Post #11 Christmas in Broome

I have a very rough plan of where I need to be by a certain date in order to make Darwin by 4th Jan to return the camper and it is written in the corner of one of the maps I have. I really enjoy that freedom of setting off in the morning, not knowing exactly where I will be that evening. However with Christmas looming I needed to plan a few days ahead to make sure I had somewhere to stay (with the humidity here it's campsites all the way with their priceless showers!)

Progress was slowed a bit by these little fellas...





I drove into several swarms of them and initially was worried that the windscreen would break with them pinging off. Then I noticed that the engine temp gauge was rising and pulled over to find them clogging up all the intakes. Little ******!


My plan was to make Broome by Christmas Eve which would mean a good distance covered and, hopefully, plenty of time to explore the Kimberley's and Kakadu National Park.

The last entry was written in Karratha and the next day I went on to Port Hedland, both of which are 'boom' towns focussed on mining and gas extraction.



Both towns are like the Wild West with cowboys replaced by miners! They are incredibly busy places with hard-hatted, heavily tanned, employees zipping about in pick ups. Above is a snapshot of BHP's iron ore port site. The infrastructure set up is incredible, over vast areas. Road trains several trucks long and real trains up to 7km long (that's nearly 700 cars long) deliver ore to the port where these little boats ship it out...




By tonnage shipped, Port Hedland is the biggest port in the world (where? I hear you ask)! Amazing to see man's endeavours first hand. Of course each 'town', which in fact are tiny have airports for the fly-in-fly-out contractors and lots of good services. Very interesting.

From there on to Broome was along Highway 1, skirting the Great Sandy Desert (not to be confused with the Little Sandy Desert nearby). Generally, it was hot. Actually, "hot" is an insufficient word... It was roasting! I drove near to Marble Bar which is the hottest town in Australia... It was a mild 59 there, that day. I know because every day I tune in to the Bureau of Meteorology broadcast at noon, on the one MW radio station you can get. In typical, laid back, Australian fashion (bearing in mind this is the equivalent to the shipping forecast) he announced the temperature there and then said, "I bet you could fry an egg on a tin hat there today".

View forward...





View left... (ooh, a cloud. That has broken the monotony of the last 300km)




View right... (more clouds, excellent!)




And so it went on for two days' driving. Aside of 'outback', i did drive through some vast cattle stations with what must have been thousands of cattle on the horizon. I say for two days... I did punctuate the journey with a stay at Eighty Mile Beach (it's amazing that you can turn off this highway and be on the coast within 30km). The place was deserted and was, as you might guess, a beach that is 80 miles long. It was stunning. Great Frigates (?) soared above and there were tracks on the beach made by flat back turtles coming in to lay eggs the night before.

Of course, in this part of the world, you are never short of beautiful sunsets...








I went back out to the shoreline a few hours later. No turtles in sight but I did get an incredible view of the magnificent southern hemisphere stars. They are something else and almost oppressive in their presence. Another magical place. (on the note of stars, there is a very special comet out there at the moment... Comet Lovejoy. It passed within a minute distance of the sun but came out the other side much to the surprise of NASA et al. It is being hailed as a miracle and so I hope to see it in the next couple of nights, if I can get up at 3:30 before dawn! Google it!)

Then on to Broome, where I am now. Those that have been here will know its slightly odd but very appealing "oasis in the desert" feel. Everyone works on 'Broome Time' which seems to equate to manyana...

The humidity here in the wet season is crippling. Utterly so, but it is also a very intriguing place and not a bad place to spend Christmas.

A feel for Broome in road signs...




Not 'catastrophic'... Good! (there are so many bush fires in Oz, it's astounding. Also, there is a blanket harvest ban on Christmas day on the basis that even driving a truck through a paddock can start a fire here and the fire services will all be drunk on their one day off!)




Hmm, not so good! (when fishing, stand well back! How about just going to the fishmonger's and not taking the chance!)




Always a good sign to see!

So. Rambled on enough. Ciao for now...

I'll close with the first-aid points on Cable Beach here... If you get stung by a Box Jelly Fish, you go to these, open them up and find a bottle of vinegar... Handy for your chips too!




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Location:Cable Beach, Broome