Dampier Peninsula, Part 2 — “Bruce’s Place”
We returned to Cygnet Bay decided that if we ran into Bruce, we'd give his spot a go, otherwise we'd head back to Broome. And it turned out we found him sitting in his car on the road in. Half an hour later he was in the front passenger seat of our car guiding us down a very roughly hewn track out to "his place". What an adventure. It turned out he didn't live at his place, rather this was his special camp where his parents used to live and where he's been coming since boyhood. He hadn't actually been out on the track for a couple of months and there were places we were charging through acacia saplings as tall as the car. About 20 minutes into the drive Bruce gave sudden instructions to turn right, which to the untrained eye was just another wall of acacias, and Matthias swung the wheel. We were indeed on a track but much sandier and as it rose slightly we pulled up, sure that we'd never make it out if we carried on. While we were letting the tyres down, Bruce called his friend from Cygnet Bay to come and pick him up and give us a hand getting out if we got bogged. We actually made it through ok. We pulled down early into a trough behind the dunes - Bruce's camp was about another 200m over soft sand. His mate who came out to "rescue" us wasn't so lucky. Poor Steven, who otherwise works in sales for Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, found himself elbow deep in sand digging his Troopy out. After two "boggings" he was finally back on firmer ground and he and Bruce assured us they'd be back to help us out should we need it when we came to leave. When they drove off we were left with the entire bay to ourselves.
After the adrenaline of our arrival wore off and we could relax into our new surroundings we took the opportunity to explore. Hugh had already taken possession of an old dingy that we'd parked up next to. We had a brief nosey at Bruce's derelict shack. He'd had a fair bit of infrastructure; toilets, fresh water and a small shelter, until a cyclone had come through the year before and torn it all down. Everything it seemed, from his toothbrush to his generator, was still there and in various stages of decay. We found a cast fishing net in a waterlogged kayak and had a shot at throwing it into the slowly rising tidal water. It turned out not to be an intuitive art, and without instruction I lacked any natural aptitude. So despite a plentitude of fish in the shallow water, they remained out of our grasp.
As it happened, we had more luck with the birds. I found a double-barred finch nest in the mangroves. On peering in I determined it to be empty, then Hugh tugged on the branch and out fell four or five fledglings which quickly scarpered into the mangroves. We recovered three and returned them to their nest, the fate of the others remains unknown.
At night the bay would come alive with fish jumping. Like children chasing eachother in the shallows the sound carried over the dunes to our campfire. We'd seen small sharks and shovel nose rays patrolling during the day so I imagine they were responsible for some of the ruckus.
Apart from the threat of crocs to keep us out of the water, the only other downside to this little paradise was the mozzies and midgies. We got destroyed. It was also the first time we found a big spider in the camper. Not a bad record given we've been on the road for almost 8 months. We do get little insects but nothing that's freaked me out before and in general my tolerance of creepy crawlies has increased substantially. But yes, this spider was beyond my tolerance and was swiftly and ethically removed.
We had a lazy morning of pancakes then when the sun got too hot in our shadeless camp we went exploring over dunes to the neighbouring beach. This was a long sandy beach with big tides and views towards Sunday Island. Further up the beach, in the direction of One Arm Point and only visible through the binoculars we could see a vehicle and lone shack. But the beach itself was empty. We watched a few boats travel across the bay including a beautiful big catamaran in full sail splendor and a small dingy with a family. Given the warnings we'd been given about crocs we were astounded to see two people from the dingy jump out to go spear fishing. Later talking to Bruce he said Aboriginal people can sense the danger if a croc is present. Bolo had said the same thing. Bruce's family had been swimming from his beach their whole lives but he assured us that without that inate "sense" we shouldn't risk it. Cygnet Bay reception said two crocs had been sighted in their area in the last two weeks, so I was confident in our decision to stay on the beach.
Our already depleted milk and water supplies were exhausted after two nights at Bruce's place. Otherwise I'd have happily stayed on over the weekend. On our second morning, as we were mid packing up, two people appeared from out of the bush! David, Bruce's nephew, was supposed to arrive the day before, but he and his girlfriend Elsa got a flat tyre on the track in and being late they chose to sleep in the car and walk the rest of the way in in the morning. They were lovely. They joined us for a cup of tea before we all trekked back to their car with our jack to change their tyre. Matthias was the hero who did all the work with David being out of action with a broken arm. Car fixed, they turned back to Cygnet Bay to swap their 2wd sedan for Bruce's 80 Series LandCruiser, which they needed our jumper leads to jumpstart.
We were even more disappointed we couldn't stay longer and enjoy the weekend with them both. David, who spent a big part of his childhood at Bruce's camp had so much he could have shared with us - including how to throw the fishing net! Instead, we faced the exciting and dredded task of getting ourselves and the trailer out of our sandy hollow. The afternoon before our departure we had selected the best looking track to drive out on and prepared it by laying down wattle saplings for added traction. After much mental preparation and letting the tyres down another few psi, we bit the bullet and, as it happened, we flew out without any difficulty at all. And the track back was a breeze compared to when we'd blindly driven in a few days earlier.
We caught up with Bruce for a great chin wag back at the pearl farm and all cooled off in the pool before making the long drive back to Broome.
After all our adventures on the Dampier Peninsula we were glad to indulge in takeaway pizza and fish and chips as the sun set in Broome. We then put a few more kilometres under our belts before calling it a night at the Nillibubbica Rest Area half way between Broome and Derby.
