31st August 2012 (Broome)

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Days on the Road = 62 Days (8 Weeks 6 Days)

Today is a big day, firstly my cousin (Trevor) who I haven't seen in well over ten years is flying in for a brief overnight visit and Broome's Shinju Matsuri "Festival of the Pearl" starts today with a street carnival in the evening, but first of all to get the schooling done.....

Okay schoolwork done for the week, I have the weekend off yeh time to have some fun.

Now to head to the airport to pick up my cousin. Broome International Airport is located in the heart of Broome so it's amazing to watch the planes come into land as you can get really close to the runway, probably not very good on the eardrums but that’s what fingers were made for. Now to spot Trevor in the crowd, my girls were also excited as this was the first time they were going to meet their second cousin. Last time I saw Trev he was a teenage boy now a young man was walking towards me but I could have spotted him a mile off as he still had that cheeky grin he had when he was a little boy. Sorry Trev if you are reading this 😊

Broome's hot as usual so we head back to the caravan park for a swim and to relax in the pool until we have to go and watch the opening ceremony and street parade for the Pearl Festival.

Shinju Matsuri Festival

The festival has been running annually since 1970 and is 10 days full of events to honour the pearling industry. The opening ceremony was held in Chinatown where to commence the festival they have to wake up "Sammy" the Chinese Dragon. Unbeknown to us, they actually wake up Sammy with firecrackers banging on the ground which so happened to be directly behind us, I'm not sure who jumped the highest but I'm sure we were well and truly awake after that as well as Sammy the dragon. Sammy then proceeded to move around to the beating of the drum and weaved himself in and out of the gathered ground.

We then heard some speakers in the Pearl Luggers and looked in to find there were lots of reserved seating and a stage with a speaker talking, obviously about the opening of the festival, but the sad thing was that there was nobody sitting in the seats, I think someone forgot to send out the invitations! There was heaps of food and drinks sitting on a table and due to the lack of attendance they had opened up the gates and were letting the public in, so we all got a free feed and drinks. It was a shame for them but lucky for us. Hopefully they will learn from what happened.

We then took Trev to the Sunset Bar in Cable Beach and watched the sunset with a nice cold beverage.

What a great day.

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