May 24 - 29

Day 53 – May 24 – Port Hedland -> Eighty Mile Beach

How inefficient can a tourist information office get? Michelle had specifically called ahead a couple of days to enquire about the BHP facility tour, and was told by the office that no prior bookings were required, we just had to turn up on the day. We turned up, and you guessed it! Tour cancelled because no-one had booked ahead… Fuming! The tour couldn’t be organised at short notice because they had already cancelled the bus. Also, their information about ships departing the harbour and trains departing were also both incorrect, so we didn’t see anything. Bit of a wasted overnight stop, really…

Anyway, we kept heading north and had a break at De Grey’s rest area – where we practised our newly honed stone skipping skills and did some bird watching (Thanks for the Bird book Pa – has proved very useful!)

We stopped at Eighty Mile Beach, just short of halfway between Port Hedland and Broome. A HUGE caravan park in the middle of nowhere, but we soon found out why. The beach is fantastic – big sand flats at low tide and thousands upon thousands of huge, interesting shells. Ben said “I can’t believe God created such a beautiful world”. Gotta love his comments.. When we arrived at the park a lady approached us and gave each of the kids a beautiful home made shell animal sculpture, made with shells and some glue. That night the kids made a card to thank her for her amazing generosity – she obviously gives one to each of the little kids who stay at the park.

Day 54 – May 25 – Eighty Mile Beach -> Broome

We went for early morning walk along the beach. At 6:30 there were already a dozen fishermen. We collected dozens of amazing shells (no National Park restrictions here thank goodness!). We met a man who told us that he had stayed at the beach for three months already. We also saw a large school of dolphins swimming close to the shore.

A brief stop at Sandfire roadhouse (typical petrol station in the middle of nowhere) where we saw a dozen peacock walking around…

We arrived in Broome mid afternoon – quite humid, just like we expect Darwin to be. We played in the sand at Cable Beach and watched the camels walking on the beach at sunset. Broome seems to go crazy around sunset, dozens of 4WDs go down to Cable Beach to watch the sunset, than half an hour later they all charge back up again!

We let the kids stay up late tonight to watch the Survivor finale on TV (we’ve managed to convert the whole family to be Survivor tragics) until after midnight! We’ll all be tired tomorrow…

Day 55 – May 26 – Broome

We planned out our next few days – lot’s to do in Broome!

This morning we stopped at the Japanese cemetery and strolled around the Chinatown district. We did an excellent tour at the Pearl Luggers museum where we learnt about the early history of Broome and pearling industry – fascinating. Did you know that the Japanese divers (Many of which only weighed 60kg dripping wet) wore diving suits which weighed up to 200kg! We were invited to try on the diving helmet but we declined when we couldn’t even pick it up.

We dropped in at Kimberley bookshop (must have been the same one you liked Pa – great) and stocked up on books for the kids – 12! Hope they’ll last for a while, the kids have been reading voraciously while we’ve been away.

Then we went back to Cable Beach and did a half hour camel ride – something the kids have been looking forward to for the whole trip. It didn’t disappoint – very touristy but well done. We had plenty of time to get to know the camels, the kids could choose which camels they wanted:
- Erin – Rasheedie – very furry and loves eating
- Luke – Daisy – an ex Alice Springs racing camel – a boy with a girl’s name so it didn’t attract many bets (apparently the boys are faster than the girls), and therefore attracted better odds for the owner’s bets – smart… Had very long eyelashes
- Ben – Connor – big camel, quite young at nine years old found in the wild near Mount Connor in NT
Recommended for all travellers to Broome!

Day 56 – May 27 – Broome

Today we dropped in ‘Winnie’ for a 70,000 km service, then we were picked up for our Willie Creek Pearl tour. After picking up a few other tourists at various hotels and accommodation we drove 40km over dodgy dirt roads to the pearl farm in Willie Creek, north of Broome on the road to Cape Leveque. We learnt about the anatomy of an oyster, how a pearl is formed, and how they are farmed. We also went on a boat to look at where the oysters are stored in Willie Creek. While on the boat, we went looking for the crocodile that they had seen ‘yesterday’, and we were shown a bird nest (no bird), etc etc.

Overall pretty lame – they made us spend more time in the shop looking at their range of pearls than anything else. I guess it worked however; we did buy a small freshwater pearl necklace for Erin. The tour was definitely aimed more at grey nomads with fat wallets rather than families with young kids..

Back at the caravan park (and having picked up Winnie) we went for a refreshing swim in the pool, and then went to Gantheaume Point at very low tide to see some 120 million year old dinosaur footprints in the rocks – now that was impressive and it was absolutely free! Then had yummy chinese for dinner in Chinatown – we introduced the kids to the pleasure of Short soup.

Day 57 – May 28 – Broome

Michelle went for an early morning walk on Cable Beach – just like Balmoral in Sydney really, lots of boot camp people exercising, power walkers and parents pushing prams. Cable Beach is a little bit bigger than Balmoral however…

Cable Beach was actually closed today for swimming as someone was stung yesterday by an irukandji jellyfish (one of the most venomous creatures in the world for the uninitiated). Normally they don’t appear this late in the season, especially in Broome. To think – the kids went swimming at the beach just the day before!

This morning was maintenance – cleaning the motorhome, doing several loads of washing. Good to take advantage of decent facilities and a sunny day. Bruce and the kids played minigolf (yay, all the kids got at least one hole-in-one… no arguments), the kids rode bikes round the park, swam in the pool and read heaps of books.

In fact so many books have been read by the kids that we went to a second hand book shop in town to buy more – Erin and Luke in particular seem to be finishing a book a day!

We then went to Town Beach to watch the ‘staircase to the moon’, a phenomenon where a full moon rises over a low tide across the mudflats of Roebuck Bay, creating the impression of stairs up to the moon. There were thousands of people there waiting for the moon to rise at 5:36pm – we thought that it was going to be a disappointment after all the hype, but it was fantastic! We walked out on the flats to watch the moon rise, and Erin & Luke discovered some amazing worms in the mud that glowed with a fluorescent blue light. Only problem was getting stuck in the mud flats (Ben wasn't impressed!).

Day 58 – May 29 – Broome

Ben wanted a ‘school day’ today, so Michelle kept them all in for the morning and made them do homework. She rang the bell and everything! It’s good for the kids to catch up on their homework, we’ve been a bit slack lately.

Bruce washed the outside of the motorhome while all this was going on – so we spent the morning again just like yesterday.

In the afternoon we went to the Cable Beach Crocodile Park just around the corner. It’s owned by a guy called Malcolm Douglas, a local legend who apparently was doing things like Steve Irwin long before Steve did. Not quite as famous as Steve, but then Malcolm is still alive so maybe he’s smarter after all…

The park looked a bit run down – there is another, newer and larger park on the outskirts of Broome, but it was excellent simply because of the number of huge crocs there. We learnt heaps of info about the various crocodile species, with the saltwater crocs being the largest and most aggressive. We did a tour with a guy called Mark who took great delight in teasing the largest saltwater crocs with raw chickens, making them jump up against the fence right in front of us. One of the crocs lost a tooth on the fence – Mark then gave the tooth to Luke for being the keenest kid in the tour. We also held a croc about a year old – but not before his mouth had been held shut by a rubber band.

Rode our bikes down to Cable Beach again to watch the sunset – this time the beach was fairly empty as most of the town was over at Town Beach watching staircase to the moon again. We rode home behind the camels (not too close) and finished another very pleasant day in Broome. Off to Derby tomorrow!