BROOME

Heading off into the great unknown - Town Beach, Broome, to see the Catalina Flying Boats

Ben at the site of one of the straffed Flying Boats

All the kids at the site of the second destroyed Catalina

Beth at the water park

Tess firing a water cannon!

Ben all wet and enjoying life at 9 in the morning!

Tess and Beth

Bridget and Mama at the camels

Tess and Sarah with Kashann, the camel

Ben and Papa with Kashann

Beth and David before the camel ride

Beth and Mama are up!

Ben and Papa riding Aqaba

Bridgie and Tess riding Jemma

Can you pick us along the camel train?

David, Sarah, Tess, Bridgie, Marj and Beth on the camel train

David and Sarah aboard Zoarim

DAY 62 – BROOME                                                            Friday, 2^nd September

Up before sunrise this morning to go and inspect the Catalina Flying Boat wrecks off town beach.  These can only be seen on about 3 – 4 days a month because you need a tide lower than 0.86m.  The fog was incredible this morning.  Someone asked a local, “What is the story with the fog?”  She replied:  “I don’t know.  We have never seen it!”  It was so thick that it looks like we were walking into the great unknown as we headed off from town beach.

The Catalina Flying Boats were mainly Dutch “seaplanes” which were being used to ferry Dutch refugees from the Dutch East Indies to southern Australian cities during February and March of 1942 when the Japanese invaded Java and other areas of what we now refer to as Indonesia.  They were sitting on the water in Roebuck Bay waiting to be refuelled from drums brought out to them by pearl luggers in Broome.  However, because of the extremely low tide, the pearl luggers were unable to get to them immediately and a Japanese reconnaissance plane saw what were technically military aircraft sitting on the harbour.  On 3^rd March 1942 they straffed the entire fleet, killing 88 people, mainly Dutch, some US and some British.  The wrecks can be seen 1 km off shore.

It was quite an extraordinary experience walking out along the sea bed for a kilometre to the wrecks.  Along the way we encountered sea cucumbers, starfish, sea snails, walking starfish, and a sea turtle which seemed to have been left behind when the tide went out.  Absolutely fascinating for the kids to see.  The sea bed was amazing – a mixture of mud, and sand that felt like clay, so that in some places you sank well past your ankles.  The kids loved it.  Papa lost both soles of his sandals walking in the sticky sand – but I was happy – it felt like a pedicure!!  Delicious!

We had a coffee on town beach while the kids played in the water park there.  It was just a collection of water cannons and enormous buckets that tip over and water fountains but they had an absolutely ball!!

With Marj and Barry here (or more precisely the fridge in their cabin), David set about removing our fridge from the van, with the help of Barry and Lawrence.  Once removed, our many google searches advised us to turn it upside down for a time to recirculate the liquid and crystals inside.  The boys did a fantastic job and got it out and back in.  At the time it was put back, the temperature in the fridge was 27 degrees.  At time of going to bed it had dropped to 13 degrees – already colder than we had managed to get it the entire time we have been in Broome.  But we are not counting our chickens yet.  Beautiful Lawrence and Violet have very generously offered to loan us their Engel (electric car fridge) for the rest of the trip if we can’t get it down to 4 degrees (which is what it needs to be for milk!!)

The exciting moment the kids had been looking forward to the entire trip arrived this afternoon – our sunset camel ride!!  After much arguing, “I was picked last for the rounders team – after Mama, Papa and Daddy!  So Bridgie was going with Mama, Ben with Papa, Beth with Daddy and Tessie with me.  Unfortunately, that was all upset immediately when Alison (the camel whisperer!) decided that she needed two smaller people to ride on her littlest camel, Jemma!  So Bridgie and Tess ended up riding together on Jemma, Papa and Ben on Aqaba, Mama and Beth on Abbasim, and David and Sarah together on Zoarim.  It was a lovely hour’s ride up the beach, watching the sun set and waving to the kids on the beach.  We saw a sea snake along the way which was something new.  Apparently they are very venomous! Of course, my husband decided to complain all the way that men really weren’t meant to sit with their legs this far apart!  The kids had an absolute ball and was literally all their dreams come true.  They were able to feed a carrot to their camel at the end and all the ladies with pierced ears were given a set of pearl studs to commemorate the trip!  You can imagine how excited our newly-pierced girls were about that!

Home for dinner (with a few veges!) tonight and planning our day tomorrow.  The men are off fishing and the ladies are off to the market!

BROOME

DAY 61 – BROOME                                                           Thursday, 1^st September

This morning we held the children back from running to Marj and Barry’s cabin for as long as we could!  Then bacon and eggs outside for breakfast, and I don’t think any of us drew breath while telling them all that we had been doing for the last 8.5 weeks.  The Dearness and Pattersons came over to say farewell before heading off to Eighty Mile beach and Alanna brought with her a Broome t-shirt for David to say thanks for cooking all the barbies over the last week!  Very cute.

We took everyone into town to the St. John of God convent for the “Relationships Exhibition” which focuses on the Sisters contribution to life in the Kimberley and more specifically Broome and Cape Leveque.  It was incredibly interesting to read the enormity of the sisters passion for Aboriginal people, their perseverance during the early years when they had so little, and the immense sacrifices they made to live in such a remote area in a time when there were no modern conveniences or communication.  It is also interesting to take ourselves out of our comfort zone and reflect on the fact that although many of these were very good women, it does not alter the fact that they brought with them many diseases that the Aborigines of Broome and Cape Leveque had not encountered before and therefore had no immunity to.  They also cared for many of those children we now refer to as the “Stolen Generations”.  Life is never black and white – so much grey.

After that we had a well-deserved ice cream and back to the van for a late lunch before heading down the beach to join Lawrence and Violet and the boys, who had just had their camel ride, for some dinner and to watch the sunset.  Unfortunately, it was very windy and the waves were no good for boogie boarding.  I keep meaning to google why this is the case, as I feel sure it must be related to the tidal fluctuations we are having at the moment.  When we first arrived in Cable Beach the water was calmer and the waves were fantastic.  Last night was about the highest and lowest tides they reach in Broome – a peak of 10.12m and a low of 0.29m, so the beach can appear about 5 metres wide at one part of the day and about 200 metres wide at another part of the day!! Quite amazing to see.

BROOME

DAY 60 – BROOME                                                   Wednesday, 31^st August

Up and about this morning, with all those mundane jobs to be done – washing, and then cleaning the van and surrounds so that my mother-in-law, who arrives today, will not notice how grubby her precious van is getting.  All washing machines in use at 7am – can you imagine a queue for the washing machine at 7am!!

Bridgie and I finally had our Mother/Daughter time and she wasted no time in indicating that she wanted to visit Target, Woolworths and the op shop!!  Finally found her a dress that she was happy with, after she tried on four different ones.  She wore the dress out of the shop!  It is so funny.  It does not take much to make them happy.  Just some one-on-one time with Mum is so precious.  Just holding her hand and walking along the street is so special.  She is growing up so much and so quickly.  Of course, she is so much older than, say Beth at the same age.  Knowing all the words to the latest songs, and knowing just how she wants her hair and which outfit she wants to wear.  She certainly keeps me on my toes, that one, with her cheeky grin and knowing smile.  I am sure she has been on this earth before.

Back to the van for more cleaning and then a quick sojourn to the beach to farewell the Patterson and Dearness families as they are leaving tomorrow.  We will miss the busy nights on the beach with loads of screaming children – it has been fun – just like a real beach holiday.

The kids could hardly contain their excitement at Mama and Papa arriving tonight.  During the day, Bridgie asked “how many seconds until they arrive?”  So I sent them all off while I cooked the dinner and set out some candlelight and nice music for the event!  The kids were so excited by the time they arrived home.  Each of them could not get close enough to Mama, sitting beside her and on top of her!  Given Mama and Papa were still on Melbourne time – we let them get an early night before the onslaught tomorrow.

BROOME

The other end of the day can be beautiful too - morning on Cable Beach

Sunrise over the dunes - Cable Beach

The old and the new - Kayakers in front of The Young Endeavour which is currently in port in Broome on its way circumnavigating Australia.  We saw it in Darwin Harbour too.

Bridgie and another sandcastle masterpiece

My beautiful boy carrying water up the beach with the moon rising

Dancing around the campfire on Cable Beach

The kids.  The funny shimmering is actually the heat from the campfire rising up in front of my camera!

Ben made himself a "beach chair"

Ben dancing and singing from the car

Tessie showing us her great moves

Our campfire - soo much fun!

DAY 59 – BROOME                                                      Tuesday, 30^th August

The husband has all of a sudden decided to get creative.  He finally took the camera along on his morning constitutional – and came back with 150 beach photos.  So I really need to include some to make him feel, well …. like he is contributing!

This morning, I did a really stupid thing.  Thinking that Marj and Barry would have to sit in the car and put their luggage in there, I decided to clean the inside of the car as best I could.  Having stared at it for a few minutes, I then decided that cleaning the back was a ridiculous idea because we would still be going to the beach and the sand from the boogie boards and towels etc would make a mess again.  So I cleaned the front, with Beth’s help, as best I could with a bottle of Nifti and a dustpan and brush.  If you could all see the sand on Cable Beach … the bloody stuff is so white and fine it gets into everything!  Again, any sympathy?? 

After that, Ben and I had our Mummy and Son time which was beautiful.  He looks after his mummy so well – a real gentleman!  We went wandering around the shops, had an icecream, bought a shark’s tooth necklace and, most importantly, went collecting firewood for our beach fire that night.  Clearly Ben and I were the only ones taking it seriously!  I even went into 4WD mode to go down a track off the main road and went into the scrub, tearing apart trees with my bare hands (all the while terrified that someone else would come down the tiny track where it was impossible to turn around, or even pass someone!!  And my beautiful, law-abiding son constantly asking: “Are you sure we are allowed to do this, Mum?  Are we going to get into trouble?”

Back to the caravan park for some lunch and then down the beach for the last night with the Patterson and the Dearness families.  The Tedescos came down too after they picked their car up from a service (mechanics here must make a mint – EVERYONE  seems to use their extended holiday to get their car serviced).

We all had a fantastic night on the beach, more sandcastles, dinner, sunset and a big beach fire!  When David went to pick up Lawrence to take him back to his car, he found a factory with loads of pallets they were not using!  I think we have enough wood for a Melbourne winter!!  The kids played the IPOD from our car and danced around the fire all night, singing at the top of their voices.  About 4 packets of marshmallows were toasted around the fire with stick collected expertly by Bruce and I in the dunes (until we saw the glowing tell-tale sign of Wolf Spiders in the dune vegetation – I got out of there pretty quickly after that!)

At the end of the evening, with the water fast approaching for a 9.9m high tide, we packed up, the Dearness’ left and the Pattersons and Tedescos turned towards the south end of the beach when …. SHOCK HORROR … click click… no battery.  Not sure if it was all the John Denver my husband was playing (much to everyone’s disgust – except my poor children, who have been converted in a few moments of child abuse in the car over the last eight weeks) or if it was the one thousandth playing of “Dynamite” by the girls, but the battery was absolutely dead.  David jumped out and grabbed Lawrence’s attention.  Lucky Lawrence is incredibly organised and had, not only jumper leads, but two batteries under his bonnet!  For the first few minutes there was absolutely nothing – Sarah starting to panic, thinking something was wrong other than just a dead battery!  But, as the tide lapped within 3 metres of the back tyres, Lawrence tried the other battery and FINALLY got a spark!  Of course, as I have been telling this story, it has been getting better and better with Lawrence knee deep in the advancing tide, shoulder to the back of the 4WD!!  What a hero!! A fantastic night ended with a bit more excitement than I usually need!!!!