, how impossible it was to get diesel (their car is petrol), how likely we were to run out of water…

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After sitting around for a few hours in Broome’s “International” airport (why do they do that?), we did leave on a jet plane and consequently, returned to Kununurra in an almost instant.  I had been expecting propellers and a longer journey.  After a bit of mucking about we found a taxi, found it was Kununurra’s BIG rodeo night (driver assured us happily that she wouldn’t be picking anyone up there tonight), found we didn’t have the energy to go to…

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Should you ever find yourself on a bus from Kununurra to Wyndham, or return, and the bus driver tells you his name is Keith and that he’s a good talker, get off immediately!  A very long hour’s drive was not so much enlivened as bludgeoned by Keith’s non-stop commentary – most of it only mildly interesting, all of it strongly coloured by Keith’s unique view of the world and his starring role in it.  Didn’t bode well. Arrival in Wyndham…

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Darwin was indeed, exactly as prepared for Japanese attack on February 19, 1942 as Pearl Harbour was almost 3 months earlier. We were able to repeat their mistakes.  In 1939, Churchill had asked Australia for “all our best” so we’d sent them, leaving behind “all our not-so-best”.  The different services didn’t talk to each other if they could avoid doing so, to the extent that the advance report of hundreds of planes heading our way was simply not passed on…

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