BROOME

Surfing in the late afternoon

A pearl lugger off Cable Beach

Sorry but the sunsets are just extraordinary!

DAY 51 – BROOME                                                                  Monday, 22^nd August

Oh, these lazy mornings are lovely!!!!!  Just to sit and read the paper or do the blog (albeit interrupted constantly by trying to keep children on task with their homework or journal!) is an enormous luxury.  Plan for today:  Read, beach, eat, post office …..ummm that is about it!!

I went into town and did some posting of things and did a bit of grocery shopping.  I have to say I AM missing my 530lt fridge at home where I can store 12lts of milk!!  This shopping every day is really tiring.  Any sympathy?

David took the kids to the park pool and then we all headed down in our 4WD to the north part of the beach (because we are too lazy to walk there with boogie boards and towels and esky and chairs etc etc.  No one will believe this but SARAH was actually in the water!!  It reminded me of my childhood at the Gold Coast.  It was beautiful be able to teach my children to “jump the waves” and the kids have just had a ball with the boogie boards!  We had a lot of trouble convincing Ben that it really WAS going to be more fun going to the movies than staying and surfing!

The Sun Pictures movie theatre in Carnarvon Street was opened on 9^th December 1916 to house 500 people.  It is the oldest open-air cinema in operation.  It is under the stars and you sit in the really old deck chairs (which you can barely get out of at the end of the night!).  It was absolutely packed, on a Monday night (!), when we got there.  So Kevin and Alanna and David and I sat in the seats at the back and the kids all sat on the lawn at the front.  Just as the movie was about to start, an enormous jet came in to land at Broome airport which is right in the middle of town.  I swear to God I could have given you the engine chassis number – the plane was so close!  The kids almost wet themselves.  The noise was deafening and the audience erupted with applause as it went overhead.  It was unbelievable.    As David said, “You really wouldn’t want to see “Pearl Harbour” at this cinema – a bit too real”!  It was a great experience for the kids but it wasn’t cheap.  They must be making an absolute killing.  There would have been about 800-1000 people there at $16.50 a ticket.  And very little maintenance required! 

Oh by the way, the movie was fantastic too!  “Red Dog” is about a dog up in the Pilbara region who lived during the seventies and travelled huge distances with his owner, and to find his owner.  Beth was sobbing by the end.  Now it appears we may have to go hundreds of kilometres out of our way to take a photograph with the bronze statue of “Red Dog” in Dampier!