A pleasant invitation.

After a very long and arduous drive from the Bungles we arrived on an excellent site in Fitzroy Crossing. What a change, great showers, a lovely grassy site, and a superb restaurant. We took advantage, a couple of nights with no cooking and no washing up - just great! And spent a day in the pool, what a relief after 112 fahrenheit in the Bungles! Anyway, a long conversation in the pool with a charming lady and her two lovely girls resulted in an invitation to visit them at their home in an aboriginal community as we were passing by the following day.

So at 8 o'clock this morning we set off for the two hour drive to Looma, a community about 32 kms off the Great Northern Highway, which runs between Fitzroy and Broome. Leanna's husband Chris, a sergeant in the WA police, has been posted there, and along with one other officer has a beat which covers many thousands of square kilometres, and a lot of Aboriginal communities. Chris is often away on his beat for up to six days a week, so Leanna and the girls have to be very self sufficient.

We were made so welcome- our hostess has a lovely house and garden, one of three in the block, the others are for the second officer, and a child protection officer. The police station, opposite the houses, is newly built together with the houses, to serve the immediate community of some 400 people.

It was noticeable that most of the workers in the village were white, the shopkeeper, the teachers, the street workers, and Leanna told us that is was very difficult to motivate the locals as the government gave them everything that they needed. However her neighbour, the child protection officer, was making a difference because she was insisting that the children go to school, with the stick that child allowances were withheld from any family that kept them away. However, she told us that during a recent bush fire few of the locals turned out to help even though the school was threatened, those that did only did so if their own property came under threat.

We were shown round the police staion, which is multi functional, serving as the licensing office, the courthouse, and the child protection office to name but a few, with just three people to look after all this!

We put Anne in the dock, and found her guilty! She wouldn't go in the cells though!

The family seems very happy there, despite the fact that they are very cut off from family in Perth, and some 250kms from Broome, the nearest "civilisation". Leanna organises events in the village such as discos and sports, and keeps herself busy cleaning the station. Quite a handful with two young children to bring up at the same time.

It was a pleasure to meet them and visit their home, they do a great job in difficult circumstances, and one has to admire their attitude.