Warning: mixed tenses in this diary, I wrote bits of it in various places so I've just tried to make it readable rather than consistent.
I'm finally in Broome to start the ride, with my tandem and luggage. Both were delayed getting here, but both made it after a couple of days. I arrived 1am Saturday morning, crawled to a backpackers and slept. Saturday I spent chasing luggage and trike. The nice lady at Qantas was apologetic but it's not hard to see why my luggage went astray - there was a luggage handlers strike at Perth, so I got to spend six hours at the airport, and my oversize, heavy pannier bundle would have needed special handling so could easily get mislaid. The other passenger who lost luggage also had overside gear, so that's probably the reason.
Tips for travellers #253: you cannot walk anywhere useful from Perth Airport. I walked probably 10km out and back, and all I found was suburbia and grotty industrial area shops. A five hour stopover will do that to you.
So Saturday was basically written off by me sleeping and chasing baggage. The backpackers was full of mostly English tourists who party all night then stagger in between 2am and 4am, not good for the sleepers. Oh, and stack their metal plates on top of their packs which go in front of the door. I'm sure that's to reduce burglary. Broome is hot and dusty. This is my first look at the red dust, and it looks as though I'm going to be wearing it, eating it, and bathing in it for the next few months. It gets everywhere because it's so fine. Broome has dust but also sand, so in retrospect it was not as bad as some of the other places we went to.
Sunday I was wandering round town looking for excitement when I ran into the first CANC2 rider, Christine and got my introductory briefing on the ride. Chris was not the happiest, the ride had split at Derby and people had done the last 150km to Broome in smaller groups. Some had stayed for the rodeo, some had done other stuff in Derby, some had kept riding. But we're all meeting up at the campground in Broome, so I can move my junk out there and leave the backpackers behind.
I ran into Tanya and her boy who has also flow in to see her, but it seems that they want some privacy. Odd. At the campground is the main group, and then Christine, Jessie and Jhai have their own site some distance away. Compared to Jessie Christine is a happy chirpy group fan. Jessie has not had a fun ride, and his bike "pinko" seems to be both helping Jessie have a bad time, and bearing the brunt of his anger. They don't want to talk about the ride!
At the group campsite I start meeting people and setting up my gear. People are trickling in, with the last lot not expected until Monday.
Monday I got the trike and spent some time assembling it. About three hours, at a guess. I walked to the trucking company depot to get it, then put it together in some shade outside. Much excitement discovering that wax chain lube becomes wet when it's 35+ degrees and the chain is in the sun. Still, the trike goes together pretty easily IMO and so it's just a matter of sticking the 400 parts into the right places.
Back at camp more people have arrived and I've learnt at least four or five of their names. There are about 30 people here I suspect, and most of them are leaving the ride from Broome. I'm trying to work out who is continuing and what their names are. It looks as though we'll be here for a week while people rest and regroup, so the more energetic ones decide to run an info stall at Cable Beach each evening, and one during the day in Broome. Cable beach is only 10km away, and with the trike and trailer to carry the stall and attract attention it's not too hard.
We're in touch with the local environment group (Wade) and doing quite a lot of attention-getting stuff which is working well. The tandem trike is a great draw card, and people are getting into the swing of talking to passers-by and spreading the message. Lots of locals are not aware of just how much uranium mining is proposed in the state, or what the negative effects on the area are. There's also the search for a waste dump going on, I met one of the people from the Melbourne group that got the one there canned. That was informative and quite useful.