As punters come aboard the Leeuwin, bunks are assigned, luggage is stowed, and people begin to mill about, hands shaken.  People look at the ship, examine the myriad number of lines, the teal deck, the three towering masts, all to try to familiarize themselves with their home for the next two weeks.  The ship has three levels: the top deck where the majority of all the action with the rigging takes place, then there is the living quarters, saloon, galley, crew quarters, and navigation room below deck.  The third level is in at the bottom of the ship, and includes the engine room, fridges and freezers for food, dry storage, the human waste disposal/recycling system, water storage, and garbage storage.  For more detailed information, you can follow this link to the Leeuwin Foundation website: http://www.leeuwin.com/" title="http://www.leeuwin.com/" target="_blank"http://www.leeuwin.com/

For the most part, the punters were all adult--professionals of varying ages, and a few retirees--the small remainder were transients like myself, on the move, of no fixed address.  As it turned out, there was another canadian, Sebastien, a french canadian from montreal who was on a year exchange through one of the universities in Perth.  This trip was described in the Leeuwin brochure as the "Kimberley Ecodiscovery Trip I," and is known more colloquially as a cash-cow for the foundation.  The majority of the trips that the Leeuwin makes are for youths only, under the age of 25, emphasizing the elements of teamwork, leadership, and communication training.

In order to make the ship accesible to as many as possible, the trip price for youths is kept as reasonable as possible, with funding options available (such as the Captain's Fund for 'scholars'!) to assist as needed.  However, seeing that the foundation operates as a non-proft organization, it also needs to stay in the black--and thus the 'adult' trips--with adult prices to match.  Most of the punters on my trip had dished out AUS$2,400 for the trip, not including the cost of a flight to Broome from Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne... all over the country, as things turned out.  Knowing how much some had paid to take this trip, not including that they were taking time off work, made me that much more appreciative of the low price I'd paid for my ticket.

Initially, the trip did not start smoothly, although the delays were well handled and things progressed without a visible hitch.  In fact, the professionalism of the whole crew was very high and impressive--the delay served to show just how professional they really were.  What had happened was that the main generator had a broken part, so the backup generator was canabalized for the missing part--but this as a short term solution, as the ship would no longer have a spare generator.  Generators are used to power the ships--the communication equipment, the navigation computers, the electric cooking stoves, the fridges, the lights, the whole she-bang.  As things turned out, the fifty dollar part had to be ordered from Melbourne, shipped to Perth, then flown up to Broome.  What eventually happened was that the ship sailed as far up the coast from Broome as was deemed safe and the part was airlifted from Broome to a coal mine's private airstrip by a local Coastwatch plane.  All of this took place over a three day period, but ended delaying our departure from Broome by about two days.

In this period, the ship left Broome's p ort and sailed to the tip of Gantheaume Point, just on the outskirts of Broome.  Sail and line handling lessons were given, and once the use of harnesses was demonstrated, we spent some time learning how to climb the rigging.  The punters are divided into four watches called 'red watch,' and so forth, which then work the ship according to a four watch system.  The watch system works such that you usually have one or two watches during the daylight hours, lasting two hours long, and during this period your watch is responsible for the sailing of the ship, manning the helm, standing at the bow watch, trimming the sails, charting the course of the ship in the navigation room, etc.

Over night, there are two four hour watches; so the re is the 8pm to 12am, which is then followed by the long watch 12am to 4am, and from 4am to 6am, the return to the two hour watches.  Thus, if you have two day watches, you won't have a night watch--but 3/4 of the time you'll end up with a night watch, two of which will last four hours, in the dead of night, while most are sleeping.

The night watches are probably the best ones, as the night sky is bright with the stars, and as we were sailing off the essentially uninhabited Kimberley coastline, there was nothing to dim their light.  One feature of the southern hemisphere's sky is the greater number of visible stars--you can see the main body of the Milky Way, something you cannot from the northern, atleast not from Canada.  Although it is a long watch, which essentially boils down to standing around and trying to stay alert, there is a great quiet and gentle murmur of the ocean as the ship slides over it.  It is a great time for privacy and study, as only two are needed at the helm at any given time, another two up on the bow watch, and the rest patrolling the ship and checking the bilges for any excess water.  This leaves roughly half the watch to study navigation charts and the sailing books in the navigation room--there are also star measurements that are taken, weather readings, speed readings...  As a sail training ship, there are always answers to any questions, and much encouragement to learn as much as you are willing to handle.

The one downside of sailing in this area during July is that there is virtually no wind whatsoever, which is not a terrific thing for a sail training ship.  For the majority of the trip, we sailed under power, with some sails up, but not all, to help things along.  All the same, we did manage to set the sails a few times, and I managed to climb the rigging to my heart's content.  As things go, the ship is safety obsessed--to climb the rigging you must first get verbal permission from either your watch leader or a permanent crew member to make them aware of your intentions, then you must throw on your full harness, and then finally have a buddy pull and tug on the harness to ensure it has been securely fastened at all points and isn't too loose. 

While on watch, you must wear the lower part of the harness at all times--this is a climbing harness that fits over your clothes like a pair of skeleton shorts, only made of heavily woven nylon fitted with metal rings and a single quick release binder.  The top half of the harness is a shoulder strap sort of system that ties into the lower harness, securing your upper body, too, in the event of a fall.  The upper harness has a 'rocket pack' attached in the middle of your back--this pack hold a retractable nylon line with a quick release binder.  With two binders on your harness, you can then transfer from safety line to safety line without ever being unnatached--one is always hooked up.

This system, though, is a pain in the ass.  With two binders to manage, and a rule that you must always be attached to a safety line at all times, you find yourself sometimes dangling at a particularly awkward spot, holding yourself to the rigging with one hooked leg, another leg propped up against a nearby line, one arm crooked around a climbing bar while the other tries to deal with not one, but two binders that are stretched to the max in two opposite directions, one to the previous safety line, the other to the upcoming line.  The upper harnesses are a relatively new thing to the ship, added as part of a deal with their insurer who, as you can imagine, charges a fair mint for their services.  The other problem with the double harnesses is that it empowers people who would normally not feel comfortable to climb the rigging.  Like cats who climb to the top branch of the tallest tree, these people then have a great deal of trouble to climb back down.  Not that this sort of thing happened on our trip; but it had, on previous, and the permanent crew felt that the upper harnesses were to blame.

Damn!  It's hard work, all this writing.  But that's what happens when you procrastinate... I wish that I was earning an income for the work I do here on this computer.  Ach.  I enjoy this, right?  I enjoy this!

And so it was July 25th, 2004, and I was once again back in Broome proper.  I felt relieved that the ship was finally in.  I had, after all, come exclusively to Broome for this trip and I felt like I had just willingly submitted myself to a monastic experience so that I could experience the sailor's life.  It's a twisted sort of irony, but there you have it: Broome's a party town, no matter how you cut it, and I managed to avoid it 'unscathed,' all to ride on a dry ship with a leadership and self-development ethos.

The Leeuwin was moored at the Broome port, a giant pier that projects out into Roebuck Bay, at opposite ends to the BBO.  The height of the pier is so as to accomodate the tides--which makes mooring there a dangerous venture, as a ship will rise and drop a couple of storeys in the course of a single day.  While the Leeuwin wasn't leaving until the next day, I spent that night onboard her, for free.  I met the volunteer crew as well as the paid crew--these last being the Captain, First Mate, Watch Officer, Bosun, Cook, and the Engineer.  The volunteers are the bosun's mate, cook's mate, the guy who traditionally managed the stores but in this modern context managed the sales of Leeuwin paraphenelia, and the four watch leaders.

It was with this motley crew that I had dinner with this first evening--save the cook, cook's mate, and a few of the other crew who had escaped into Broome for a night in town, drinking and eating out--and it was the captain who cooked dinner, a pasta bolognese, which he humbly described as a poor meal made by a poor cook.  A round man with a round face and red cheeks and a booming voice and a laugh to match, he told stories and managed the table discussion.

The next day things got going at 6am, and things were pretty action packed for the morning, what with other punters coming onboard in trickles, the food delivery arrived, and the ship's mooring lines had to be constantly readjusted to accomodate for the tides, a lengthy and complicated process that involved the ship's engines and a group of hands pulling lines in, letting them out, and then over again.  The main concern is that the lines, when the tide is low, are allowed out to accomodate the distance that has been created between the ship itself and the mooring blocks at the top of the pier.  However, when the tide comes back in, the ship rises and the lines need to be brought in--if done too late, a large space occurs between the ship and the pier itself, and with winds pushing the ship around, the possibility of  the ship rubbing up or hitting the pier is very real.  So much work was needed to keep the ship safe all the while getting her ready for the trip, with new and inexperienced crew arriving every ten minutes with their luggage.

Ok!

Here we go, again--I just had just begun my long overdue update when I accidently shut down my browser and lost an hour's worth of writing.  Oh dear.

The advantage of doing something over again is that you are more certain of what you're doing--like taking a beaten trail to walk down instead of offroading in the bush and blazing a new one.  That, atleast, is what I'm telling myself; I hate writing the same words over again--it's exactly like having to repeat yourself in conversation.

So, my journey takes off once again, after a stagnant pause that revolves, in narrative form, around the great northern town of Broome.  My story will work in three stages: Pre-Broome, Broome, and Post-Broome.

It is January 24th, 2005, and my last entry was from July 12th, 2004.  I love this trail--it's a long one.

Pre-Broome, July 12th, 2004, onwards.

My initial reaction to Broome was tempered by two elements: the hostel and the town.  I loved the town: small, compact, tropical, hot, heady, and steaming with excitement.  The famed Cable beach is near to town, with little surf but lots of sand, a great white stretch of beach that disappears into the distance, with few people on it, but enough bikini clad bodies browning themselves under the sun to make it fun.  Nevermind the clothing optional end of the beach, where the white people are as dark as aboriginals--although you'll rarely see any aboriginals at the beach.

There are plenty of restaurants, cafes, shops, bars, and even a few clubs.  The atmosphere is definitely laid back and the immediate impression you get from the town is that life here is chilled out.  The saturday markets are decent, not great, although fun--for its size, Broome has a relatively diverse population, mostly due to the influence of the pearling industry.  Broome exists because of pearls, and the pearl farming, pretty much since its beginnings here, has been staffed by Japanese, Malays, and others from the South-East of Asia.

It's a happening little town and it gives the newcomer a good impression from the get-go.

However, my second impression of the place was influenced greatly by where I was staying.  The Roebuck Bay Backpackers is a dingy dive of a place, with lots of beds, two stories, three buildings, a large, dirty, and poorly equipped and disorganized kitchen--but as hostels go, it's not too far below par.  As these places sometimes are, it's impersonal and hectic, with lots of people doing lots of different things, which mostly boils down to hanging out, working if you have a job, hitting the beach, seeing the sights, and getting wasted.  Sure, not too bad--like being back in university residence, including the international flavour.  Dutch, Germans, British, Scotish, Irish, Japanese, Koreans...

The funny thing is that when you travel halfway around the world to another country--albeit a very western and not-too-disimilar culture to North America--you expect to learn something about this country and it's people.  Up until Broome, I had: it had been a  very Western Australian experience, nearly exclusively all Aussies, with the exception of Patsy's two North American exchange students and the Jenners--but the Jenners are long-time residents and are part of life here, like Patsy and Peter, because it is now their home.

Coming into the backpacker circuit and culture after a near three months of travelling was a bit much for me.  It was nice to meet all these people from here and there, but I was used to doing my own thing.  Living with family and friends had also kept me out of the "where you from, where've you been, where you going" culture that is backpacking--and as backpackers go, I'm low on backpacking information capital.  I'm also not really an extrovert in the classical sense: I like people and I like talking to them, but I hate talking within a group; my personality only emerges in conversations to the individual, and funnily enough, it's pretty hard to talk to people one-on-one in a hostel.  You're constantly interrupted by nice people who want to join in and hang out... you see the basic problem.

Otherwise, things were good in Broome: I hit the beach, the cafes, the bars and clubs.  Yet, there was a lingering doubt; I was waiting in Broome for the Leeuwin, my sail training ship that was going to take me along the Kimberley coastline for Darwin, up in the Northern Territory, on a twelve day trip.  This little trip cos t a thousand dollars flat, and it would have cost AUS$1,600, if it weren't thanks to Curt Jenner's great help in securing me a Captain's Fund from the Leeuwin foundation.  I gained access to the fund through Curt's influence and then made myself eligible by writing a short letter to the foundation explaining my position and my interest in sailing with the ship.  In other words, my education paid off: so far I've 'earned' AUS$600 from my Bachelor's degree in English Literature.  Not bad for a near CDN$20,000 investment, spread over four and a half years.

It was money though that was bothering me; money is the water of the traveller--and my itch was irritated by the fact that you could smell money in the hostel, or the lack thereof.  Those who had it, those who didn't have it.  It's a palpable scent and you notice that while everyone is on a budget, they also all spend their moula with great abandon.  Everyone is looking for work, it's on the lips of all--who's got work, where, how much... are they hiring?  It gets to you in just minutes of arriving and it never goes away until you leave.  I think that this is what stock traders must experience at work each day, except that this environment is directly inverse to the stock trader's world: much less money but just as much anxiety.

I hadn't worked for roughly three month or more; I could see that living at the backpackers would drain my money.  Broome's a great place to drink; it's hot, you sweat, so you rehydrate.... with alcohol, which isn't so logical as the preceeding sentence would leave you to believe.  Broome, after all is said and done, is a small town, with a year-round population of 20,000 or so.  In the winter time, during the Dry, the population swells to nearly 60,000, for the most part touristos like myself or Aussies who have escaped the south and its relatively cold climate.  When you aren't at the beach, or working, or watching movies, or shopping for groceries, or eating out, the options for what to do in town are essentially limited to novel methods of moving liquid from hand to mouth.  It's the tropics and everyone drinks, end of story.

The town sits on the doorstep of the oft quoted 'rugged' Kimberley, most of the area is accessible only by car, and the majority of the roads are definitely only for 4WDs.  Without wheels, you are restricted to travelling the region with private operators.  If you're not so inclined to pay anywhere from one hundred to two thousand dollars for these trips, then you stick to town and hang tough.

But bad things can happen to the unemployed in Broome.

A roomate of mine at the backpackers was Paul, an eighteen year old scotsman who had come into town for a four day layover, three weeks ago.  He was at the tail-end of his trip but was stuck in the sands of Cable beach, wheels spinning happily away.  He originally was supposed to fly from Broome to Melbourne, meet up with some pals, and then fly home.  First, he spent his Melbourne flight money--no worries!--he just decided to cut out a layover in Melbourne and just change flights there on his way to Edinburgh.  Then he spent all his flight money, period, and was forced to find work.  So he started to clean the grounds at the hostel for forty-five dollars a day; eighteen went immediately to his rent, then five bucks for food, leaving the party machine twenty-some dollars to go out with at night and get plastered.  But hey, how do you save money like that?  Well, you don't; his parents sent him ÂŁ400 to bail the poor boy out and that was that. 

However, Paul's lifestyle was enviably simple.  He would haul himself out of bed every morning at seven am, troup out  and then clean and sweep, toss and take away, sort and re-align, for three hours.  Immediately after this trial by fire, he'd catch the free morning shuttle from the backpackers to the beach, where he would break out his mobile and hit up the girl(s) that he had met the night before at the bar or club.  After a day at the beach, he would catch the free afternoon shuttle back to the backpackers, rest up, smoke cigarettes, and eat five dollars worth of food.  The evening would roll around and, like Lazarus, he would rise up, truly alive, and party 'til dawn, and do it all again, the same way, in every way, the next day.

My other roomates at the hostel were interesting enough, as a generous statement.  My dorm was the mixed-sex dorm, where most of the short term residents stayed, seeing that the backpackers was filled with many long-term residents who occupied the better dorms, with air conditioning, and marginally better cleanliness.  Two rooms divided my dorm, and I had the second room, furthest away from the door out.  Paul and I lived on the top half of our respective bunk beds.  Below us lived a couple who had been in those lower bunks for--get this--three months.  They were, to quote Paul, "the ugliest couple ever," and there wasn't much reason for me to disagree. 

Paul had more beef with them than I did--after all, he had been there with them for nearly a month--his real issue was the way in which they draped a sheet around one of the lower bunks for privacy when they had sex, whether or not he was up on top in his bunk.  They were nice but ultra mundane British and had worked, together, at the local McDonald's for over two months.  This line of work was apparently theirs, too, back in the UK.  If you smell money, then you can smell other things, too, although I don't think that there is a word for their vacation lifestyle scent.  No wait: Literal: Eau de toilette.

Enough, though, on the intrepid roomates.  I stayed at the backpackers for only four nights--I escaped this particular Sangri-La  for the great outdoors of the Broome Bird Observatory.  Two friends I had made in Perth were up in Broome on a short road trip vacation; Clare and Hennig had stayed at the observatory for a couple of nights and had had a great time.  Campites were limited and cheap, eleven dollars a night, seven cheaper than the less than private backpackers, and I would be close to the bush and wildlife.  On their last day in Broome, the 16th of July, they drove me into the BBO, twenty some kilometers away from Broome proper.  They drove a 1970s VW camper van, which held a steady 80km/h on the bitumen highway, and something like half that on the bush road into the observatory.  Things rattled, like the whole frame of the car, the windows inside their frames, and I wondered if they weren't being too generous in driving me to the observatory.  After all, the BBO shuttle was only fifteen bucks.

The BBO was a small place: a dozen drive-in sites for cars and campers, and only two walk-in camp sites, secluded by the bush and in partial shade.  I was warmly welcomed by the rangers there and was shown in person to my campsite--ah! I thought, this was a good idea--where I set up my tent and made myself ready for nine days of non-spending lifestyle.

One thing that threw me off at first at the observatory was that everyone would ask me "are you a birdo?"  What?  What's a birdo?  Well, seeing that when you camp out for nine nights consecutively at a bird observatory, people assume that you like your birds, and that you're hardcore, to boot.  Like the Dutch, for instance, who tramp around the place day in day out, identifying the local birds as if they've lived in the North West for eons.  Me, on the other hand, I look like a bird, but I rarely look at the birds themselves.  Not really a problem, because birdos are a pretty easy going lot, but it caused some of the other residents to try hard to educate me on the birds, their habits, their names, both common and latin, and the general lore of the winged species.

What I didn't know about the BBO is that it's a pretty well known place.  For birdos and ornothologists alike, the observatory occupies prime location for bird observation, with the mangrove floodways of the Roebuck plains inland and the rust red pindan lined beach of Roebuck Bay itself.  The tides in this area are immense, nearly the largest in the world (the bay of Fundy has the largest, but the Kimberley coastline is second in the world and has a considerably massive area of coast affected by these tides), coming in by eight meters or more each day, and going out the same amount.  This tidal influence exposes the large shorebed of the Roebuck plains--a grey sucking mud encrusted with barnacles and shellfish and an amazing amount of small animal life--the perfect feeding ground for shorebirds.  Shorebirds, as they turn out, fly north from their summer homes in southern australia for this bird buffet, feasting for several weeks before flying up to their northern hemisphere breeding grounds, up in Siberia and northeastern China.

Consequently, the BBO is one of the prime locations in the world for birdos--and one of the best in all of Australia, land of many bird species and observatories.  And there I was, a cheap and ignorant backpacker, which I still remain, since the birdo passion did not really rub off on me, although the binoculars and telescopes used to observe birds are great for looking at the night sky.

The community at the BBO was great; one head ranger, three deputy rangers, two volunteer cleaners who worked for free board, and the long term residents who really studied their birds.  I joined in on the regular evening identification session, where Joy, the lesbian head ranger who hailed from Melbourne, would knock back her tumblers of Canadian Club and argue with the Dutch about tertiary wing tip colour variations and the actual rarity of spotted rare birds.  These evenings took place in the well equipped shade house, a screened-in open sided building with kitchen industry standard gas stoves, several fridges, cupboards packed with cutlery, utensils, and pots and pans a-plenty.  This dining room and kitchen had apparently been donated by a lord something or other--another birdo, evidently--and so life at the observatory was not lacking.

What did I do at the observatory?  Well, I read a great deal.  'American Psycho,' 'The Diet of Worms and Leonardo's Mountain of Clams' by Stephen Jay Gould, 'Life of Pi,' and I studied the Leeuwin trainee's manual--ship terms, knots, a rough guide on how to work a three masted schooner with 15 sails.  I studied the stars, or I tried to, as I often fell asleep at 10pm, too early if you really want to see the night at its best.  I also developed a habit of getting up at dawn and running five to eight kilometers along the Roebuck plains road that ran from some trails at the observatory--mostly out of boredom and from the fact that my tent would get too hot to sleep in soon after the sun rose.  During the day I'd break the day up by staging increasingly leisurely and multi-staged meals, enhanced by the free food left in the communal fridge by departed visitors.  I'd then spend a few hours looking at the books in the small library, or in the last few days, watch a video, usually on a bird.

Alternately, I would hang out with the rangers or other residents and chat about life, birds, and more birds.  Initially, out of self-couscious reaction to all these intent and well-informed people surrounding me, I tried to observe the birds, hunting out for the little and big guys out on the beach, in the brush, under the sun, sitting in the sand, dust, dirt, and just, you know, looking at them do their thing.  Beautiful creatures, but I'm just not into this sort of thing.  I would study the books at the dinner sessions, learn some names, promptly forget or confuse them, be corrected by several voices at once concerning a bird I couldn't have possibly seen.

I even went out on the third day at the observatory for something called canon-netting.  This entails trapping birds under a large rope net cast out by the force of several canon tubes loaded with gunpowder and a large iron spike that attaches to each corner of the net.  The team waits anxiously by the side of the road near the beach while a single observer waits for the right kind of birds to come within the correct range of the launching site.  When the net is cast, the roadside team rushes out to the beach, runs into the water and saves the frantic birds from death by drowning.  Each bird is quickly inserted into a canvas cage that has been hastily erected beneath a shade cloth set up on the beach.  Of upmost importance is the animal's health--the darkness within the cages calms them and following their initial capture, are only handled by volunteers with experience.

The purpose of the exercise is to tag and measure the birds, in as short a time as possible, so as to reduce the amount of stress and shock they experience.  This requires you to weigh and measure their various physcial features, determine age by their feather development, then attach a metal tag around their leg with serial number.  I worked as note taker while the docile animals were gently handled--they were Eastern Curlew for the most part, medium sized birds with long, thin, curved beaks and brown and white plumage.

Once finished, the bird was passed to the most experienced of the team; the bird was brought away from the group of volunteers and brought into a three-sided canvas shade tent whose open side faced away towards the open beach and ocean shore.  The bird was deposited in the tent and left to make it's way out and then slowly walk out--this was to allow the bird some time to shake off the ill-effects of its capture, handling, and release.  If just let go as is, it would try to fly off but would be very likely to injure itself or worse, drown in the ocean.  While conducted humanely and with no injuries or deaths, it is obvious that the animals go into a mild shock from the experience.

One other event stood out during my stay at the BBO: a day and dinner spent in Broome, as the volunteer cleaner (I forgot her name!) celebrated her 74th birthday with a group dinner at Cafe Carlotta.  We drove into town in the morning and I spent the day internetting, getting my mane cut, shopping at the Op-Shop, and eating non-instant multi-staged meals.  Dinner was great--italian cooking--I had a barramundi soup with a cappucino froth, a papperdelle pasta with pancetta and a mushroom cream sauce.  Although the pasta wasn't flavourful enough, the bread from the wood fired oven was excellent and the atmosphere terrific.  The lady who'se birthday it was loved her wine, too, so that was alright--a few bottles of WA wine from Margaret River and then a latte to finish it all up--decadent!

But then it was back to the observatory, with the heat, the flies, the same old, same old.  Terrible, I know, and I learned more than I'm letting on, but at the same time, I was pretty excited by the prospect of the Leeuwin coming into to berth at the Broome pier.  Eventually it did, and I left the BBO--with good memories, and having had a good time, and in a little better shape than when I first showed up.

It was then July 25th, 2005.

Exmouth, en route to Broome

I woke up around sunrise on the bus, a cramped and stuffy deal this time around.  We were at capacity and I was seated next to the window with an equally large fellow in the aisle seat locking me into position.  Soon after the sun rose we pulled into the Fort Rescue roadhouse, a desolate place set in gorgeous surroundings: rounded hills that shouldered the road house like the dusty remains of giants.

I'm not a particular fan of the roadhouse food, so all I bought was a bag of nuts which complemented my food cache of chocolate bar and wasabi covered peas.  Along with water, this was all I ate for the duration of the trip, which actually wasn't that bad, considering that all I did for the rest of the trip was watch movies.  Toy Story 2, The Importance of Being Earnest, and Snow Dogs.  I read the rest of 'Forrest Gump,' by Winston Groom(e)[?] and enjoyed it tremendously--actually better than the movie and considerably more vicious in its satire.

It was a long ride to Broome and we arrived there about 45 minutes late, which isn't so bad if you consider the 1200km travelled.  Eighteen hours in a bus, though, and you feel somewhat wonky...

Broome

Prior to Broome, I had made little in the way of plans for accomodation; all I knew was that Broome was a small place and that there were many backpacker hostels available.  However, once in Broome, it was dark out, I had no clue as to where I was in town relative to the backpackers, and it was a bit chaotic getting off the bus.  There were representatives from the backpackers who were there to pick up the smart people who had made advance reservations and there were those (like me) who milled about, looking lost, picking up their bags.

Things worked out: one of the other bus riders introduced herself to me and asked if I knew where any of the hostels were.  No, I said, I don't.  Ok, then, she said, I believe that these guys here know where the hostels are.  We then talked to one of the hostel representatives who told us that every hostel bar one was filled to capacity at the moment.  So we trudged over to the one that wasn't and found out that there were exactly three beds available--and wouldn't you know it, there were three of us who needed a place to sleep.

I got a bed in a mixed room of 8--guys and girls--and threw down my stuff then went and hunted down something to eat with Emma, the british backpacker who had saved my bacon.  It was a sunday and all the restaurants were closed or closing down, but we managed to find one that could do us some fries and beer, so we did that.  Frangipanis was the first restaurant I went to in Broome and it said something about Broome's potential: while not fancy pants dining, it was fancy enough and had a decent looking menu.  Things were looking up, although I would have liked something more than fries after my high energy, low vitamin bus diet.

I called it an early night and hit my grungy bed in my funny smelling dorm room at 10pm.

Monday, July 12th

After living with the Jenners for two weeks, I'd been conditioned to rising with the sun--so I continued the trend and woke with the sun.  I did my laundry for the first time in weeks and had a breakfast of boiled eggs and toast.  Before eating I had gone shopping, printed up some CVs, emailed, phoned home, and handed out 3 CVs in the central part of town.  There were many places hiring, but as things turned out, they were looking for people who were willing to stay for the duration of the season, up until late October.

I dropped by Woody's Book Exchange and received $4 for the the $7 Forrest Gump I had picked up in Exmouth.  Talk about devaluation of currency.

When I came out of the internet cafe, I ran into some friends I had made down in Perth.  Henning and Claire were up on a little end of semester break, having driven up in their VW kombie, 90km/hr at a time, up from Perth, 2300km away.  They were in good spirit and were happy to see me again.  We traded numbers and that was the beginning of the next few days.

The major feature of Broome is the beach lifestyle: www.broomecam.com and www.broomewebcam.com feature the two sides of the peninsula upon which Broome is situated.  The surfing here isn't very good but the weather is and Cable beach is pretty damn fine.  I hit the beach from 1130a to 550pm and watched the sun set.  Claire and Henning met me there and then drove me back into town.  There's a regular bus service that goes around Broome to Cable Beach, roughly 5km out of town.

The locker business--having determined that my locker wasn't going to open, I tried a new approach: I cancelled my locker and then rented a new locker, in the hope that this would reset the system.  So I did just that, but only realized that I could just as easily have a new locker assigned to me other than the one that I had previously had... but luck was on my side in this crooked late nite business and I received the same locker I had started with.  Unfortunately, the bastard still wouldn't open.

So I called the help line; local calls in australia are 40c each, if one doesn't have the right change, the machine just gobbles up your one dollar or two dollar coins and then keeps the difference.  The phone operator at the locker company headquarters started off my telling me, automatically, that the reason the locker wasn't opening was entirely my fault.  'You didn't push your bags deep enough into the locker and they are pushing out against the locker door, causing enough friction to keep the bolt from withdrawing from the slot.'

'Look,' I said, 'I read the bloody instructions when I filled the locker and was specifically careful not to contravene the ONLY instruction you guys had about sticking your gear in a storage locker.  Your locker ain't working and my bus arrives in 15 minutes.'  Buses in Australia don't wait for latecomers: a five minute delay spread over a 1200km journey adds up quickly.

'What can you do to help me?'  The situation improved dramatically when I learned that this guy was situated somewhere in Victoria, one state over, and wouldn't be able to get a repairman out to the bus depot until the next day.

So he trouble shot with me--first he dissarmed the locker security system via the internet.  He then instructed me to pry off the little red button on my locker door and, once the locker had been unlocked via the touch screen, reach into the quarter sized hole and manually pull the bolt along.  As instructed I did so--with increasing frustrati on from repeated failure.  The telephone was situated on the opposite side of the bus depot and I would walk from one side to the other, fuming, and chat with the dude from Victoria.

The bus arrived and the driver even came over to help me out with flashlight and bigger tools than my swiss knife.

Alas, things fell apart when we managed to trip the alarm system (despite our man in Victoria's assurances that we wouldn't be able to) and shut down the entire bank of lockers for good.

By now it was time for the bus to go... it was cold out and I was poorly dressed for a night out in the cold.  The bus driver let me onto to the bus and let me sleep for the 3 1/2 hour loop that he travels to the main highway... I spent most the trip chatting with the bus driver about the merits of working seven days a week (none) and how driving around Australia&nbs p;must be cool. Sleepy headed, I returned to the Exmouth bus depot near four in the morning after a 400km junket.   Disconsolate and weary, I slouched to a bench and tried to meditate on warm things, like breakfast, and the clothes inside the damn locker.

As I stared bleakly into the darkness, another traveller appeared from the other side of the depot.  'Any place to stay around here, mate?'

Well, yes and no--you could get a room at one of the backpackers, caravan parks, or hotels across the street, but they'd charge you a one day fee for three hours value.  The alternative is to sit out and wait until a new day has begun and then get a room without doubling the cost.

The fellow agreed with me and then looked a bit lost for words.  'It's pretty windy out,' he said.  Yes, it was, especially if you were on the windward side of the depot, like he was.  Come to my side, I said, it's less windy here.  'Yeah!' he said, and dragged all his gear over to my side.

I hung out with West Taylor, carpentry apprentice, and learned a bit about Margaret River and surfing while he smoke cigarettes and asked me about home.

Eventually, things grew too grim for West and he unrolled his swag between the otherwise useless locker banks and curled up for the rest of the night.

Tired and hungry, I notic ed that the nearest gas station had opened its doors for business, so I walked over and bought some peanuts and a chocolate bar. 'High energy food,' observed the cashier, obviously noting my well-rested features.

So the sun rose and a new day began, birds chirping and the whatnot.  The bus depot is also the visitor's center where all bus tickets are issued.  When they opened I entered and told them my sordid little tale.  I was compassionate because I thought that I was innocent of blame: after all, they were the ones who had originally suggested that I store my gear in these conveniently situated lockers.  As things turn out, any missed bus is usually not refunded--a missed bus is a missed bus, even if the traveller is utterly innocent of any wrong.

At this point, I pointed out that irrespective of policy, I wanted a new ticket at no extra cost and all my gear out of that locker, as soon as possible.  A manager had to be called in for reinforcement, but my ticket was soon re-issued free of cost.  The locker, however, still wouldn't open.  'Bugger that--give me a call when it is, ok?'

West had earlier crossed the street with his gear and rented out a room at the caravan park--so I trudged across the street and knocked on his door.  The kid--18 years old--had rented the most expensive room in the place and was proceeding to go on a bender for the rest of the weekend.  We spent the day drinking beer on the veranda with his new neighbours, a sheep shearer and his ranch hand sister who were on leave from the station for a week.  At one 1pm, my gear was thankfully released: the manager explained, somewhat apologetically, that they had unlocked the locker only unplugging and replugging the power cord into the power point (the outlet).  Goddamn, I thought, and thanked the man. 

My bus wasn't leaving until 1215am that night/morning, so I spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beer, then rum, with West and his neighbours.  I made some sort of chow mein with peas and carrots, beans, and tuna, spilling a whole of oil in the process.  West went out for the night but I stayed behind, packing up and taking a nap.  At 1130pm I woke up and got ready to cross the street--but these two norwegian girls prevented me from crossing.  They explained to me that they had locked themselves out of their room just down the veranda (true, since we had spoken to them earlier that day) and they needed somewhere to sleep.  Graciously, I let them into West's room and figured that at the very least, West wouldn't be too upset to find two Norwegian backpackers sleeping in his bed, whenever he got home.

Relieved of my duties, I crossed the street, caught my bus and slept.

Broome, September 14th

University of Notre Dame (Broome Campus)

Since I was last online, I've been working hard at working hard.  I'm currently in the middle of a ten day straight stretch of work at the hotel.  Today is day six and I'm counting down the days until this saturday, when I'll have the first two consecutive days off since I started working at the hotel, four weeks ago.

Today I'm writing from my new internet home: the library of the university of Notre Dame, Broome Campus.  Llyod, one of my roomates, was kind enough to introduce me to this incredibly free resource when I ran into him last week.  This may seem like a friendly thing to do, but it becomes an incredibly nice thing to do when you know that this was only the second time I'd ever seen the guy since I moved into my house three weeks ago.  He called me the 'invisible man,' and then offered to show me the library computers so long as 'I kept it quiet and didn't tell the other backpackers about it.'  Enough said.  Shh.

Exmouth, July 9th/July 10th, the Bus Depot

After a long intermission, I'm now back online, ready to update the ol' journal.

At present (August 30th), I'm back in Broome (round 2--http://www.broomecam.com" title="http://www.broomecam.com" target="_blank"http://www.broomecam.com), working full-time at the Mangrove Hotel in their kitchen.  So far, work is good: it's 40 hours a week, spread over five or six days, and I'm paid a casual rate of $17/hour.  The other cooks in the kitchen are all professional and laid-back, good team workers and not hard-asses like the last restaurant I was at in Toronto. 

While the food at the hotel is not as sophisticated (or pretentious) as at Lobby, the work atmosphere is considerably better and accordingly this makes for a fun and interesting workplace.  The restaurant is called The Tides Garden Restaurant and it overlooks Roebuck bay with its massive intertidal mudflats.  Clientel sit on a large terrace that is lightly speckled with palm trees, lawn, and brick patio paths.  The kitchen pass is connected to the outdoor bar and sometimes there is an evening breeze that comes into the kitchen, bringing with it the smell of the ocean and the nightime chirp of the local insects.

I've been at the restaurant now for two weeks and my scheduel (the roster) is variable: some days I work from 4pm to close (around 930pm), others 2pm-close, or alternately 11am-3pm (for lunch service) with a break from 3-5pm and then work again from 5pm-close.  When I can find a bicycle (a push bike) I'll take it to Cable Beach on my breaks--a fifteen minute ride.  Last week was a fairly busy week, as I moved out of my friend Mike's house and into my own room I found in a house in Old Broome.  I also lost my glasses last weekend in the last leg of a great beach party and spent the next five days at work visionless.  Added to my continual problem of being unable to understand what people say to me on account of their accents I've been pretty much deaf and blind...  par for the course, really. 

Where was I last?  Ah-yes, Tantabiddi and Exmouth, on my way out to Broome (round 1)...

Tantabiddi-Exmouth-Broome (Friday, July 9th)

The morning of the 9th saw me pack up my gear, eat an omelette made for me by Micah, and draw up a farewell card for the Jenners.  Gear in hand, we motored to the ramp, said goodbye to Curt, and drove with Miche and the kids into Exmouth.  I left my gear in these neat electronic storage lockers that were at the bus station, bought my ticket to Broome (leaving at 1230am Saturday morning).  When she had finished her errands, Miche and the kids wished me good luck and so I there I was, time to kill, ready for the next leg of my journey.

I spent most of the day hanging around--but come sunset, I was picked up at the bus depot by Bill and Sherry Bagby to go and see "Space Jam" at the outdoor cinema.  Bill--Captain William F. Bagby, U.S. Air Force, Commander of the Learmonth Solar Observatory--is the military astrophysicist recently installed in Exmouth by the US military only two weeks ago.  Miche had met the family in church in their first weekend in Exmouth and had formed a fledgling acquaintance with them--and I was riding that acquaintance for what it was worth.

Bill and Sherry have three boys, crew cut, action oriented, and roughly between the ages of 8 and 12.  The movie was horrible--the sound was off, Michael Jordan was intolerable as an actor, the story just awful--but the experience was great.  The cinema is set on the old baseball grounds of the military base, the screen set between the pitcher's mound and second base.  Outdoor, under the stars, is a great way to see a movie, even if it sucks.  The Bagby's also believe in snacking, so I had a great deal of chocolate, anzac biscuits (Bill's favourite!), candies, and pop.  Micah was also in attendance, as she was sleeping over at a friend's house in town that night (to Tasmin's great upset: "Why does she get to sleepover!?').

As my bus was only leaving at 1230am and it was chilly out (15-20C), the Bagby's brought me back to their house, offering kindly to drive me to the bus depot when the time was right.  They fed me dinner, we watched some footie on the television, and Bill--big, tall, broad shouldered--invited me to to see the observatory up close if I was ever back in Exmouth again.

At 1130pm we drove to the bus depot in their massive, shiny new Toyota Landcruiser, gratis the US government, and I said my thanks to Bill.  Shivering slightly from the cold, I went to the neato electronic locker to free my gear and get out some warmer clothes for the bus ride. 

Allow me to explain how these nifty lockers work: you place your money in a slot and then work a touch-screen to get a locker.  You first enter the length of time you  require the locker and then you enter in your personalized pin code, after which a locker is randomly assigned to you from the bank of twenty or so that run on either side of the touch-screen.  The individual locker only has a red button on it that  flashes when you unlock the locker (via the touch screen) and which you press to lock after you are finished with you locker business.

At 1135pm I touched the screen, entered my pin and... and the red button flashed, some noise was made in my row of locker banks but the door to my locker wouldn't open!  Shit! I said, and kicked the locker a few times.  What appeared to have happened was that while the electronics were working, the locker bolt was not withdrawing from the bolt hole.  Earlier in the day I had noticed, too, that my locker had appeared to have been jimmied some time in the past, but as my locker appeared to open and lock with no problem, I was not disturbed.

Oh oh--time to go to work.  I'll continue with the narrative tomorrow!