Broome and surrounds

Our original plan was to spend five days camping at Middle Lagoon on Cape Leveque. However, after taking the 4WD bus to the Cape as part of our Horizontal Falls tour, we decided that the road was just too rough to proceed. If tyre pressures had been lower and we had reduced our speed, we could have completed the trip without damaging anything. Ros was talking with a lady at the caravan park on our return, who had taken a tent to Middle Lagoon. She described the 33 km access road into the Middle Lagoon campground as being in much worse condition than the main road. Many vans at the campground had sustained damage due to the poor road conditions. 
 
We are really enjoying our time here in Broome. While we enjoy getting down and dirty, it's also lovely to spend some time in comfortable and pleasant surroundings. 
 
The beach is about 50 metres from our annexe, so we have been enjoying lying on the sand and swimming, although I must admit it takes a while to adapt to the water's coolness.

Sunset over Town Beach beneath the Roebuck Bay Caravan Park.

We celebrated my birthday on August 11th at Matsos Brewery. We both started with a Pale Ale before ordering our meals.

Ros chose the vegetable plate, which consisted of coriander and chilli corn fritters, marinated olives, grilled haloumi, goat's cheese, and beetroot panna cotta, accompanied by a yoghurt dip. The menu suggested she try the alcoholic ginger beer, which she did to her enjoyment.

My seafood plate included hickory-smoked barramundi, Exmouth king prawns, ika mata fish salad, pickled Fremantle sardines and gravalax sauce. My beverage with my main was their Session Ale.

Today, we ventured north to explore the jetty area. The live cattle trade appears to be back in full swing, with at least five B-triples waiting to unload cattle onto a ship.

On another one of our outings, we spent time viewing the Japanese cemetery. 

The Japanese arrived here after pearls were discovered in the waters surrounding Broome. The first recorded Japanese burial was in 1896. The most burials took place in 1914 when thirty-three divers lost their lives to either drowning or the bends.

Today, our Land Cruiser was due for its 10,000 km service. The courtesy bus dropped us off in Chinatown, and we wandered around the shops waiting for the service to be completed.

Streeter's Jetty is known to have been used since 1897.

It was built for pearl dealers and merchants, E.W. Streeter and Co. of London. It was used by the pearl luggers to deposit their 'Mother of pearl" ashore and is the only remaining landmark of its kind in Broome.

The Sun Pictures claims to be the world's oldest operating picture gardens.

The seating arrangement above reminds me of the open-air picture theatre in Parap, Darwin, from the 1970s. Half the theatre was covered by a roof, and if you were enjoying the movie under the stars and it started raining, there was a mad dash to get under the roof.

The pearling museum has on display two restored luggers, which provide tours offering an insight into the hazards associated with diving for pearls.

We had heard glowing reports about a restaurant in Broome called 18 Degrees, so we tried it out for lunch on our second last day. The menu consists of sharing plates similar to a restaurant we have in the main street of Sawtell. The food was superb, and I highly recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Broome. Little Creatures beer was on tap, so we also enjoyed several of those.

Fellow Bushtracker owners Wendy and Peter arrived in our caravan park late this evening. They had driven east to west across the Gibb River Road. They described the conditions as quite rough, with numerous corrugations. They described the condition of the 19 km road into Silent Grove campground at Bell Gorge as very poor. It took them one hour to complete.

We toddled off to the Town Beach Cafe for lunch today after our swim. It's about 500 metres from our caravan park. Unfortunately, we leave tomorrow and will miss this view.