Broome

July 29 to August 6

   

So, if I remember rightly, I was saying how apprehensive I was before arriving in Broome. The first day didn’t help, with the Iveco air conditioner stopping and paying premium caravan prices for massive overcrowded parks.

Careful where you camp at the Pistol Club

Well, a week is a long time. We found a great camp ground alternative to the caravan parks, less than half the price (not powered, but that’s fine for us). It was at the Pistol Club (no big bore guns, Pete), officially an overflow camp ground for when the caravan parks are full, it had all the facilities, better spacing between the vans, and a quiet location towards the port.

Gantheaume Point, looking north along Cable Beach

After originally booking for two nights at the Pistol Club, we decided to stay for 7 nights, the maximum allowed for the “overflow” parks. There are three overflow sites, the Pistol Club, the PCYC (around a big oval) and the Seventh Day church. The longer we stayed the more we enjoyed Broome. Although we had a couple of issues to resolve we were able to do all the tourist things we wanted at our leisure and enjoy the beaches. I had hoped to go kayak fishing but the wind conditions are interesting here. In Queensland the wind is light in the morning (when it’s cooler) and picks up during the day. “Over west” it blows from 9pm until midday (or longer), then in the heat of the day the wind eases off. It makes for uncomfortable afternoons and a lack of motivation to get organised to go fishing. With tides also not ideal I didn’t get a chance to go out.

Drinkin' with my mates

On Monday I tried to help a guy who got in trouble at the boat ramp, his small aluminium boat washed onto the rocks when launching on the windy morning. It was to no avail as the tides drop very fast (about 9 metres between low and high). He eventually decided to drag it off the rocks, tried to re-float and motor off, and sunk it. Very unfortunate.

We did however see (from the beach) the humpback whales migrating, some spectacular breaching and splashing only 500 metres off the beach. They seemed to be more active during the rough, windy mornings so you probably get a better view from comfort of the beach than from a charter whale watching cruise.

Cool fisheries boats, our tax dollars right there

Regarding the motorhome, I found a great air conditioner repair guy (Millar Air Conditioning if you’re ever in Broome), the owner decided to take my problem on as a challenge and by the end of the week he had repaired the split tube and re-gassed the system. We now seem to have a sensor issue with the air con, which I will try to resolve when I get to Port Headland.

On Saturday we departed Broome after re-stocking food and fuel, with our sights set on Barn Hill Station, 140km south of Broome.