Three Pools with Brother Jim

We have visitors. Evenings have mostly included laptop sharing, cups of herbal tea and internet sharing to some degree, so I have haven't had the chance to sit down and write.
After travelling through the Kimberley on the Gibb River Road, and volunteering in a whale research program, my brother has made it to our little town. His partner in tow also. They arrived in a miners white ute vehicle, complete with fluoro stripe down the side, which, considering their very strong Greenie inclinations, gave me a laugh. They were acclimatising themselves to our small mining town already. Complete with the usual sounds of almost constant beep beep beeping reversing vehicles, that are heard throughout town. Including from their own hire car.

 

It has been so nice having family here to visit. My daughters have loved it. And I've enjoyed the break. Having others in and around home most of the day, to play with or distract my two is such a huge help. Both have happily spent as much time as requested by my eldest daughter, jumping on the trampoline, hula hooping, or playing in the cubby.
They easily admit, that their diet makes them the annoying type when it comes to eating out. Gluten free, sugar free, and a desire to only eat ecologically sustainable meats means that they happily offered to cook all dinners during their week long stay with us. And despite the fact that they dirty almost every dish that I own everytime they cook, and leave a small bomb site in my kichen during the process, I quickly agreed that somebody cooking all our meals, even if it had to encompass all of the above things, suited me just fine. The food they have cooked, I will say, has been delicious. Though they really could have served me up almost anything, and I would have been happy with it, such is the treat of being cooked for everynight. And with my daughters first birthday party also occurring during their stay, we have without meaning to, reintroduced them to the delights of sugar. Or in their case, more so my brothers, who has indulged himself the most while here, reminded them of the reasons why not eating sugar was such a good thing for their bodies in the first place.
Fortunately, they are the up with the birds sort, and have fitted in well to my littlest's current phase of crawling and rolling in her sleep throughout the night, banging her head on all sides of the cot in the process, and ending in very early wake ups for all. We have enjoyed a reasonably relaxed and lazy week. Allowing them a chance to recover, write postcards, and rest their sore backs after long 4WD trips and many continuous nights of camping in tents.
Eventually, we summoned the motivation to daytrip out of town, and show them the best bits of living in and around this part of the Pilbara. With a friend of ours also accompanying us, we drove to Three Pools for a picnic lunch and swim.
After getting lost, and finding ourselves driving down a dry creek bed instead of an unsealed gravelled road, we finally found the correct turn off to Three Pools. It was a stunning rock pool, but unfortunately, it didn't suit us to swim in. The girls weren't able to reach the pool safely, and it was very deep in most parts. And the only spot to set up a picnic was where we parked our vehicles, in amongst some very snake friendly looking scrub.

 

My brother and his partner enjoyed the climb down to the pool, and my daughters did what they do best when in the red dirt. Get themselves dirty.