Broometime!

Ahhh, the last treck up to Broome via 80 Mile Beach. It's almost sad to have to leave the bus and "settle down" again in one place for a few days. I do have to pay due respect to Sara, who is quite possibly madder than me (and thus more annoying in confined spaces).

80 Mile Beach was... 80 miles long (I elected to believe what they say rather than check it myself on foot). Lots of shells! I found one that I later saw in a shop with a price tag of $15. I see a new job...

Funnily enough, I don't have a single photo of Broome itself, or the hostel (Kimberley Club, comes with a pool, but without aircon... urgh!) But I have a GAZILLION of cable beach, sunset, red, blue, daytime, portrait, landscape, with nude guy (nude beach was to the right of the stairs... as we discovered during our camel ride accross it at dush), without nude guy, with parasol...with parasol! I'm please to announce that I managed to avoid getting a sunburn - perhaps another FIRST for me! This is entirely thanks to the wonderful parasol that Sara and I rented one sweltering afternoon...

Amazing pictures of the beach in various guises...

Hands-down the best thing I did while in Broome - and coincidentally another first - was a sunset camel ride accross cable beach. Would have been so much better without the saggy old nude guys sitting about as we were trying to "mount" the camels! Luckily for Sara, I actually paid attention to our guides and followed instructions to lean forward and then back as the camel stood up - being in the front seat I managed to block her from going head-first over the front of the camel as she body-slammed me from behind! Sunglasses went flying and I'm sure I heard Nigu (our camel) sigh. :) To be fair, we HAD been warned that he has a rather "energetic" way of getting up and to hold on for dear life. It wasn't until we were on the way and he kept trying to overtake the camel in front that we were told he was a camel bred for racing... let's not test that, shall we? :P

Broome has an open air cinema, which is a nice nostalgic trip into the past... unfortunately, mosquitoes also take this trip with you and as a consequence our viewing of The Last King of Scotland was accompanied by frequent slapping as we tried in vain to protect our limbs from the bloodthirsty insects! Why do they always go for the toes, fingers and any part of the body that somehow comes into frequent contact with straps??? How do they KNOW???

I have become quite the pool player - I start off abysmally and get progressively better with each game! Unfortunately, this cycle repeats itself each time I try - so I "have" to play at least 3 games to get my mojo going! Unfortunately, Kelly wasn't quite ready for the photo above left... :)

And for all those of you out there just waiting for me to go through another EMBARRASSING episode, WAIT NO MORE...

24th June, Pirates of the Carribbean is out in cinemas worldwide - even Broome! Kelly is flying out at 3pm, but she's just nuts enough to go with me to the 10:30am showing so she can then join Sara in Darwin that evening and go again! We're all happily ensconced in our seats (despite the BO coming from the Unwashed row in front) and I have the ultimate wake-up call: 0.5ltr diet coke in the cup with dodgy lid sitting in a cupholder beside me. The movie has been on for all of 10 minutes (total running time close to 3 hours) when I grab my coke for a drink. The lid pops off, I try to catch it, and up-end the entire cup over myself and Kelly / Rosie besides me. Lovely. Just absolutely fantastic. Wet, sticky, annoyed, cold... what is there to do but to watch the rest of the movie and wait for it all to dry? :) Nothing comes between me and my movie!

The last 3 weeks have been a highlight in the trip so far - here's to making the following 4 months live up to the Easyrider extravvvaganzzza!