Wednesday 22 August – As I write this it is almost 8pm Broome time, I’m enjoying a cuppa, and Grant is over in the laundry waiting for the washing to get dry – in the drier!!  Yes!  I thought when I pegged it out at a bit after lunch that it would dry in no time at all, but today has been a very strange day in Broome, so it didn’t. 

We once again got away from the caravan park by 8am and were in Broome a bit before lunchtime.  We hadn’t been able to book anywhere here as I couldn’t find a camp which took bookings, so we took pot luck and called in at the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park on, would you believe - Roebuck Bay.  I went into the office to see if they had any sites available, and Grant stayed in the car in the temporary parking bay.  Well they had four we could choose from, so Pearl told me to take a walk around the park (she highlighted the route for me to take) and choose the site we preferred.  So I went and got Grant, and with me referring to the map, we set off to check out the sites.  Grant kept saying to me that we were in the unpowered site section, so eventually we stopped and I asked a man where we were on the map, and we were in totally the wrong end of the park.  So once we got that straightened out and pointed ourselves in the right direction, another old codger stopped us and got involved, telling us which of the four sites was the best, and giving us the rundown of the place.  And he was right!!  We’ve got a beautiful site only 50 mtrs from the water’s edge (when you can see it).

Which brings me to the ‘strange’ I mentioned before.  As we were approaching Broome, from a few kilometres out we could see a very dark cloudy sky which we dismissed as cloud, because it doesn’t get cloudy in Broome – and decided it must be smoke from the burning off that occurs everywhere up here.  Well as it turned out it was neither – it was just a very heavy sea mist that totally obliterated the sea from our view.  And the old codger mentioned that this was unusual, but had been happening a couple of times a week recently.

So, undeterred we set up the van, put our chairs and table on the grass between our van and the water, and had lunch, during which time the mist gradually cleared and we had the expanse of Roebuck Bay in the most magnificent shade of blue you could ever see. 

Grant lapping up the lifestyle.

After a quick lunch I went and did a couple of loads of washing, pegged it out, then we went for a drive to the Visitors Centre to book a couple of the tours we want to do while we are here.  We were chatting to our neighbours before we left and they said that the town tour is very good, so we first mentioned that to the fellow who was serving us.  He asked whether we wanted to do it this afternoon, but we said we’d prefer tomorrow, but it doesn’t run on a Thursday, and Friday there weren’t the required numbers for it at this stage, so there was no guarantee that it would go ahead.  So he said, why don’t you do it this afternoon – it leaves in half an hour.

After a quick consultation we said yes, and left the other tour bookings till tomorrow, as we had to dash back to the caravan park (which we weren’t sure how to find in a hurry to get Grant’s warfarin tablet which has to be taken at a specific time which would fall while we were mid tour!! Talk about being organised!  We made it there and back in time, and even had ten minutes to spare when we got back to the bus stop.  The tour was on a red double decker bus.

The tour was excellent – with one minor ‘less than excellent’ part.  And that was that the first spot he took us to was the famous Cable Beach, and the dreaded sea mist had come in again and it was like a pea-souper – no vision of the beach at all, so we’ll go back tomorrow and have a look for ourselves when the day is clear.  But apart from that I reckon we must have driven down every street in Broome – sometimes twice, while we got a fully detailed introduction to the town, its industry, it’s buildings, resorts, main features, beaches, wharf, cemeteries (pioneer, Chinese and Japanese}, pearling luggers, etc.  It took two hours and we returned to the starting point at about twenty to six this evening.

 The Broome wharf.

Pizza was the choice for tonight’s tea, so Grant found a pizza place, found our way back to the camp in the dark (he wanted to do it without Zola’s help, and I was totally bamboozled), and that’s where we are at now.  I can’t believe we are in Broome already.  When we started out on this trip, Broome seemed such a long way in the future, and now we are here.  The time is really flying.