This weekend was spent away on the Dampier Peninsula north of Broome. Reached by a 4WD only road, it is spectacular country and was Lawless family heaven - mudcrabbing, fishing, beautiful beaches, swimming and camping. We figured all 5 Lawless siblings would be happy up here. A lot of it is Aboriginal reserve land so local guides show you around.
The 100 year old Beagle Bay church is famous for its pearl shell altar (and its 82 year old Irish nun who came here aged 21)
We travelled up to the peninsula in this 4 wheel drive vehicle which carried all you could want for a comfortable stop anywhere. The tide came up a bit higher than our driver expected on this beach where the waves lapped coolingly under our lunch table.
Cape Leveque on the end of the Peninsula is renowned for its beautiful rock formations which glow at sunset. Nice place to camp for the night.
Always so reassuring to find those friendly Aussie community service notices 10m away from your tent site in the bush.
Went down into the muddy mangrove swamps to look for local beasties with one of the locals - Romany thought it was all too messy.
In the swamps our Aboriginal guide, Eddie, gathered mullet for bait to fish with. Made it look really easy.
Ciaran and one of the local giant mud crabs which he was understandably only willing to hold when it had been declawed (prioir to being food). Our guide had encouraged him by relating the story of a crab claw cutting his finger to the bone.
Overreaching one self award for the week - Susie has signed up for a local gym class to get fitness back up. Invited one of her workmates along to accompany her (and she happily agreed). Susie with the invitation had forgotten the small matter of this woman having 2 Olympic medals for basketball and she is hoping to go to Beijing for the next Games. You have to admire her friendliness and forgetfulness.
One of the locals told us that the Conservation department here keeps a few snakes for education purposes. They seemed very happy to let me take the kids in although it is not something they advertise. So Ciaran and Romany got up close with a couple of Pythons. They had a couple of even bigger snakes than these but just let them slither over our feet on the floor.
These little Stimpsons Pythons apparently make quite good pets being hardy and easily handled
The venomous snakes they wisely kept in cages but showed us them being woken up. The Ranger told us that at this time of the year with the breeding season starting and the weather warming up (now 32 deg daytime and 14deg at night) they are getting 5 or so calls a day round the town to come and pick up snakes.
