Broome to Derby

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We hit Broome and the fabled Cable Beach!
We set up camp and rushed off to find the famous camels silhouetted against the sunset and the miles and miles of white pristine beach.

We drove around looking for Cable Beach but we couldn’t find it. The one and only beach we could find was nice with some rocks and a lot of people, but nothing super special. Eventually the penny dropped…when we saw the camels.

The 4x4s were congregating on the beach, chairs unfolded, bottles of wine opened, cameras ready. The sand was greyish and quite coarse and some flat waves tried hard to break. People were waiting everywhere for something to happen. We waited too and really tried hard to be enthused - really, we did. Oh well.

Broome is modern and trendy with almost every house having a white roof and no gutters. It is full of expensive pearl shops, hotels and not a lot else. The most exciting things that happened were a fire on the first night, the roar of all the aircraft arriving and leaving right above the town, and a shopping trip to Coles.

To top it all off I lost my hat (again) on the beach. Most of you know I’m constantly losing my glasses, car keys and mobile phone…well I can add hat to that list. I’ve bought a new brown one with an absolutely huge brim that I disappear under and I feel like a mushroom. The sun is fierce but we see lots of people hiking wearing skimpy tops and no hat - madness. I don’t care how silly I look. I don’t want to be fried.

Needless to say, we didn’t spend anymore time in Broome so we headed 130 km south to Barn Hill, a camping area in one of the large cattle stations along the coast. We had a choice of sites (a) squeeze in amongst everyone else without any view but near the communal toilets or (b) a site on top of the cliff with uninterrupted views of the Indian Ocean and the beach and cliffs below…mmmm…let me think. Life is full of difficult decisions.

After three days there we headed for Derby via Broome to collect a very nice camera that Sandy sent up to us ‘Platinum Priority Post’ - and it only took 5 days to get here! They say WA stands for Wait Awhile.

It hasn’t all been bad at Broome. Ganthaupe Point is well worth seeing with it’s sandstone cliffs weathered into rugged shapes, showing all the different coloured layers laid down millions of years ago. We love sandstone - I don’t think we would ever get tired of looking at it.

At Derby we saw the boab prison tree. It’s about one thousand years old and was used to lock up the aboriginal men after they were rounded up and then made to work on the pearling boats. We were so cruel in so many ways.

Today we set off on the Gibb River Road back across to Kununurra near the NT border. It’s 650 km of rough dirt road with many beautiful places to see along the way - we hope, or it’s a very long way to be shaken to pieces just for the fun of it!

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Photos

Barn Hill
The view from our campsite in the late afternoon.

Barn Hill
The sunsets are beautiful here. The colours change dramatically as you watch.

Barn Hill
This one was taken 9 minutes later.

Barn Hill
I picked up a toy buoy on the beach today.

Barn Hill
Work's a four letter word, so is - surf, rest, fish, beer, swim and rumm.

Gantheaume Point, Broome
The colour of the water is much bluer than this and very sparkly

Gantheaume Point, Broome
These are huge slabs of sandstone. They are so flat and smooth that they look like they have been man-made.

Termite mounds
These are everywhere throughout the north (Qld, NT, WA). Most of the country has red soil so it’s unusual to see then this colour.

The boab prison tree near Derby
It's big enough to fit in about a dozen or more people. These trees can live for several thousands of years

Comments

[Sandy]

Mushroom Head
Haha Mum you caught a black buoy with your mushroom look.