Bumming around Broome
Trip Start
Aug 08, 2011
1
18
52
Trip End
Dec 09, 2011
Broome, Western Australia, Australia
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Cable Beach Caravan Park is quite a phenomenon - many of the residents have been resident for quite some time and sites of longer term residents have all the comforts of home including veggie gardens and party lights. In addition, many sites fly their favourite footy colours.
On Tuesday we got used to being back in a big town again, doing some shopping/errands (including dropping into Ted's counterpart office in Broome - Hi to Gaye - to take care of some administrivia) and booking the HiLux in for a service - of course we also took advantage of swimming in the balmy Broome waters and taking in Cable Beach sunsets.
Early Wednesday morning (very early - 5:30am) we got up and took advantage of the low tide to walk out to see the wreckage of Catalina aircraft- flying boats that were being used to evacuate Broome residents in March 1942 and were bombed by the Japanese with most aboard dying either from the bombs, drowning or burned by fuel that ignited on the water's surface.
The walk out was made even more interesting by the Croc warning sign at the start - indicating a crocodile sighting a couple of days before - plus quite a thick fog rolling in.
The walk out was very interesting, with starfish and anemones resting in the sand waiting for the return tide. The catalina's themselves are remakably in tact with the fusilage and engines still recognisable - even thought they have become new reefs in Roebuck Bay.
On reaching shore we hurried to Gantheaume Point to try to find the fabled dinosaur footprints...without luck. We weren't sure where we were looking and the fog kept rolling in thicker and thicker so we decided to try again abother day.
On Wednesday afternoon we made contact with friends of Karen who are Boome residents (shout out to Gary and Sabina) who kindly offered us a room for the rest of our stay.
Thursday morning was busy - packing up camp and moving out of the caravan park, putting the car in for a service and catching the bus back out to Cable Beach to buy tickets to see the Pigram Brothers at Divers Tavern - what a great Broome experience.
Friday we headed back out to Gantheaume Point to persist in our quest for dinosaur footprints. This time with more luck - while we only found one set, we still feel priveleged to see these amazing records that were laid down some 130 million years ago.
On Saturday we were hoping to go sea kayaking, but the winds were against us - so re-booking for Sunday morning we, instead, took in the Saturday Courthouse markets. It wasn't until we got there that we realised that town was extremely bus because the Pacific Sun had just docked for the day, so everyone on board that hadn't booked a side trip was in town shopping for art, shopping for pearls, or just shopping....
Saturday evening we took in a session of WA short films at Sun Pictures (Broomes famous outdoor movies - complete with one shooting star, five flying foxes swooping by and one gekko on the screen!).
Sunday we headed out on our kayaking trip - beautiful blue water, a couple of turtles (too far away to photograph), hermit crabs and red cliffs.
Sunday evening we spent having the most superb BBQ on Cable Beach for sunset - including passing camels.
Tomorrow we are heading up the Dampier Peninsula to Lombadina and Cape Leveque - keep an eye on things, it should be awesome!
