SATURDAY 29 JULY     HONEYMOON BAY

It was a hot day.

After breakfast, I did some washing – by hand, in our plastic bowl, was the only option through most of the Kimberley, of course. Pegged it out on the tent guy ropes.

John got his fishing gear set up, then wandered down to try some fishing from the beach – no luck to be had.

M went for a long exploratory walk, then joined John down at the beach.

I nursed sandfly and mozzie-caused itches.

M had gotten chatting with some of the men from the next camp. She must have made a favourable impression, because I came back from a little wander around, to find a large jewfish laid carefully on her little foot step.

As M and John were at the beach, I started the fish cleaning task. Took it over to the “table” that was set up for same – a board laid between two 44 gallon drums. Some of the guys from the next camp came to help – apparently they had arranged with M to go halves. They brought across a small cod too.

According to them, big jewfish and sharks out in the bay have made the more desirable red emperor hard to find in the past few days. They said this was very unusual.

Later in the afternoon – mindful of the time zone difference – I phoned son, eventually figuring out how to use the public phone! His move of house went alright. He was booked to arrive in Darwin early on the 11th, and was happy to meet up with us at Home Valley.

I cooked some of our share of the fish for tea, with potato fries. Just dipped the fish in flour, then pan fried it – very nice.

I had already noticed that – now a number of the family members seemed  to be living out here, in the house and the big shed, instead of “in town” – Kalumburu – there were a number of camp dogs wandering around too. They roamed all over the campground and filched whatever they could find. I suspected there were fleas about too. Between the dogs and marauding crows getting into the rubbish drums spread around for campers to use, there was a fair scattering of litter all about. It all felt quite grotty really, in a way it hadn’t seven years ago.