Kalumburu – on the coast again

 28 June – 1 July

Simon used our sat phone a few times the day we left Mitchell Falls to try to talk to his mum for her 70^th birthday. But she was never home! 

We got to Kalumburu before the shops closed on a Friday afternoon so we could re-stock and buy the necessary permit. 

We met a lovely gentleman outside the community store and chatted to him for about 5 minutes. As he talked and told us about growing up in the mission with his mother because his father had died in an aeroplane crash I realised I’d read about his dad in one of the Magabala books I was reading.  To confirm it all, I introduced myself and he told us he was Clement.  A ha.  It was the same story.  We felt really privileged to have met him, heard some of his stories, and been greeted so warmly and openly by him.  Thanks Clement.

We’re used to these little sandy tracks that take us to our next home and tend to take them for granted when we shouldn’t. We found Honeymoon Bay and it was so lovely to see the coast again.  Such a beautiful part of the world.

Honeymoon is also one of the highlights of our trips thanks largely to Lancho and his lovely family.  Lancho is the most relaxed and patient person we’ve met on the trip we reckon. On Sunday Hugo and Simon (and Isobel to begin with) made spears. It took them a good solid 6 hours from the time they went into the bush to get some decent saplings, to the time they were finished. I had no idea it would take that long. 

Hugo’s instructions for spear-making:

1.     Cut down a good-sized sapling.

2.     Hammer the bark off the sapling.

3.     Chop off all the bad bits such as dead wood and little knobbly bits.

4.     Straighten it in the fire.

5.     Place a metal rod in the fire for a few minutes.

6.     Cut the end of the spear to make a point but make sure it’s not sharp.

7.     Burn a groove into the end of the spear with the hot metal rod, use a hammer to press it into the wood as it will be HOT.

8.     Let the rod cool down.

9.     Do some kind of fancy knot to tie the rod into the groove you’ve made so the rod becomes part of your spear.

10. File the end of the metal rod so it’s sharp and pointy.

After tea Simon and Hugo went out with Lancho and 6 kids to the beach to go mud-crabbing.  They speared two good-sized mud crabs – we cooked up one and they cooked up the other. 

Unfortunately Otto got sick while here and he had temperatures on and off all weekend.  We could’ve stayed there much, much longer but we were running short on supplies and with Otto not well we decided to high-tail it to Kununurra after a brief stop at yet another health clinic!  Both Otto and Isobel went to see nurses at the Kalumburu Health Clinic – Otto for his temps and Isobel for her eye after some dust got in it and irritated it. Feels like we're doing a full inspection of all of WA's health services.