– we had just spent a couple of months inland in very hot and dry areas with no sea breeze. We enjoyed seeing the ocean again and feeling the sea breeze.
– the pool at the caravan park was awesome and we were very close to it, so it was easy to spend a lot of time relaxing there, and not feeling hot and bothered like we had at a few places in the Kimberley.
– it was a small enough town to be able to get around easily, but also big enough to have some nice shops to browse in at the Chinatown area. Lauren and I enjoyed doing some browsing at the shops, which we hadn’t done in a while.
We got the kids back on track with some schoolwork while we were in Broome. We spent an hour or 2 each morning on schoolwork before we went to the pool. We had needed somewhere like this to get refocussed on what was needed in the area of schoolwork, and to have a plan for what each child needed to have achieved by the end of the trip.
Bethany really improved in her swimming during this time. Between all the swimming at the Kununurra van park pool, the swimming in the Pentecost River at El Questro, the waterholes we visited, and then at Broome, she was becoming a lot more confident. She didn’t want to use her floatation vest anymore. So we kept a closer eye on her, but she was starting to manage well without it. (She was also exhausted each night after all the swimming and probably had more naps during the day at Broome than any other time.
Besides swimming in the pool at the van park, some other things we did at Broome included:
– walking along Cable Beach at sunset on the second night. We had fun taking some photos of the sunset and then of each other’s silhouettes as the light faded. The kids did the YMCA silhouette shapes like in ‘Are We There Yet?’.
– Michael, Sam, Hannah and Bethany doing the Pearl Luggers Tour on the second full day. They learnt about how Broome was founded by the early pearl divers, how dangerous it was back then, and about pearls and pearl shells. They all seemed to enjoy it and find it interesting.
– Lauren and I did some shopping at this time. We visited some second hand book shops in search of some good books (I found a couple for Sam at St Vinnies op shop, but Lauren didn’t find any books – she got some clothes though). I also browsed through a giftwares and home decor shop, which I always enjoy. Lauren and I finished up with a mango smoothie at a cafe – yum.
– we all went on a camel ride on Cable Beach in the afternoon of the second full day there. It was a half hour ride. The most fun part was getting on the camel and leaning back as he stood up. There were 2 people to a camel, and the camel train was about 16 camels long. Michael and Bethany rode on ‘Cloud’, Lauren and Sam rode on ‘Alice’ and Hannah and I rode on ‘Jabby’. It was a fun experience.
– the kids and I swam at Cable Beach on the last day. It was a lovely temperature. Unfortunately after about 15mins we noticed a couple of jellyfish (not sure how dangerous) so we decided to get out.
– the morning of our third day there, we got up early (for some) and headed down to Gauthaume Point by 7.30 which was low tide so we could try to find the dinosaur footprints on the rocks at the point. There weren’t the usual tourist signs so it was hard to find them, but some other tourists were able to point us in the right direction and we found some.
So that was our 3 days/ 4 nights in Broome. That was also the end of our time in the Kimberley region. We were about to venture into the Pilbara region next, which includes Eighty Mile Beach, Port Hedland and Karratha on the coast, and the mining areas of Newman and Tom Price inland. Michael and I and the older 2 kids discussed whether we wanted to venture inland to the mining areas or just stick to the coast. I have to admit that we have lost a bit of the initial enthusiasm for exploring too far off the beaten track, and we are happy now to take the easy route and enjoy more rest time, even if it means less sight-seeing. So we agreed that, even though it would be interesting to see the mining in the west, we had done some mine tours in Mt Isa and so would be content to just stick to the coast in the Pilbara region.