People

Apart from the fact that our trip gave us an opportunity to catch up with friends in Darwin and Perth, we also met quite a few Canberra folks en route, on the Ghan train, in Bungle Bungles, in Kununurra, Port Hedland, either people we knew, or with whom we shared mutual acquaintances. Apart from that, there were several people whose paths crossed ours. First was our New Zealand/Guernsey friends, Dave & Karen, who we met on the train and later in Keep River National Park. There was also a young English couple in a "Wicked" van, who we saw at Cable Beach, 80 Mile Beach and Monkey Mia. They were such a sweet young couple that it amused us when at one caravan park we saw a sign saying all Wicked van campers would be charged a $50 good behaviour bond.

From Darwin we backtracked to Mataranka to spend a few days with our chessplaying doctor friend from Fiji, Dr Sam - here he's too busy studying chess to join us for a swim:

Somebody we first encountered en route to Timber Creek, and who kept pace with us the rest of the way as far as Cervantes, was cyclist David Robinson, who was on a 19,500 KMs ride round Australia, raising money for a water charity. You can read about his adventures here:http://www.davidddinoz.blogspot.com/

This was our last glimpse of him as he headed off to see the Pinnacles. He was one of many cyclists we we saw, of many nationalities.

The people we crossed tracks with most were Max and Jan from near Ballarat. We first saw each other in Keep River, then regularly at various places like Karijini National Park, Carnarvon, Exmouth, Hamelin Pool. At Carnarvon we independently came up with the idea of buying a kilo of prawns to entertain each other to dinner - a fine feast of prawns and wine was had :-) Here they are in their camper-trailer at Hamelin Pool:I think these friendly folks were hoping to hitch a lift: