Week 8 – Broome

Red, full of dust and not a single thing clean (including us) we came out of the Kimberleys looking forward to a hot shower, a day at the laundry and a morning at the car wash to hopefully get rid of as much red dirt as possible before opening up the tent again.  Only problem was we arrived two days before our accommodation was booked and sadly for us the caravan park couldn’t get us in any earlier.

So a mercy phone call to my cousin Milton and we find ourselves lobbing up and camping for two nights in his new carport…which coincidentally is big enough to fit our camper trailer all folded out, plus a boat and then some room just for fun.  This becomes home for a couple of nights but other than the big tent in the drive, we hardly added to the mayhem given that Milton and his wife Rowena’s extended family seems to have a cast of thousands and all the neighbourhood kids wander in and out.  Alex and Lachie needless to say had a ball meeting two cousins they didn’t know they had, Ryan and Ella, and playing with all the kids.

Mum and Dad were also in Broome, having flown over from Kununurra on their own big trip.  Was great to see them and we had a belated Birthday Dinner at a swanky restaurant overlooking the ocean….except it was cold and windy so we had to close all the windows.  Food was great though and it was good to see them for a couple for days before they flew back to complete their journey.

Milton works at the local aquaculture facility with the tafe so we got to see his latest project, breeding Barramundi.  From little ones barely a centimetre long to big ones half a metre long we saw them all.  We even fed the big ones little fish which as they broke the water taking them out of your hand made quite a splash.  Was pretty cool to see and certainly not what we expected in Broome.

Finally we checked in to our caravan park on Cable Beach for 4 nights.  Sunsets over Cable Beach and another at Gantheaum Point were just amazing.  To see the sun set over the Indian Ocean was quite spellbinding and the orange glow lingered on the horizon long after the sun had gone. 

A camel ride just before sunset (was half price compared to the sunset ride) was a must. The boys loved the camels with Lachie amazed at how high he was when it stood up.  There are actually three companies who do camel rides…a blue one, a red one and a yellow one.  We did the blue one which means we have photos of the other colours…don’t know why, just did!  No matter what colour the camel wears though, half an hour was plenty to have to straddle a camel and with another iconic tourist attraction ticked off I was happy to get back down on the sand

A stroll around Chinatown pretty well completed our time in Broome.  The boys put on their best “pretend to be happy even though I’m bored” faces as we strolled around and looked at the shops and took in the main part of the town.   This part of town was quite quaint, and easy to see a day slip away just wandering around…maybe that’s what they call Broome time.

But time to move on, and lucky for us we have scored a cancellation at Kooljamin up on Cape Leveque in a few days time, so trips to Woolies and Coles and we are all stocked up ready to go another week or two until we hit another town big enough to be written in bold type in the road atlas.