Broome

Well let me tell you, there is not much between places out here, so after another 500 something Km of Desert we arrived at Broome. We even had to stop for a few days(it was soo hot) and do a few hours night driving, to give the snail a rest. It wasn't so bad, as we set up some shade and it was ok to sit outside in the breeze under the shade, than inside with the fan and the spray bottle (thanks John and Diane)We even met some fellow South Aussies when we stopped on a off road from the highway.

side of the road set up to beat the heat, pity there were no trees around

Finally made it to Broome on a Sunday and went and checked out the courthouse markets, which are held on weekends. Well it was Pearls everywhere with at least 5 different stalls selling Pearls, I had a special request to get some and with all the options it was difficult but soon prevailed. We also met local artist Colin Atkins, and watched him paint a sample picture, didn't take him long at all, we fell in love with it and bought it from him, its a painting from an area on the Gibb river road.

Proud new owners

We saw the Matso's  Brewary, Australia's most remote (and expensive too) at $8 for a schooner, wow, and nick thinks the ones he tasted were pretty poor. Not sure if that was an excuse to try more (haha) We met up with our friend from Belgium there, Nick (the other one) and he invited us back to the backpackers where he cooked us up a yummy dinner (and offered us use of the showers).

 

We squeezed in a quick visit to cable beach for the girlies to stretch their legs and decided we would return to watch the sunset another day.

We all went along to watch the Great Gatsby, which was fun, as Nick was on the post production crew and did visual effects. We loved it as he was talking us through what was real/effects and what he had done. As it was the Worlds oldest outdoor picture theatre and happened to be under the flight path of areoplanes leaving broome, we all commented on how well Nicks visual effects were to sneak them in, and how realistic it was too!!! We went back to the Kinmerly Klub backpackers and I snuck a long hot shower, and had quite a late one talking with Nick and his Friend Jerad, who came from the Barossa .

 

Officially recorded in the Guinness Book of records "the worlds oldest out door picture garden"

It was all decked out with old world stuff

This is what it looks like it the day time...

 Nick loved these old projectors

 

 

 

 We spent the next day checking out Broome we really wanted to see the dinosaur footprints but the tides were against us so we settled for the replicas. The coast line here was really strange with all these rocks with horizontal lines running through them.




We visited the pearl information centre where we listened to a talk about the industry itself. Did a stock up at the shops, wandered thru China town, Broome is very influenced by Asian culture. Then spent the afternoon at the beach where we saw an amazing cable beach sunset.

 

 We set off early the next morning to hit the ground running for Cape Leveque. We stopped over at Barred Creek, near Willie Creek Pearl factory for the night, and were a bit hesitant to stay in this spot due to the croc warnings, but thought we were well enough away from the water. This Creek was very tidal and below was mid tide.

 

 

At low tide it just turned to mud, but these bright red mangrove crabs came out to play.