Tour Two

Windjana Gorge Barquing

Broome is a small town which marks the mid-point of our trip: in two days time, we will exchange our bus for a four-wheel drive truck, Cleggy for a new tour guide and most of the group, with the exception of four of us, will also be substituted for fresh blood. Until then, we have been told, Broome is ours to do as we will with.

But Broome, a small place built on the back of its pearl fishing industry, is not perhaps the most exciting place to become stranded for more than two days. The weather here is properly tropical, and the mere act of blinking is enough to bring about a sweat. Thus, doing nothing at all becomes the activity of choice, and this is a good thing as, well, there's not really a great deal of things to actually do here.

There is Cable Beach - I concede - a broad expanse of pale sand, leading onto the green tropical ocean, but it is scattered with so many warning signs, boasting the dangers of box jellyfish, crocodiles, sharks and the like, that it looses its appeal. As for sunning yourself on the beach? Twenty minutes will probably reduce to you to ashes, so lets move on to the town.

The town itself is a short bus-ride away from our hostel - the buses driven by enthusiastic drivers who sing out the approaching locations as though they were worthy of paying attention to. The impression is that everyone here is a tour guide, resting or otherwise - and it is hard not to wonder if they are desperate to find a new tour route, preferably somewhere else.Broome's town centre is a wide street lined with identical, low buildings, each painted white, apparently based on the original pearling shacks which were once built in the area. It looks a little like one of those outlet villages which sit outside towns selling over-stocked produce of designer clothes brands. However apart from a street selling (it appears) nothing but pearls, it would be hard to mistake Broome for a shopping destination of any sort.

But for our purposes, it proves to be a pleasant diversion. We need an excuse to do nothing - to simply lounge around in the shaded courtyard of the hostel, to update our journals, to do our laundry, to read a few more chapters of the paperbacks which have remained untouched since Perth.

One by one, the original group begins to disperse. They leave by plane from the tiny airfield in the middle of town, the aircraft flying low over the main street in a bid to escape.

Before long, only four of us remain.

Our new tour guide is Jez - or Jess or something along those lines, and Cleggy, it appears was not being entirely honest with us with his description the night before.

"He said you were a girl." Auralie says with admirable bluntness.

Jez nods, then shakes his head.

"Cleggy huh?" he says. "Wild man."

We throw our bags onto the truck - a more compact and comfortable looking contraption than the bus which served as our home for the past nine days - then wait around for half-an-hour for another member of the group. One phone call later however and we are on our way.

"No show." Jez says, "All the more room for you guys."

In all, there are only eleven of us in the group - and with the bus seating twenty-one, the sense of extra space is certainly welcome.

We have a second guide for this part of the trip too - not officially, as such, but Ben, who has only just finished leading a tour along the same route from Perth to Broome that we have been on, is hitching a ride to learn the route up to Darwin.

Ben is also a veteran guide of the Tucan South America route and just happened to have been in Lima around the same time as I was in 1993.

"That's strange," I say, "Cleggy was working for the Bridge of Orchy Hotel when we did the West Highland Way last year."

Ben nods, disinterested as though these little coincidences which prove that the world is a small place are growing a little tiring.

"Cleggy, huh?" he says instead. "Wild man."

Our route takes us first to the Boab Prison Tree, a hollow boab tree which was once used to imprison Aborigonal prisoners as they were taken to Derby. The tree and the hole remain, but are fenced off with a large imposing sign warning the curious not to approach.

It is disrespectful, the sign says, the tree has become an important symbol of Aborginal history. As an afterthought, the sign continues with more simple scare tactics: "Also," it says, "Snakes inhabit the tree."

The Gibb River Road connects the cattle stations of Derby to Kununurra some 665 killometres away. It is unsealed and only suitable for four-wheel drive vehicles, peppered with steep dips into the remnants of streams, rivers and brooks. During the wet season, much of the route is utterly impassable - the notion that the road is built to be washed out for six months of the year is a strange concept indeed.

We stop at Tunnel Creek, a long cavern which cuts through the mountain range near Windjana gorge. The tunnel is dark and wet, torches are required to cut through the gloom, what's more, wading is also needed - waist deep at some points.

We stop for the evening in the shadow of the imposing Windjana Gorge itself - a ninety metre high fossilized coral reef, rising out of the flat bushland in a sheer perpendicular face. The remains of prehistoric fish can still be seen burnt into the rock. Around it, freshwater crocodiles lurk in the water - they look impressive despite their small size and it is reassuring that they are comparatively harmless when compared to their salt-water cousins.

A low, even cloud layer maintains the day's heat long into the night. We sweat and stew in our sleeping bags, unwilling to risk sleeping on top of the bags thanks to the constant whirl and whine of the local mosquito population which would be considerably less irritating if they went about the business of sucking blood without making such a racket about it.

Sleep is fitful, but the display of the sunset lighting up the rocks of Windjana Gorge, in typical shifting-colour Australian style, is worth the discomfort.