Very easy to spend time in Broome

Tonight is our 7th night in Broome. How did that happen? The days just roll by and I don't think we are in any particular rush to go, however our campsite, the good old SDAs, has a maximum 7 night stay, so we had better push on and explore more of WA. Its certainly not difficult to hang out on Cable Beach, a beautiful long and wide stretch of beach with fabulous turquoise water, where we have had quite a few visits at various times of day, with different swell conditions from flat to quite big waves. Its so easy to get around Broome, after a week I feel I can navigate all its streets and get where I need to with ease. Oh how I wish Sydney were like that. We haven't seen a single traffic light in Broome. Beautiful balmy evenings, great 'summer' days. In between the beach visits we have also had several visits to Broome Aquatic Centre where we have splashed about and I've worked out that I can still swim. One morning I even got up and joined the 6am swim squad. And at another visit the rumble tumble between Cem and the kids was too vigorous and Cem lost his front tooth (crown). Fortunately we were able to find an emergency dentist. The Port area was beautiful and the jetty walk was the freakiest one I've done (I'm not very brave with heights) - high, open metal mesh walkway and no proper balustrade. Here's some photos from our afternoon at the port area:

Lots of beautiful sunsets in Broome, and lots of great vantage points. Saw a few at Cable Beach. Also a couple at the rocky point called Gantheaume Point, which is truly a spectacular piece of Australian coastline.

Ayla has met a little friend called Erin, and her brother Isaac is also getting on well with Kai and Sol. They are part of an unique and inspiring family of seven which also includes their 4 other sisters and mum Colleen. So that's seven of them, plus 2 dogs, have been travelling for 7 months from Tassy and are all in the one 3 x 3m tent, also at the same campsite as us. So, our 'movie nights' back at the van now have a larger following:

One afternoon we spent out at the Crocodile and Wilderness Park just outside of town. 3pm is the croc feeding. We were within 10-20cm of these creatures, the 'salties', with just a bit of tennis court fencing wire in between. So lazy and not bothered to spend any extra energy than necessary, yet so strong and deadly, and by far Australia's deadliest predator, the next being the dingo.

Look how cute this dingo is, and its second to the saltie.....

Had a bit of an education on the pearling industry by visiting the Pearl Luggers in town; originally it was just the mother of pearl shell that was dived for. There were a huge amount of Japanese, among others, who came to do this. Today they 'culture' the pearls, they are not natural, the shells are 'seeded' up to 4 times, by sticking in a seed which 'grows' into a pearl. This morning before breakfast Ayla and I rode our bikes around, passing the school kids as they got to school, as well as a visit to the Japanese cemetery. So many Japanese, all of them here for the pearl diving, and so many of them dying from the 'bends' of which little was known back then. The Japanese also severely bombed Broome during WW2, second worst bombing in Australia after Darwin. Heaps of civilian deaths. There is a lovely memorial park we came across.

Back to Cable Beach and another sunset there. It is a very long beach, and there is one section where you just drive your car down onto the beach and can then just drive for kms. That was novel, driving on the beach. Sunset is also when the camels do their thing on Cable Beach so we captured a few shots of that too.

Tomorrow Cem, Sol and Ayla are getting up early to go and see the dinosaur footprints at Gantheaume Point. They are only visible when the tide is low enough and that is not too often, however we have noted in our guide that tomorrow morning at 6.40am is one of these rare times. Similarly, the famous 'Stairway to Heaven' is also only visible at certain times (full moon) however our timing is fully off for that with this visit! Then we pack up, bid farewell to the SDAs, deposit our caravan at a holding spot and venture with our tents up the track to Cape Leveque.

Footnote re Footprints: We couldn't get the kids up, so Cem and I actually headed out to Gantheaume Point to try and locate the fossilised dinosaur footprints. It was nice to see the sunrise and the very same location as I had seen it set the evening before. The search for the footprints was interesting, a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack:

No one really knew the exact location, just that the tide this morning was supposed to allow us to see one of the 3 sets in this area, for the other two, the tide needs to be even lower. After a while I saw a rocky outcrop with what looked like some red paint splashed on it, I had to wade through knee deep water to get there, and by that time the tide was starting to turn. Sure enough, there it was! I yelled to Cem that I'd found it, and a hundred people rushed over....

Everyone was happy.