Beautiful Broome

We left RAAF Boab Quarry, and in doing so, left the Gibb and the core Kimberley area.  It was sad to say goodbye, and we did wonder when we’d be back to our favourite area again.  Who knows, another 5 years perhaps?

We convoyed with the Toomey’s again, this time on the bitumen, which was a bit weird.  No calling out over the UHF, “Oncoming”, or “Watch out for that hole”.  All rather sanitised.  We were excited however to be heading into Broome.  This was our second visit into Broome, the first being five years ago, where we turned up mid May, very early in the tourist season.  This time it was early September, which was definitely late in the tourist season.  Both times perfect for us given the hordes where not there in their droves.  Very happy about that.

We cruised into town and figured out that the Cable Beach Caravan Park would be the best for us.  We had stayed there last time, and had loved it.  We setup and got ourselves settled in for a stay, booking for 5 nights.

The next day Amy and Deb had a break out from the kids, and their hubbies as well perhaps (???) and drove into town for a quiet coffee.  Afterwards, they wandered through the weekend markets, showing great restraint by not buying some lovely art they spotted.

That night, perhaps because Matt and Deb had missed each other so much from the morning coffee, they ran off after dinner for an explore of the night-life, and a few drinks, while we watched the kids.  They didn’t find much action, but did find enough cocktails to make Deb have to concentrate and not slur her words.  She held it together well J

After the girls had spotted some art the day before, the whole family went back to the markets on the Sunday.  The art was definitely worth a look, and both of us ended up doing some purchasing.  We got a pair of paintings which had some great boab trees.

We all actually learnt an interesting lesson from buying this art.  At the time we bought the art, we both needed our paintings sent home rather than carrying them.  Matt and Deb paid cash for their artwork, as did we.  The lady offered to package the art up and post them home to us.  She’d let us know how much the postage was, and we’d pay her for that later.  In all the excitement, neither of us ended up with a receipt, or even a business card.  It wasn’t until later the next day we all realised that we had no proof of buying the art, no contact details, and no way of when, or even if, things were going to get posted.  We eventually heard from her, and all was good, but definitely made us worry for a few days!!

That night, we headed down to Cable Beach to participate in the closing of the Pearl Festival.  For us, this meant a play on the beach, listening to some of the live music, before hitting the food stands, and eating dinner whilst the sun set.  There is something special about the sun sets at Cable Beach, extremely impressive!

Cable Beach - preparing for the sunset

 

The next night, Glenn and Amy took advantage of having next door baby sitters with Matt and Deb, and we went out for a late tapas and drinks.  A great bar / restaurant just up the road did us wonders, and we had a fantastic night sampling some tasty tapas, and having one or two drinks.  It all went down very easily.

The days were taken up nicely with cuppa’s, chats, and lots and lots of swims.  We were camped right opposite the pool, and the wander over there wasn’t difficult at all.  The girls loved all the wet stuff, and continued to improve in their swimming.

Matt and Rory continued to practice their didg playing, getting better by the day.

Towards the end of our 5 day booking, we had decided that the kids were having too much fun playing together, and we were really in no hurry to leave.  We also had the incentive of having another birthday to celebrate, Kaylen’s 7th birthday.  We extended our stay.