Taz 7

Broome is possibly the most relaxing place I have ever been to.  As soon as you see the ‘Welcome to Broome’ sign you seem to just chill out. I didn’t even fuss about getting a needle witch is a lot for me to say because I generally do anything to avoid them. The boys found there fishing heaven while mum and I went into every pearl shop possible, it was quite a good mix actually.

We weren’t lucky enough to see the staircase to the moon but we were lucky enough to be able to see The Catalina’s. I had no clue that Broome had anything to do with WW2 but it turns out, much to mums happiness that there is a lot of history about its involvement. The Catalina’s are plane wrecks that had once held many Dutch refugees escaping Java. They landed in Broome thinking they were safe from the war only to be blown up by the Japanese. You can still see the wrecks at low tide, they were shot down In 1942 but you can still see pretty much the whole plane now.

 

After a few days in Broome we left our van behind and headed up to Cape Leveque. We arrived at the little shack that we were going to be sleeping in and quickly realised that it’s not one that you’d normally expect. To avoid getting eaten alive while you slept you had to pull a mosquito net over yourself and just hope that it didn’t have a holes in it.

 

We did a lot in the short time we were at Cape Leveque. We went on a night spear fishing tour with Bundy and a group of kids from the local aboriginal community Djardijin. It was possibly the best tour that I have ever done. Not only did we spear heaps of fish but we saw an abundance of sting rays, stone fish and turtles. At one stage during the tour one of the younger Aboriginal boys picked a turtle up with his hands to show us all. Once he put the turtle down it went on a rampage of running into everyone’s legs. With a fresh feed of fish and the tide coming in fast we quickly we headed up to the beach. We then cooked the fish up on a fire and ate the fish on the beach.

After loving the spear fishing tour we decided to go on a spear making tour the next morning. After a slow start we finally had made our spears and headed off into the mangroves in hope for a few mud crab for lunch. Unfortunately we didn’t have any luck with catching any crabs but I did get stalked by a little shark witch was slightly amusing. Even though we all loved our time in Cape Leveque we had to head off back to Broome, much to Ryley’s disgust who was quite happy to forever stay with Bundy in Djardijin.

Once we were back in Broome we were treated to unusual rainy and cool weather. Cool still being 25 degrees. We decided to go on a pearl tour at a place called Willie Creek. It wasn’t the best tour that I have ever done but I did enjoy wearing $6,000 around my neck, even if I did find the necklace rather ugly.

By the time we were back from Cape Leveque I think we were all ready to move on but we agreed that it would be a good idea to be in a place with a Dawn service for ANZAC day. Being the first Dawn service that I’ve ever done I did feel like a train wreck but the service itself was really nice.

After our overstay in Broome we moved on to Lake Agryle where we had heard of a really great cruise that a lot of people had recommended. We stayed at an amazing caravan park that had an infinity pool that overlooked the gorges and the lake below. It was hard to call it a lake because it was so big that you could fit 19 Sydney harbours in it. The only issue with the pool was that it was possibly the coldest pool that I have ever swam in. Considering that I have swam in outdoor pools in Melbourne when it has been 15 degrees that’s pretty cold.

With all the people that had recommended the sunset cruise to us we decided to go and I’m so glad we did because it really lived up to our expectations. There were about 10 other people on the cruise so we were all nicely spaced out. After about an hour of looking at all the crocs that are in the lake the tour guide asked who would like to go for a swim. It was incredibly hot so not thinking twice about it I flipped in off the roof. Soon seeing that I was in the water all the other kids decided to jump in off the roof of the boat as well. After a lot of jumping and seeing the sun finally starting to set I grabbed a noodle and a can of soft drink and wondered why I was even considering going back to freezing cold Melbourne.