Wildlife Extravaganza in Western Australia ( 12/14 )

DAY 13 ~ Friday

It was another cold and windy night, bbbrrrrr! We had a refreshing walk on the beach before we headed off for the last leg of our journey to Broome! This was by far the dullest of all the drives. The only highlight was when we passed some pools by the roadside which had pelicans on. They would take flight, in an ascending spiral – an awe-inspiring sight!

We arrived at Broome about noon and found a campsite at Cable Beach, the one in town being full. It was horrid, half of it was nice, with mature trees and grass, but they were expanding and it was basically still a building site with the loos unfinished, sand and grit everywhere. It was a hike to go to the toilets, those that were open. But, after all it is just a place to sleep.

Then we went to check out Cable Beach, supposed to be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world – it was also a bit of a shock when we saw all these horrid red and white beach parasols. The place was full of tourists, like we were in the Costa Del Sol! It was such a culture shock to be back somewhere so touristy, busy and tacky….”Take us back to Tulki beach!”

Eventually, we calmed down and realized that we just needed to learn to relax, enjoy the sun, sea and sand! And besides, we were tourists too, weren’t we?

We went back into the town to see the sights there. I was particularly interested in the history of Broome, the prominence of the Pearling industry in its founding. My interest stemmed from reading Ernestine Hill’s accounts (in “The Great Australian Loneliness”) of Broome in the 30′s and the stories about pearl shell divers.

We visited the historical museum which was a pretty fascinating place, though a little jaded and sad, with the exhibits unchanged for about 30 years. We did some of the Heritage trail – more relics from the pearling years. We also had our first sight of a Boab tree – excellent! I had longed to see one of these weird ‘upside down’ trees that seem to epitomise The Kimberley.

We browsed a few touristy shops then headed off to Gantheaume point to see the interesting rock formations there, and maybe the dinosaur footprints. The prints are about 30 metres out to sea, so it has to be a pretty low tide for them to be exposed. Not surprisingly, today the tide was not to be our lucky day. Still, the sunset made the colours in the rocks beautiful, more layers of red, pinks and orange.

From there we went back to the town beach and jetty to a fair in honour of an event that we were lucky enough to see – “The Stairway to the Moon“. This occurs when the full moon (almost) rises and is reflected on the mangrove flats, giving the appearance of a golden staircase leading to the moon.

The bazaar was nice, a few arty crafty type stalls, and some musicians playing. The moon was due up about 8.30pm and we congregated on the old jetty and watched as a red glow appeared on the horizon – surprising that the moon should be red! It certainly was worth waiting for, as it rose and reflected on the flats.

And so, that was the end of a very packed day, we were amazed we’d done so much just in half a day in Broome, what would we do for the next day and half?