Our travels so far (June 2014 - July 2015)

The first stage of our travels involved two months of travel in around Europe and the Trans-Siberian/Mongolian Railway.

After Russia and Mongolia we moved through Asia (China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia,
 Singapore and Indonesia) before sailing from Lombok to Broome, Australia ending in Perth.

Bogged down in Broome

1^st – 25^th May 2015

After a night anchored up in the deep sea marina we awoke to a view of paradise. The still turquoise waters of the sheltered bay seemed enhanced by the rust stained soils of the shoreline. A plethora of marine life inhabit the warm waters of the west coast and it’s not every day you can spend breakfast spotting rays, barramundi, turtles and a shark from the safety of a yacht.

The nights sky shrouded our view of land on our arrival but it was a welcome sight at breakfast

No sooner had we mopped up the last of the super noodle supply our sturdy craft was boarded by a gaggle of immigration officials. We guessed from the fly overs the day before that the Broome office would go all out and follow the procedures to the letter but even a small amount of anticipation didn’t prepare seasoned border crossers like us. The 8 member team interrogated Storm severely, lined the rest of us on deck and requested our passports, visa documents and mobile phones (which was a new one for us) as a rather friendly sniffer dog set about the ship. The cabins were searched from head to toe and any remaining food stuffs were bagged up for incineration. The food issue and ship search made total sense as there have been quite a few high profile incidents with drug smuggling between Australia and Indonesia. Foreign species are also a massive fear here as Australia contains many species unique to the country that due to their isolation are vulnerable to invasive plants and creatures but the detainment of mobile phones seemed pretty odd. After a few hours of blatant vandalism of the ship we were reunited with our passports and phones. It turned out that they were checking for stuff like child pornography and ISIS beheading videos. Josh was pretty sure that they just do it to look at pictures of his misses but regardless of that we were finally allowed to take our first steps on land for four and a half days.

The sleepy, quiet streets of Broome had an eerie "The Walking Dead" feel.

Storm, Ben and Josh couldn’t hang around in town for long as they made plans to catch the first flight to Perth but were kid enough to treat us to a farewell pie and coffee brunch in a café opposite the Broome YHA. Hopefully we’ll meet them in Perth in a few weeks.  

The Kimberley Klub: Amazing pool but lacking in friendly backpacker spirit.

Our first impressions of hostel life in Broome weren’t the greatest. The Kimberley Klub YHA is a huge complex with an amazing looking pool, volley ball court and kitchen area but all the facilities in the world fall into insignificance if the social atmosphere is non-existent. In the three nights we stayed in this overpriced YHA we met a total of two people willing to divulge in conversation (both Australian I might add) which is rubbish when you consider the place must house 150 visitors. Meeting open minded people who are happy sharing stories is part of what makes backpacking a life changing experience and unfortunately for Jono and I when you have spent pretty much your whole life doing the same things (as most triplets and twins can relate too) it ultimately results in neither of you having anything new to say to each other as you sit across from each other with the look of a married couple celebrating a 50^th wedding anniversary. This can grow to boredom, resentment and falling out (I’m sure some of my mates have suffered a similar scenario when they end up trapped in a relationship where they are not allowed to meet their best friends for a pint anymore) and the stupid thing is that it can all be cured by having the decency to respond to someone when they have had the guts to walk across a room and attempt to spark a conversation with a total stranger. The best thing about our stay at the Kimberley Klub was that we stupidly decided to watch a local band one night thinking that a social vibe might prevail, but it had all the upbeat energy and enjoyment of a state funeral.

The Last Resort common area. Rough
around the edges but a great find.

Thankfully there are other options for accommodation in town and two minutes down the road you can find the smaller, cheaper and friendlier “Last Resort Hostel”. Unlike the YHA this place offers discount for long term visitors and for every 5 nights you book direct from the reception the house staff are kind enough to give 2 nights extra free. The manager/owner Pete is a wealth of knowledge on Broome and the surrounding area and is always happy to answer any questions or even help find casual work to build up your travel funds. The buildings not as “commercial” as the YHA but still retains the same facilities as you would expect. If anything the social side is better with a weekly killer pool tournament for the chance to win free beer (helps if you work as a team with a few mates to hustle the locals).

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With the difficult days behind us and a few new friends we set about enjoying the sleepy, sun-kissed, sub-tropical outpost and to help you get the most here is a summary of the main sights we saw.

           

Matso’s Brewery

That was a hiccup. Not rib-bit

To those that know me it probably comes as no surprise that a brewery would be listed amongst my favourite places to visit in Broome but this small, quaint establishment remains popular to all that visit because they believe in the products they create. Both Jono and I love real ales and its fair to say that after many months of having to drink the watered down, tasteless fizz known as lager it was a real treat to finally have the opportunity to sample a plethora of craft ales. At AUS$8 (£4) a pint (that’s an Aussie pint not the proper thing) it actually remains reasonably priced by Western Australia standards and with nice food, a garden terrace and yearlong sunshine to accompany the beautiful beverages you are guaranteed a good time. Definitely try the ginger ale and for those that dare try the chilli beer. Book inside for brewery tours.  

https://www.matsos.com.au/

Stairway to the Moon

Sunset at Town Beach

Apparently you can reach the moon if you run fast enough

Town beach offers the best spot to witness this natural phenomenon where the reflection of the moon rise on the placid coastline looks like a staircase constructed of moonlight. Locals and tourists descend on the beach not only for the “stairway” but also for the market stalls, food stands and entertainers that set up shop to make this a great local social event for all. Check out the tourist information centre for accurate dates and times.

Cable Beach

Cable Beach: An icon of Australia

Widely known as one of the best beaches in Australia and quite possibly the world on a good day (which happens more often than not) the perfect talc like beach that runs all the way up to Gantheaume Point offers a great spot to enjoy the turquoise waters for those who don’t mind the thought of being eaten by sharks. It is possible to ride camels on the beach although we decided to give this activity a miss. The beach is easy to get too even for those without vehicles thanks to great bus links.

Streeters Jetty

A local fishing for mangrove monsters

This small unassuming sight in the heart of Chinatown is the sight of the original jetty used by pearling companies and traders to ship their precious cargo. It’s still possible to walk along the dilapidated planks which offer a nice photo spot of the surrounding mangroves.

Deep Water Port

South of the town is the very port where we made landfall. A popular spot for boat enthusiasts the port offers a great vantage point to spot a range of marine life.

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It’s fair to say that we spent far too long stuck in the centre of Broome but with no car and Medicare cards and tax stuff to sort out we had little choice. Thankfully by late May and after nearly a month of staying in one place (the first time since we left home) the Bruvs were ready to hit the open road. This gave us an opportunity to use an online tool we had yet to utilise “Gumtree”. This website which I though was just used for advertising jobs, cars, laser pens and knock off DVD’s is a great platform to meet like-minded travellers and arrange ride shares and within a week we had found a small group to start an epic road trip. The multinational group was made up of Dustin (German) who had a space in his car for us, Bastiaan (Dutch) and Dave (English). They had just driven from Darwin along the highway missing most of the Kimberley’s along with an Italian friend Francesco (who was going to look for work in Broome) and were hoping to hire an off road vehicle to do the Kimberley’s properly before heading south to Perth. This plan was short lived once we approached the hire companies and discovered there were no off road hire vehicles left and even if there was it would cost around AUS$4000 for a week. Talk about distortion. This was a shame as I have wanted to tick off the Kimberley’s for a while but you have to adapt and accept that it just wasn’t meant to be and besides the Brightside was that we could spend longer road tripping to Perth.   

The Perfect Storm: 20,000 leagues over the sea

26th- 30th April 2015

Our last day in Southern Lombok was a real treat and symbolised the end of the pleasure cruising part of our voyage. What lay ahead was a four day slog across the Indian Ocean to Australia. After a short surf session and a final farewell from Dane and the girls Storm finally gave the orders to hoist anchor and ease the Strickly Bizness out of the congested bay for one last time. It was slightly peculiar that after almost a week of hugging the coastline and moving from one visible island to the other our co-ordinates now led us out into an ominous, crystalline desert.

Surprisingly Storm’s planned one more excursion to the agenda in the form of the rolling shoals which apparently is one of the best fishing spots in the world and would hopefully add a little variety to the monotony of heading in a straight line to Broome. Josh and Ben decided that catching our own grub would now be on the cards since we were outside waters quote “screwed over by dynamite fishing fly swatting bastards” and set about rigging up some rods to trawl from the rear of the ship.

Consistent with most of the trip so far we were unable to utilise the sails due to the warm, calm weather although to be honest using the engines didn’t bother us too much. If Storm had given me the choice between death by carbon monoxide fumes or drowning in a tropical storm at least the first option offered a nice peaceful, dreamy drift across the veil. Our spirits and banter were high (perhaps due to the beer or fumes. I couldn’t tell) and as the evening set in at the end of the first full day Mother Nature treated us to an incredible starscape for the 3 hours of my shift on helm and as I handed the reins to Jono and settled in to my bunk, cloudy with exhaust fumes I had no idea that the clouds were gathering on the horizon.

Enjoying a nice sunset as the swell gradually increases

By the time my watch started again the next morning the dynamics of the weather had changed drastically and it was clear that a storm had hit Storm’s night shift. The deck was strewn with the dead carcasses of flying fish that seemed to be the most common species populating this section of the Indian Ocean. I had seen pictures of them as a kid but having a chance to see them close up was a nice feeling although the books never explained how oily the things are. Although I was told they don’t make good eating I’m pretty sure if push came to shove they would make good signal flares. It was like shaking hands with someone who works at the grill in Mc Donalds. Stronger winds now meant that the sails were finally set and I could already see Storm and Ben’s enjoyment as they could begin to put the Strickly Bizness through its passes. For Jono and I it was also our first experience of large swell. We were now in waters thousands of meters deep and the stronger winds kicked up the previously stagnant water which in turn tossed the 40 foot vessel all over the shop. The rest of the crew were used to the ships motions as if they all have a built in gyroscope but for us we hobbled around the place like extras in an old sci-fi film when their space craft has just lost power to the shields.

enjoying a brief break in the weather

The crap conditions continued for a whole night and the following day with no sight of any other ship. Not even a dodgy immigrant carrier which seems contrary to most media articles but the truth is we were in truth lonely mariners. It also turned out that steering a ship takes a lot more skill than I initially thought. Sure on the calm Lombok coast we had both managed with dodging obstacles but sailing in a straight line in the open ocean with no obstacles to worry about was impossible. Our skills were so bad that it was almost possible to determine who was steering when on the GPS tracker. Storm seemed to be there just to get us back on track as our attempt looked more comparable to someone attempting to draw a circle on an etch-a-sketch pad. The poor weather conditions now meant that our plan to fish in the rolling shoals was now a no go. The favourable winds would get us there no problem but we would have to struggle again the breeze back to Broome. Oh well all best laid plans and such.

Set course for Broome Mr Spock

During my night watch we had our first sighting of another vessel since leaving Gerupuk and it was a close shave. Those who live landlocked lives like Jono and I probably don’t know that all ships should have lights on the flanks to tell others which direction it is travelling (Red = Port and Green = Starboard). If you see a red light you know the ship is heading on a potential collision path so you steer accordingly to avoid each other. We could tell that the object appearing from the gloom was large as the white light around the object extended at least seven levels, but there were no red or green lamps. Ben told me it must be a platform of some kind and I should change our course but this only seemed to bring the object closer. A few minutes and a few hundred feet closer we could tell the ship was some kind of cruise ship. It was going to dwarf our vessel but it had no operational warning lights. It was at this point that Ben began to search around frantically and decided to inform me that we might have to wake the others up and prepare for collision if we can’t get this larger ship to change course. It turns out that most of the cruise and container ship masters only notice things on their radar and as our ship was so small in comparison they wouldn’t necessarily notice it or even be looking out of the window for it. Ben decided to take out a few head torches, set them to a red flashing strobe function and point them towards the cruise ship to make it seem like we were having engine difficulties or something. Five minutes we danced around the deck lighting up the endless darkness like an illegal sea rave before the larger ship change direction. A slight reminder that even something as small as not having a light working can have large consequences on the open sea. I suppose it’s a little like driving along a country road at night without the headlights on. 

Finally  break in the weather

In the early hours of the fourth day the weather finally subsided and made way for cloudless, deep blue skies hanging above turquoise seas. The swell seemed to disappear as quickly as it had arrived as Storm pointed out it was due to us entering much shallower waters only a few hundred meters deep (still sounds pretty deep to me). All the signs signalled that we had crossed from International to Australian waters and a few hours later at around breakfast time we received our first of three separate fly overs by the coast guard/boarder authorities. It was all a little bit “24” with radio calls to the ship, heat seeking cameras and a plethora of questions to determine our legitimacy. I guess they have so many illegals attempting to make landfall they have to be a little bit bad cop, bad cop. The authorities arranged safe moorings for us close to Broome so we change our bearing and estimated an arrival time early that evening.

A family of flippers

As we approached the pearling capital of Australia and after four days of seeing only flying fish we received the best welcoming party imaginable in the form of a huge pod of dolphins. The 20 to 25 strong group raced the Strickly Bizness for 30 minutes battling each other for the lead a playing to the cameras. It was a great end to an amazing trip and as we settled in the deep sea marina awaiting the immigration authorities we both felt like we had achieved something special for the first time since leaving home.