We are heading to Broome today. Richard (Ray’s brother) is there on business and he leaves at noon. The race is on to get there and brunch with him before his flight.
We were up at 5:15am ( it’s daylight and hot too remember) and in the car at 6:30am.
On the way out of town we stopped to see the prison boab tree. There are many boab trees that came from the coast of Africa and similar species exist in Madagascar. They are very hardy trees which store water in the dry season. The prison boab tree is hollow and prisoners were chained together and held there awaiting transport to work in the pearling industry.
We also saw a very old bin. You don’t see many around like this anymore.
The trip to Broome was smooth except for a very loud bang along the way that we couldn’t account for. Even though it was unlikely that we would have heard anything untoward in the van, we pulled over anyway to check. All seemed ok with the car and van.
We pulled into Broome and could instantly feel the tourist/ resort style living that it is known for. We set up quickly as we had arranged to meet Richard for brunch at the beach. The caravan park we are at is 7 minutes walk from Cable Beach, touted as one if the most beautiful in all of the world. The water is aqua and the sand pure white. Restaurants and cafes are dotted along the beach areas and spill out onto lush grassy areas. It is so beautiful to smell the ocean and such a relief on your eyes to finally be at the sea after almost 2 months in outback Australia.
We met Richard and his business associate Nick for lunch at the Broome brewery where we tried boutique beer. I had mango beer and it was truly delicious.
Nick has kindly offered to host a BBQ tomorrow night for us all which is just lovely. We enjoyed a lovely lunch. It was so wonderful to spend the time with Richard. We really realised how much we miss family and friends during our travel adventure. Clearly not enough to go home, but yes we’ve missed them just the same.