Thirty-eight kilometers northwest of Kalgoorlie lies Kanowna, a wide spot on Western Australia’s Goldfields Highway that’s been home to the Broad Arrow Tavern since 1896.

Holy crap. What an experience.

This is Fiona, the bartender at the Broad Arrow Tavern. I can’t believe this beautiful, delicate-looking young woman actually works at this roughneck, outback bar. She looks like she should be a ballet dancer in London or an aerobics instructor in Perth or a barista in some hip Sydney coffee shop.

I had a short conversation with Fiona. It was short because I had no idea how to respond to what she said. Sentences were spoken that just plain stumped me.

This is the conversation. Verbatim.

Jim: You work out here in the middle of nowhere, but where do you live? (I really thought she’d say “I commute from Kalgoorlie.”)

Fiona: I live in the bush with my uncle. He’s a ‘roo shooter.”

A ‘roo shooter, in case you haven’t figured it out, is someone who shoots kangaroos for a living.

Now if perchance you’re a speed reader and accidentally skimmed over that sentence, please allow me to repeat:

HER

UNCLE

SHOOTS

KANGAROOS

FOR

A

LIVING!

I was speechless. But I’m not sure which concept surprised me more — the fact that she lives in the bush or her uncle’s chosen profession.

We were having a lovely lunch with our Kalgoorlie friends — Tina, Wendy, and Tiny — when Tiny’s boss called. Tiny’s the Kalgoorlie city engineer but seems to have a lot of additional responsibilities that have nothing to do with engineering. One of those extra duties is assembling whatever resources are necessary to fight bush fires anywhere in the region.

The boss had been notified that a bush fire had broken out and asked if Tiny could find out exactly where the fire was raging and to make sure the fire department was on top of it.

He hung up the phone, looked around the room, and said, “Want to see a bush fire up close?”

Hell yes.

So Wendy, Tina, Jamie and I piled into Tiny’s big ol’ SUV and we all headed in the direction of the smoke. Didn’t take long for Tiny to find its source, an open field not far from the airport.

By the time we got there, earthmovers had already gone into action, pushing dirt onto the flames. Within an hour or two they had reduced it to a few smoldering hot spots. Tiny said they got lucky this time because the same land had burned not too long ago which means that this fire was left with less fuel to consume.

Tiny and his people even made the front page of the Kalgoorlie Miner newspaper the next day.

Yea, Tiny!

Look behind those palm trees and you’ll see the largest houses in Broome. Far as I know, they’re the only beachfront properties for hundreds of miles in either direction. I don’t know how many are up there. Five or maybe six? Or might some of them be smaller guest houses for larger estates? I just don’t know.

But what I do know is that you couldn’t touch one for less that $10 million. Of course, those are Aussie dollars and with today’s exchange rate you could move in for a mere US$6,800,000.

A veritable bargain.

It’s rumored that one of them belongs to Aussie billionaire Kerry Stokes, who also owns one of Australia’s TV networks (among other trifles), but we won’t be able to confirm that until we’re invited to one of his lavish Beach parties.

We’re pretty sure our invitation got lost in the mail.

We didn’t see the moon on the right until we got home and downloaded the photo. One setting, the other rising, but perfectly aligned for one brief moment. Kind of cool, huh?

What a stunning sky — Mars, Venus, a sliver of moon, and a silhouetted tree on the horizon.

I have a friend who’s an incredible photographer. He sees things in ways I don’t see them and always has the ability to turn ordinary photos into something special.

I, on the other hand, can take an extraordinary scene like this and turn it into a completely ordinary photo.

Damn it.

Big bush fires roared through the outback just outside Broome yesterday afternoon. You could see them raging from our hotel parking lot and again during our nightly sunset walk on Cable Beach.

No one seemed to be very concerned with the approaching flames. The camel caravan made its nightly circuit of the beach without skipping a beat. Hundreds of Aussies frolicked in the water without giving a second thought to the inferno raging right on the other side of the dunes.

We assume that’s because bush fires are sooooo common out here. A thunder storm can sweep across the outback and lightning strikes can spark dozens of them all across the horizon. In addition to all the naturally-occurring fires, may others are intentionally started by aborigines.

Yes, I did, in fact, say that the aborigines start fires intentionally. But no one considers them to be arsonists. They’re just an ancient people following their traditional beliefs.

The Australian Department of Biodiversity, Conservation & Attractions says:

Before Aboriginal people populated the Australian continent some 40,000 to 60,000 years ago, the major cause of fires would have been lightning. Aboriginal people learnt to harness the naturally recurring fire caused by lightning and other sources to their advantage, which resulted in skilful burning of landscapes for many different purposes.

Fire was used for:

• make access easier through thick and prickly vegetation. •. maintain a pattern of vegetation to encourage new growth and attract game for hunting • encourage the development of useful food plants, for cooking, warmth, signalling and spiritual reasons.

Unless one of these bush fires threatens structures, they’re generally allowed to burn themselves out. This part of the country just doesn’t have enough people nor enough water to put up a real defense.

We’ve actually driven through one bush fire whose flames came right up to the edge of the main highway across the Kimberley.

It was scary and destructive, but somehow fascinating and beautiful at the same time.

If I get to Heaven’s gate (which in itself is a doubtful proposition) and Saint Peter says, “Before you enter, Jim, you’re going to need to choose between watching baseball or cricket for eternity,” it would be a tough decision.

I’ve always been a baseball fanatic, but I guess this means that I’ve become a real cricket fan, too. Some people think cricket is boring, but as a newly-minted official cricket fan, I can say with great authority that they are wrong. It’s fascinating, sort of the bastard love child of baseball and chess.

The top-level international game is played in only twelve countries —England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the West Indies, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Ireland, and Afghanistan. (Yes, the game originated in England back in the 1700s and spread across the British Empire.)

You have to feel sorry for the poor Pakistani team, which just got demolished in a two-game series by Australia‘a team. As a result of a terrorist attack in their home country, the international cricket organization has refused to schedule any games there for ten years. For a decade, its team has been forced to roam the world, perpetually the visiting team, never able to play in front of a friendly home crowd, never able to sleep in their own beds.

What a sad situation for any athlete in any sport. I hope they win every game they play except when they play Australia.

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie! Oi, oi, oi!

Broome only has two seasons. Locals call them The Wet and The Dry. The Wet generally lasts from November until April and The Dry from May through October. 

Here’s a chart that shows you just how wet the Wet is and how dry the Dry is. Two extremes.

Amazing, huh? Rain galore in January and February, a little more in December and February, then nothing the rest of the year. In February 2018 five feet of rain fell on Broome in less than two weeks.

Add in the heat and humidity that mark The Wet and you can understand why the town is empty this time of year.

We hoped a monsoon would come in early this year and strike while we’re in Broome. Locals say they’re incredible sights to see, that the skies are aflame with lightning and stepping outside is like walking into a car wash. Unfortunately, we’re too early and we haven’t seen a drop of rain.

Looks like we’ll need to return in some future January or February.

My favorite uncle sold real estate in Kalispell, Montana eleven months a year. I once asked Uncle Dick why he decided to open a Christmas tree lot in Southern California during the twelfth month and he said, “It’s tough to sell real estate when it’s covered with snow.” 

So each year, instead of freezing his ass off while not selling any real estate in Montana, he brought a big truckload of Montana fir trees to Southern California, rented a vacant lot, and sold them. 

It was genius. Pure genius. He escaped Montana’s cold weather for a month, spent that time instead in sunny Southern California, traded his truckload of trees for a truckload of cash, and had a truckload of fun in the process.

Uncle Dick would have made a fortune here in Broome. There are no Douglas firs for thousands of miles. Here’s all the proof you need: The Broome community Christmas tree, located at the busy corner of Carnarvon & Short Streets, is a boab, one of the strangest trees you’ll ever come across.

Their trunks are swollen and wrinkled and they can grow up to fifty feet tall. Boabs suck up water during The Wet, store it in their bulbous trunks, and live off it during The Dry.

I know it’s a little early, but Merry Christmas.