Barn Hill, Broome and a 1st Birthday!

We have found that Barn Hill has a lot of character and a lot to offer.  It is a large cattle station with a caravan park right on the ocean.  Many of the people we met had come to stay for a night or two and ended up there for weeks.  There is a bowls green which seems to be used regularly and free tai chi every morning.  This part of the station is owned by a woman who was described as someone who can do just about anything around the place.  She works with the cattle, drives the bob cat and makes the most delicious bread, pizzas and vanilla slices that are sold at the little shop...yum

Aidy experienced his first pizza at Barn Hill and there was no doubt that he loves pizza just as much as his Daddy!  We have been going to the beach each morning and afternoon and trying to get out of the heat in the middle of the day; it is very hot here and not much shade in the area we stayed in.  While here we saw a pod of dolphins off the beach, a whale and her calf rolling around, a very ugly sea snake washed up and some crazy crabs (cute little ones carrying their shells on their backs).  The boys have been playing in the rock pools, of which there are many.  Flynn especially loved exploring.

Pizza night

The facilities are pretty basic, with unisex amenities which is a tin shed with tin cubicles and open to the air.  The hot water was a long black tube wound around and around on the ground and left in the sun all day to heat the water.  To have a hot shower you pretty much needed to be there before about 5.30pm, and we had a hot (enough) shower each night.
Barn Hill has a little market each weekend where people staying there can sell their unwanted goods, and there were a few nice craft stalls.

We were lucky enough to be there roast night, which is a big deal! They catered for about 200 people and it cost us $15 a head and nothing for the kids for a three course meal and entertainment.  BYO chair, table, crockery and cutlery.  The Hughes family rocked out to the sounds of the 'Brothers Family Shoveller Band'.  Flynn was so gorgeous dancing with the bigger kids and was too excited to sit down and eat anything.  They had some prizes for the best dancers and Flynn won the kids competition and Daddy won the men's boot scooting comp.  They both won a copy of the bands CD and were famous in Barn Hill for at least 2 days with everyone wanting to talk to the dancing winners!  Aidan was having a dance in his high chair and it wont be long until he is up there with the others!  Flynn was so tired that his eyes were rolling back in his head while I changed him for bed and he blubbered something about winning the dancing- so gorgeous!

At the beach

Flynn didnt want to share his ball!

Sea snake

Aidan turned 1 at Barn Hill and loved his new ball and a car of his own.  We had morning tea with our friends Greg and Ruth and their boys before heading off for Broome.  Aidan had his proper birthday party a few days later at the Cable Beach caravan park, with Trish, Heather and Greg and Ruth, Dylan and Kyle.  He loved having the Birthday song sung to him and thought carrot cake from Coles tastes pretty yummy.  The party finished with a swim in the pool.



The boys are loving having Nanna Trish and Heather here, and we are looking forward to spending the next week with them exploring Broome.

Flynn, Trish, Beck, Aidan, Heather- Birthday party

Greg and Ruth

Dylan and Kyle

Birthday Boy!

Tom Price, Karijini and Barn Hill

Flynn exploring Kalamina Gorge

In this part of the world, everything seems to be on a large scale; huge mining trucks, long trains and road trains, long distances to be travelled, and the landscape is sometimes overwhelming.  Karijini National Park was so beautiful, but once again, the gorges and mountains and plains were on such a vast scale, that capturing this in our photos was difficult.  We had a fantastic five nights here.  Most of the walks were not suitable to take children, so it is one place we plan to come back to when the kids are a little older.  We did a walk into Kalamina Gorge, one of the easier walks, and it was a lot of fun.  It was 3 kms return to rock arch pool, and Flynn loved it.  He is definitely a little adventurer.  He walked all the way which included climbing over rocks, tree logs, crossing rivers and at one point hanging onto the rock wall and negotiating a narrow ledge so as not to fall into the water (I was more concerned about how Nick was going to go!).  He loved it, fell asleep in the car on the way home, and was very tired the next day- poor little thing!  Nick and I then took it in turns to do some gorge walks, which was really peaceful.  The gorges are lovely and cool and very lush with vegetation.  Each bend in the gorge shows a different perspective, with large gum trees and ghost gums contrasting the rock walls, and the rocks have various layers of colour, reds, blues, oranges.  There was a fair bit of water around when we were there and we swam in a few different pools.  I was not so clever and jumped into one that was very cold, and got straight back out again, reading the pamphlet later they warn of hypothermia!  We were lucky enough to be staying near friends that we had met along the way, June and Mike and Greg and Ruth and their boys.  Ruth and Greg offered to look after the boys for an hour and Nick and I had our first bit of time out together in three months.  We went for a swim to fern pool, which we had to ourselves apart from another couple who were sitting beside the pool.  The water is so clear and clean, you can see tiny little fish swimming around and when sitting under the waterfall, the water is nice and warm from being heated by the rocks.  Unfortunately Mike and June headed south from here and we will miss them- it was so lovely to have some extra help with the boys and they seemed to love spending time with them.  June cooks a mean roast too- thanks June!

Wildflowers were out at Karajini

Aren't I clever!!

Mike and Flynn

June

Fern pool (with no boys!)

See us under the waterfall?

Circular pool

Our campsite at Karajini

So with the boys, five nights was enough for us at Karajini, but it is definitely a special place.  We then had a night on a cattle station, Indy Station, outside of Port Hedland.  Indy station was a bit difficult with the kids as there were heaps of snakes around, so Nick and I were running around following Flynn like hawks.  We didn't see any snakes but just about everyone we met had seen them that day and warned us.  We were pleased to hear however that there was mobile phone coverage as we have been mostly out of range for almost a month now.  It was just a bit of a walk up a hill (see photo).  We joined in on happy hour at the homestead which was fun, and stayed put in our caravan for the night (snakes are out at night too!).  We were planning on staying in Port Hedland, but it really isn't a very nice place so we did a quick shop and filled up the water tank and stayed at a free camp by a river.

Issy the dog at Indie station

Phone reception- that's a chair on the top of the hill!

Road train on the way to Port Hedland

Next stop was Cape Kerauldron, 450 kms south of Broome.  It was not great.  We had two nights here- not sure why- think we were sick of driving.  Pretty view, but cant go near the water because there could be crocs (but most likely not), but a shark could get you, there are heaps of them.  Oh and the stone fish.  The tides are massive, so with nothing else to do we went for a walk on the beach, we were about 500ms from the ocean and the same again from the river.  I just couldn't relax even though we were assured to be safe from crocs at this time of the year.  We met a local on the beach who also informed us that there are cone shells that have a barb that are lethal, but the chances of getting pricked was minimal.  So I was watching every shell the boys picked up.  I nearly had a heart attack!  Not to mention that it was 9.30am, the sun was beating down and I was worried about dehydration.

Collecting shells, Cape Kerauldron

So we made it to Barn Hill station, where we have a view from the clifftops over the ocean, the beach is sheltered by red cliffs, the people are friendly and there aren't too many bitie things around!  100kms to Broome, and we are looking forward to a visit from Trish and Heather and some city life!!