Broome – a time to repair

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Three days in a water front site at the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park afforded us beautiful views of a flat azure sea with a sandy beach, though no good for swimming; mangroves that popped up and were submerged, depending on the tide; long walks out to wrecks revealed at low tide and the opportunity to do some of those much needed repairs.

Broome was an interesting place with many long term stayers in the caravan parks. Older suburbs were often overgrown and rather trashy looking. There were many new suburbs full of stunning innovative homes and apartments mostly built from corrugated iron. The roofs had no gutters. Finding places was not easy as even the latest updates on our GPSs didn’t have all the roads or modifications that have been made to accommodate the most recent developments. We were led on a few wild goose chases.

Of course our main mission here was to get the table leg and the spare wheel bracket fixed or repaired. The best option seemed to be the Kimberley Camping store. No luck with the table leg, but they did have a spare wheel bracket … which is another story.

Mission one, the table leg. The Broome information Centre had given us some wonderful maps of the town and around these were ads for various businesses. One business implied it did automotive welding so we decided to pay them a visit. The guy said he could do it but the normal starting price for a welding job was $125. He asked if it was worth a case of beer, and so the price was agreed as a carton a Hahn Super Dry. He would do it after work and we could pick it up the next day. He couldn’t guarantee how pretty it would look, but all we wanted was a solution. We picked up the beer and that night used it to help support the table. He did a great job and the price was duly paid.

The spare wheel bracket from Kimberley Camping was fitted, but when we tried to mount the wheel we found that the stud pattern did not match and so the wheel could not be fitted. It was for a 14” rim and we had a 15” rim. We returned the bracket with no problems but then had to find an alternative solution. Pat and Greg spent most of a morning going from one place to another, and things looked bleak. Then we were referred to a trailer repair business and the owner said that these brackets were mainly custom built. He was confident that he could weld it up for $95 per hour. We left it with him hoping that it would be ready later that day or early the next morning when we were leaving town. The phone call came at 9am the following morning, just as we finished morning coffee and one hour before we need to leave the caravan park. When Greg dashed off to pick it up he was told the job took 12 minutes and so the price was $24! We expected a minimum of one hour, so were delighted.

We wanted to visit China town in Broome and decided we could combine it with finding a spot for lunch. Most of China Town was a tourist trap, however we spotted a small business with a hand written street sign of their daily specials that included Chinese characters. This was a good omen. We negotiated a meal based on Yum Cha and this turned out to be both authentic and fantastic. We introduced Marian and Pat to a whole new experience, complete with Jasmine tea.

With the sea so close we thought fishing was a must do activity, so we had a go. After no action and quite some time Greg decided to try lure casting into a gap in the mangroves. It was not long before the inevitable happened and a cast went awry and the lure was caught by a mangrove. With many eyes watching Greg cut the line and decided to retrieve the lure once the tide had dropped. After being diverted by the girls we returned to find the tide was out so Greg when to get his lure, only to find somebody had already taken it. It was a very nice lure so Greg was not a happy boy.

One of the features of Broome is the dinosaur footprints, visible at low tide near the lighthouse. We decided to have a go at finding them. We were not the only ones looking for these but when we investigated the way down we found it was very challenging. Of the four of us Greg was the only one who felt confident he could safely negotiate the cliff descent. Getting down was one thing, but finding the dinosaur footprints was another. Finally Greg found a pair of footprints and captured the photo evidence. There would have been many disappointed visitors. Next stop Cable Beach.

Daylight was rapidly disappearing and we arrived just in time to see the last of the sun vanish below the horizon. But what a stunning beach!

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