We had been umming and ahhing about whether to take the
Gator (our van) up to Cape Leveque. There is a 86km dirt road on the way up
that was supposed to be pretty rough in parts and the ‘fancy’ park ‘Kooljiman’
at the end of the cape doesn’t accept vans...but my brother JP had recommended
Middle Lagoon so we decided to bite the bullet and drag her up with us, rather
than . just tenting for a night or two.
Three hours later and in desperate need of a chiropractor we
had completed the 150km journey! We checked in and were given the ‘Lookout’
sight, what must be the best spot in the park, on the cape and potentially
WA....or Australia! The whole of Cape
Leveque is Aboriginal reserve with some of the comminties setting up camping
areas like Middle Lagoon as a source of employment and income.
I will digress slightly at this point so the next part of
the story makes sense. For those who don’t know me personally, in my other life
when I am working, I have a small import/wholesale business brining stuff in
from China and USA and selling it to retailers. One thing I sell is LED torches
and so that the boys weren’t constantly hassling us for money during the trip I
sold them some torches and headlamps at cost that they then on sell them in
“Jack and Sam’s Coop” with the profits being their pocket money. They go van to
van with their enthusiasm like the tide, but today they didn’t have a problem.
I thought I would try my luck and see if the community would barter our site
fees for a few torches, if nothing more than to get them out of the van. They
couldn’t do it but Herbie, the manager mentioned it to a few of the lads as we
were heading to set up and pretty soon they were over to see what we had. The
liked what they saw and pretty soon there were four of them with their wallets
opened and some of their hard earned was heading into the boys coffers. While
the sales were great it was even better that the Jack and Sam had met the local
boys.
After lunch we headed down for a swim as it was pretty
bloody hot. On the way back up a couple of the boys were in the bushes and they
were cackling and jumping about. It appears that had tracked down an olive
python (non venomous) and were on the hunt. They had their spears and all kinds
of things trying to get it out of the tree before the dogs got to it. I sent
jack up for our extra long net handle and they managed to extract it and then
the games really started. Psy, who turned out to be the one of the wilder ones,
then proceeded to chase everybody around the snake on the pole. It was already
hilarious enough until a bikini clad pommie lass came up the beach to get a
photo of the hunter with his prey...not Psy...he then had a ball chasing her
all over the beach, until he eventually posed the pic. The boys had been part
of the hunt and were now considered part of the gang.
A little while later I saw them with a 4-5kg mackerel that
had received from a couple of blokes from Darwin. A few minutes later and they
turn up with ½ of it for us – yeah! Off they went again only to return half an
hour later with a big pot of the mack that they had cerviched, which they
called seasame! The most amazing (and scary part) was that Jack had filleted,
pin boned and skinned it. And truthfully it was pretty bloody good! The rest of
the afternoon the rode bikes, played basketball and mucked around. Just before
dark another couple who we have seen a few times Mark and Amy and their kids
rolled into camp
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