Wyndham - 27th June 2014 to 2nd July 2014
Our entry to Wyndham was late in
the day, so we waited until morning to go ashore. Not being sure what sort of reception we’d
get or what sort of facilities were here, we left Buffy the Barra Slayer on
board Charisma to stand guard. Our first
stop was at Pixie’s Tin Shed, where a lovely young lass told us we must join
her yacht club: “It costs ya nothin’ to join and ya don’t get nothin’ for it”. Well, the price was right.
Pic 1 - Pixie’s yacht club
Pic 2 - Pixie
Google maps assured us it was
2.7kms to the town site, so we headed off on foot. After several days aboard Charisma sometimes
you just need to have a nice walk. Turns
out to be five kms each way, which was a bit much for the Mustang. Here she is on the way into town, before we
knew how far we had to walk back.
Pic 3 - 10k walk
Like the tourists we are we had to
see the big croc too…
Pic 4 - Big Croc
And go to Five Rivers Lookout…
Pic 5 - Five Rivers Lookout
We asked everywhere in town about
hire cars, loan cars and/or taxis and buses, but there just isn’t anything like
that here, so we had to ring the Navigator in Kununurra to come pick us
up. He’s leaving town and needed some
help to pack up his gear, so it worked out well for both of us.
We arranged for a hire car in
Kununurra so we could bring some stuff back.
We’d run out of a lot of things, but most importantly we were running
low on lollies and biscuits. We’re still
going through a bag or two of lollies a day instead of smoking. Might end up diabetics at this rate, but it’ll
hopefully settle down eventually. We bought
Coles in Kununurra out of the brand on special, and ended up with 72 bags of
lollies, ten family packs of biscuits and 18 bags of nuts (peanuts, beer nuts
and pistachios). Oh, and 90 more mozzie
coils. Also went to Auto One and got
great service when we bought another crank battery for Charisma. This one really is just in case.
One of the reasons we wanted to
get to Kununurra was so we could take Buffy the Barra Slayer to the vet. She’s been complaining about a sore ear, so
we wanted to have it looked at. Turns out
she has a yeast infection and ear mites.
$270 later and now we’re putting solution in her ear twice a day. She hates it, and won’t come when she’s called
now.
We had a restful day Sunday after
the Navigator flew out in the morning, and on Monday we did the vet thing in
the morning and had a run to Wyndham in the afternoon. Nearly sank Merv getting all the shopping
onto Charisma, especially since I insisted on doing it in one trip.
Stopped at the Harbourmaster’s in
Wyndham while we were here Monday to ask about getting water. The government has spent some ludicrous amount
of money building a flash jetty here and there’s no water supply on it! If you need water or fuel you have to go to
the port, and you have to pay just over $100 for the privilege of tying up. The water is extra. Beats twelve trips carting water cans anyway.
Back in Kununurra my old mates
Kimmie and By Any Other Name gave us a lift back to Wyndham Tuesday
afternoon. Now it’s Wednesday morning and
we’re waiting for high tide so we can go get some water and then we’ll be off
again. We’re aiming for the Berkley to
be our next stop, with maybe a stop or two in between.
Pic 6 – Kimmie and By Any Other
Name - Thanks ladies!
This dock isn’t the easiest in the
world to tie up to, but we got there on the second go around. Problem is there is a water flow from behind
the jetty that pushes you away, even though we timed it to be before the
outgoing tide. Never mind, had a coffee
while we waited for the water to fill up and took off again. Now we’re on our way to wherever we get to…
Pic 7 – Wyndham Dock
Pic 7a – Wyndham Dock
Just a side note – typically there
is black lightning everywhere you look. These
fires will burn for months now that its so dry up here.
Pic 8 – Black lightning everywhere you look
