Jul 2008

Today is market day. We decided we’d try our hand at selling our wares at the Broome Markets. We arrived at 7:15 as requested, but were then told we’d have to wait till 8am to find out where we were going to go. Finally we setup our LED light globes and our healthy chocolate. We had a great day. Positive response all round to the light globes, but none sold. The chocolate took quite a bit of interest too and we sold a couple of bars and 3 nuggets. Oh well, we were situated right over the road from the most fabulous buskers I’d seen in ages, so we had comfy seats to enjoy the music all day! Steve was then whisked away just before lunch to do some low tide fishing. They didn’t manage to catch anything, but I caught some Beef Stroganoff on the way home and cooked it for dinner.

Ended the night with a drink at the Surf Club to watch the sun set, followed by more drinks and nibbles @ Zeebar and saw Steve Pigram live with some friends. What a great night. Arrived to the sound of Going Back Home the most famous of their songs that’s regularly played in many Broome related movies. We’re currently watching The Circuit, which Terry won at a NAIDOC Week Quiz Night last week. We’re half way through and really enjoying it. If you want to check them out see http://www.pigrambrothers.com.au for all the info. There is also samples of their songs. The Zeebar is a fabulous venue for small shows. Its quiet, has comfy seats, great service and food!

Steve took a final paddle this morning, while I enjoyed the peace and quiet of the café for coffee. We took off after lunch to make the markets before they closed.

Finished with Terry & Ange cooking us a magnificent spice rubbed thread fin salmon for dinner. They’ll never get rid of us at this rate!

Some footage of the dogs at their usual play. They really enjoy each others company!

The lovely French girls (backpackers) who work at the café are spoiling Midget with pats and telling us heaugh mearche zey love zeez how you zay staffs? (sorry my Frenglish isnt so good). We enjoyed a quiet coffee and muffin before the bus after bus of the days’ tourist arrive for their gonad lessons.

Today we venture out on a rising tide by kayak into Willie Creek. For those of you who dont know, Broome is the 4 or 5th largest tidal area in world (2nd is Derby) and 1st is somewhere in Indonesia or somewhere. A high tide usually means boats can go out. A low tide usually means dingies and kayaks can go out. Tides play a really large part of tourism here. All the fishing has secret spots that work on changing tides or just a high or low.

The picture below is of a submerged tree that's totally underwater during a high tide.

We took Midget as croc bait (or at least a distraction should we encounter one). We paddled for a couple of hours being gently pushed by the rather rapidly moving tide. We watched Brolgas trying (not very well) to blend their bright white bodies into the thick mass of mangrove lush green foliage. There were other birds we haven’t yet recognised (we’ve got to find a good bird book) so we can name them. We saw a couple of playful dolphins frolicking in the water, it was most pleasant. Again we had the creek mostly to ourselves, and found the dolphins a few hours later on our return!

Steve continued on to finish using the bait he had defrosted. I took the whining dog to the café to consol her. Found the Telstra NextG mobile broadband provides excellent access, even 30 odd kms from Broome! It really quite hot and humid here. The French girls have been swooning over Midget saying how gorgeous she is. They also said the humidity left them soaking last night. They woke up to drops of rain on their heads inside their tents! The breeze is really helping cool things down for us. The temperature, according to Goolarri TV will be 28-30oC over the next 4 days. UV is Big! (we love their language)!

Wish you were here with your paddles, Jen, Angus and Pat!

Well after a late start to the day (well we are on holidays!), we took the dog to the Vet. We needed to get her heartworm injection, and the vet also suggested her annual injections, including Kennel Cough and something else she might be likely to get along the way. We also took advantage of Microchiping her. $200 later, we were off Willie Creek, ever hopeful that she’d live to get value out of the injections!

Oh by the way, this is a pic of the three dogs together, BJ (Terry & Ange's), Banjo (friends who was being babysat), and of course Midget. Its amazing what you can do with a piece of toast!

The trip out involved approx 10kms of dirt road travel. We thought this might be a good trial to see if we can get the van up to Cape Levique (about 100kms of the same dirt road). I think we did okay. Only had the fridge door fling open once! I think I’d prefer if Steve drove that, as I think I go too slow and its bumpier that way.

There are two resident crocs at Willie Creek. We arrived just at dusk and low tide. We squirted ourselves up with insect repellent and hoped we could ride out the sunset feast. What we didn’t bargain on was the myriad of insects that decided mating season was going to begin that night under our light! We’ll have to work out a new plan of attack for tomorrow night!

We watched the amazing star lit sky twinkling as we sipped another delightful cocktail…

I think I got this one out of the book, but great quaffable hot place drink: equal parts of Extra Dry cinzano, Sweet Rosso cinzano and Gin. Top with lemonade. YUM!

The place was entirely ours. Apart from the family that live upstairs above the Willie Creek Pearl Farm shop (probably to keep an eye on their enormous safe), we had the place to ourselves. This is heaven!

Once it got a bit too cold to sit outside, we ventured in to watch some great local TV, Goolarri TV to be precise. Actually it gets the best reception on our TV. It’s a fabulous Aboriginal local Broome TV station. Its full of great stories on local tourism destinations, with smatterings of local and international music clips, local history stories and the odd healthy eating commercials. We’ve learnt a fair bit of local Broome history from this station.

We were awoken several times during the night by people launching their boats/dingies in the water. The last of which decided it was great fun to honk the horn about a dozen times on his departure just to annoy us.

We started the day deciding we’d take in a kayak at Gantheaume Point. It was a rather warm 32oC so kayaking was a great way to cool down. We headed off around the point and viewed Ma Wong’s pride of Broome, the best house in town, overlooking the whole of Gantheaume Point. A monstrous 2 storey Broome style house. We passed a few other kayaking groups on our way out and had a great time paddling around. Midget had a ball as usual at the front of Steve’s kayak.

We returned to the van while Steve went out to paddle around the boats in the bay, I commenced my next book, Beijing Confidential by Jan Wong. I have always been fascinated by Chinese history. I’ve read many of these type of books over the years, but am astounded at the destruction of Beijing for the Olympics. It appears all but the forbidden city is all that remains of the Kubali Kahn’s era of Beijing. Its really sad that pieces have been “faked” for the tourists to take happy snaps of for their visits, but nothing is real. Anyway am away now to continue reading…

Oh there's been quite a stir caused around town, but the removal of the large skip bin at Gantheaume Point on the road just as you turn off to the beach. They are so worried about over developing the area, that they wont even have a rubbish bin on the beach. Anyway last weeks' paper had an article on the outrage that the skip bin (which is always full) was to be removed and replaced with a standard rubbish bin due to complaints about the unsightliness and smell of the skip. This morning on my run back to the bin, I picked up a beer bottle and two cans on the way to the bin to take this pic. Its titled "Midget is not impressed". I've sent it to the editor of the paper!