A very belated Broome blog

So, after 20,000 kilometres, five punctured tyres and a long, long time since the last update (and to think that I was worried about being a month behind when I started this blog!)…

I last left you as we rolled into Broome. Most of the towns up north are like Derby, where one of the sights to see listed in the tourist brochure was “the friendly trees”, two entwined trees that can be found at the local service station. But Broome has the reputation of having a little more to it; and after the highly unexciting town of Port Hedland, followed by a seemingly endless drive along 80 Mile Beach, we were looking forward to some civilization.

Our first few days lived up to expectations, as we were welcomed by an old friend of Laurent’s and shown the town in local style - fish and chips, beers at the Roey, surfing at Cable Beach. We also wandered markets and the “High Tides” gallery in Sam’s Lane, which is full of photographs of the most personable periwinkles that I’ve ever met; enjoyed non-instant coffee and free music at a friendly café; and cooked dinner in the park with fellow travelers whilst watching the lovely Staircase to the Moon. And being children-at-heart, it was impossible not to get excited about seeing dinosaur footprints; or about building sand whalesharks on the beach (although the prizes for the competition were rigged - only the little kids won!). So Broome certainly has its charms.

But Broome’s a strange town, which seems to have trouble reconciling its working community with its tourist tag - with the result that the historic centre is located kilometers from the beach, the two separated by the prison, airport and pearling port. In addition, the locals and tourists don’t really mix, so you feel less welcome than you do in many other smaller towns around WA. Finally, as is the case for most northern WA towns, it’s incredibly expensive; certainly we’ve paid much less to see far better sunsets and swim on nicer beaches than the famed Cable Beach.

Maybe it was because we were stressed, hunting for jobs and getting very expensive car repairs completed (as a word of advice, don’t go to Shinju Motors - we knew more about mechanics than they did); or maybe it was because we were sleeping in a ditch beside the road, but the two weeks that we spent in Broome were more than enough for us. So I find it hard to understand why people rave about “The Pearl Coast” so much, and moreover, fly from around the country (or the world) to stay there for weeks at a time, without visiting any other part of the Pilbara or the Kimberley…an adventure that we were about to embark on.

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