G,day All,

This is going to be a long blog as i am doing the next couple of days in Broome as there was not much really happening so sit back grab a coffee and some cake and enjoy .

Well we had a good night sleep sort of Nancy's cough is getting worse so we went up to the local hospital and had her seen too (no they did not shoot her ) there were two windows one said see clerk first the other said see nurse so i went to the right hand window and said could we see a doctor she looked at me and said have you seen the clerk first and i said no so we had to go to the other window and saw the clerk and she had Nancy fill in a form the usual rubbish name age sex do you want to be buried alive or in a coffin etc the usual stuff they throw at you, Nancy took it back and she was directed to a chair and then had to wait for the Nurse to see her, now we were early so there was only a few other people in the room and no one else to see the Nurse but it took this lady about 20 minutes before she called Nancy over to ask her what was wrong with her, she then had Nancy sit back down and wait so in about another 30 minutes she was called in to see the doctor.

We were back and out of there and decided that we would catch the local bus into china town and go to the chemist there an get her script filled, the bus rocks up and Nancy asked how much and the driver said are you seniors and Nancy showed her card and the driver looked at me and said are you a pensioner and then said 3 dollars for the two of us . We got off in china town and walked through the mall as instructed and went looking for a chemist finally found it had a nice iced coffee and was told that w are lucky we are here now as the tourist will be in in about another month and it would take u nearly 20 minutes to just to get to the counter to place your order, had a look around the town, as we were doing the wanderings you knew it was out of season as every where were sales for clothes could of picked up a heap of shirts etc as they were going for the princely sum of $12 instead of the usual $30, we came across the open air Picture theater and then heard this noise by the time we looked up there was a plane about 100 feet above us and i nearly made the same rude noise that the bed does when i sat on it struth that was close i looked around and Nancy was looking a bit perplexed and all the locals were going about as if there was nothing out of the ordinary, ***( Cedric here he meant to say when he picked himself up off the ground under the rubbish bin and his knees stopped shaking was the funniest site of the trip so far to see this big bloke dive under a small rubbish bin as if that was going to protect him)*** after a bit more of a wander we decided to go back to the hotel and have lunch at the pub, so back to the room and as we got there a bloke was just starting to clean it and we said don't worry we are off to the pub .

The pub was of all things an Irish Pub so one would expect it to sell Irish beers well sort of it sold Guinness ( and it looks and taste like something you threw out with the baby) and had all the toucans around and the place looked like and old Irish pub the chairs were rickety as well as if they had seen a few fights in their day, we ordered lunch Nancy decided on the healthy option of a Caesar salad and i had the hamburger we thinking this would be a simple meal, WRONG Nancy Caesar salad arrived and you would of sworn they had stolen every cos lettuce in the top end to make it it was huge and then my hamburger arrived and i am positive there is a cow running around out there with half its flank missing and it came with another huge salad and chips man no wonder Ireland had a potato famine i had them all on my plate as chips.
After lunch we just rested about the hotel and got ready for the Camel ride tonight.

We caught the town bus to Cable beach and walked along the sand to the Camel ride there were two operators and we were told to go to the ones that were black and gold, the sun was on the way down and the tide was out now when i say out i am talking here probably about a mile, we were introduced to our camels and as i was the heaviest i had to sit on the back and Nancy had the front seat . I can tell you if you do come here to Cable beach there is nothing really spectacular about the place but the Camel ride is well worth the visit The sunsets is about it the beach is just another beach is the local Nudist beach as well so we were warned to be on the look out for worms and rock melons, an hour later we were back at the car park picking up our photos got the last bus back to the Hotel and hopefully get some Moon shots decided to just go out the front of the hotel.

Well the lightening storm out to sea was spectacular but alas no moon again so back to the room grabbed Nancy and we went to the restaurant for dinner tonight, there were only 7 other people in the whole restaurant so we thought beauty a quick meal and back to the room, WRONG I am sure they went down to Perth to get the meal what should of been a hour long meal, ended up being an hour and a half, so back to the room and bed.

Next morning we had arranged to do a 2 hour town tour and a one hour long pearl luggers tour in the afternoon, so up for breakfast, out the door into the new shopping centre near Cable beach had a wander around there and tried to find a new neck strap for Nancy no luck went into one of those Dollars and Cents stores and came across and velor covered sunflowers and suggested that the stem part would be soft enough to put over her strap bought it and when we put it on it worked best $3 we spent, we went back to the hotel had lunch this time we shared a plate of
wedges and chips, even they were a struggle to get through, but when you
take into consideration most of the people that eat here are hard
working people and they are fly in fly out miners or oil rig workers so
they work hard all day .

We then waited for the pick up for the town tour, he picked us up and 12 other passengers and away we went explaining how Broome developed from a pearling town to a Hippie commune for the unemployed people, to when a British Lord came out here saw the potential of the place bought the local caravan park and then spent 500 million dollars developing the place including building the resort and importing all the materials and trees to transform this tiny town into a booming tourist Mecca it is today Broome has a standard population of around 12,000 residence during peak season it has over 60,000 people staying in and around the town on any given day, so we were lucky to see the Broome before the hordes arrived.

We then went onto see the Japanese cemetery where they buried the pearlers who died looking for the pearl shell one of the graves is an Englishman and no one seems to know why he was buried in that cemetery. Pearl shell was the main production for this area and all the shell was used to make buttons, it was not until the around 1950, that 3 Japanese investors saw the potential of producing man made pearls an as a result today Broome is one of the worlds largest pearl producing areas .

After the tour we went to see the pearl luggers and be given a brief history of how the industry went from looking for pearl shells for buttons to producing pearls for ears and necks, these poor buggers were made to wear suits designed for people 5 foot 8 tall and they were 5foot 2 so as a result they had to wears baggy suits, it was long hard work they would dive from sun up to sun down and they also employed the local aboriginals but they too were treated with disrespect. The tour guide then explained that if we were trying to get a photo of the Stairway to the Moon forget it he has lived here for 5 years and has only seen one decent stairway and with all the little camera's people have unless they have the top end camera's and zoom lens then forget it just experience and say yes that is off my bucket list and grab one of the many post cards of it.

After the tour we came back to the hotel went and had a drink in the bar and had a snooze i went out again to try and get some shots again no luck again so we bought a post card . went to the Pub for dinner again, Nancy had Bangers and Mash (sausages) and i had a chicken pasta dish and again we had enough to feed a nation Nancy could not eat all her bangers and mash so i had to rescue the poor remaining sausage and eat it as well so now i have put on more weight.

Well Today is the last day in Broome so we are going to a Pearl Farm today at Willie creek the tour includes a ride on the creek to see if there are any crocodiles as well as have a look at how they farm the pearls on long lines in the creek. We left The Bitumen and drove onto the Red dusty road that is the only roads around here as the guide explained the reason for the red soil is because it is rusting yes it is really rust there is so much Iron ore in the soil that the iron ore actually rusts, we could not use the dry weather road as it was still flooded so had to drive further up the track to get around the flooding and into the creek, once at the farm we were treated to a lecture on how the pearls are seeded and produced and then had some Damper (It is a bread like or scone like loaf) and cold drinks for morning tea then we went out on the boat we walked down the walkway along the jetty to get on the boat, we were warned that the current is very strong as the tide was coming back in and it was a king tide which meant that it would rise to about 10 metres from dead low to full tide, this is amazing that is the equivalent of a 3 story building in height that the water reaches at full low tide the creek only has about 2 channels of deep water the rest is mud flats, after we had seen the way the oysters were tied in cages to mature we went croc hunting sadly though it was a shy one an did not rear its ugly head, we had only been on the creek for about 30 minutes and when we came back the jetty that we had walked along was completely submerged and we had to run the boat up onto the bank so we could get off .

We went inside the show room and then was given a demonstration on how to tell a good pearl from a not so good one, Nancy was selected to demonstrate and show a full pearl necklace and we were asked if it was an expensive or not so expensive after a few mentions of in the $30-$40,000 range we were informed she was wearing a $100,000 necklace she was mortified and afraid to drop it as she said it was not her style so we opted for a cheaper one nice but not as expensive as that one.

We headed back to town and as we were coming back this standard car came past us an we were laying bets that they would turn around as the corrugations were bouncing us out of our seats but no on they went so i hope they took out car hire insurance the Guide dropped us back at the hotel and we decided to sit in the foyer of the hotel till it was time to go to the airport, the time soon passed and away we went out to the international airport and waited for our flight back to Perth and then the midnight express to Brisbane.

Hoo Roo
Stewart and Nancy