Part Three: Broome

JULY 20, Cable Beach, north, Broome:

Our B&B included the use of bikes!  Yay!  So we rode bikes to Cable Beach, which took about 15 minutes, then spent until about 4 o’clock walking the beach.  We walked all the way to the point and back, which we thought would be about 45 minutes one way.  Nope, it was about twice the distance!  We could see it, but it was far!  We were pretty tired and worn out, but were still glad we did it, as we got some great and new shells.  After buying Gatorade at the beach store, and resting a while, we rode the bikes to Subway for dinner, then back to the B&B.  We found too many shells.  It takes a long time to rinse and dry them off. 😊

The "popular" stretch of the beach, complete with umbrellas for rent.

Cable beach has long stretches of sand, and then a few stretches of rocks.
The rocks are the fun places, but we found some of the best shells
at the high tide line in the sand.

On the left, a magpie lark. On the right, a black-faced cuckoo-shrike.  

We got some fantastic shells today!

JULY 21, Towne Beach, Broome:

Frank drove us to Towne Beach, and we played there for a while.  Even though it was low tide, it wasn’t very low, due to the fact that it was a quarter moon.  But that was fine. We have found that most of the good stuff is closer to the high tide mark, not the low tide mark.  We put on our scuba booties so that we could walk out in the muck… It was pretty mucky.  We had loads of time to explore. 

We ended up walking to the grocery store from the beach, as we missed the bus by about 1 minute, and it was going to take us less time to walk there than to wait for the next bus.  Took the bus home from the store… as far as it went.  It was still a 15 minute walk back after the bus.

Fun day!

The tide is going out, but not at its lowest.
The boat is still in the water.

Really, really glad we brought our booties!

This is a huge sea slug!  There were hundreds of these at low tide.

THAT was a big crab!  Frankly, I'm glad I only saw its claw!

An anenome waiting for the tide to come back in.

A crab with blue claws, mostly covered in mud.
He was so threatening.

This is just over the rocks from the last sandy area. 
It's a lot rockier.

See!  The boat is about out of the water now.

This whole area that is sandy is under water at high tide.  But at low tide, the trucks bring their boats down far. 
When it is "extremely" low tide, it goes out probably 500 yards.

This is an Australian Kestrel.  We saw them everywhere!
But finally, here at Towne Beach, one landed close enough for a photo op.

Many things here remind me of Hawaii.

I think this is an Australian Kite.

JULY 22, Church, Broome:

We rode our bikes to church.  (I changed into a dress in the bathroom after we got there.)  They don’t have their own chapel, but rent a hall.  Very small branch.  They said they usually have about 10 people at church, but there was only 8 today, including us: 2 senior missionaries, 2 young male missionaries, a counselor in the district presidency, one branch member, and us.  They say they may close the branch.  Sad.  Especially for their faithful new member, an aborigine.

We enjoyed church very much.  Nice sacrament meeting, wonderful Sunday School lesson, then a short lesson on self-reliance. 

Spent the afternoon resting, napping, cross-stitching and packing shells.

JULY 23, Cable Beach, mostly south, Broome:

We woke up to a foggy morning!  Rode bikes back to Cable Beach, and mostly went south.  There wasn’t as far to go, so we went back north a little way, too, but spent most of the time of the south rocks as the tide went out.  It was super cool to see the fog off the coast, then roll back in and cover the beach.  The fog over the ocean was gray.  The fog over the land was pink, reflecting off that red, red dirt!

The fog was super cool!  

The rocks are great on Cable Beach at low tide.

For reasons I don't understand, riding camels on the beach
is a popular thing to do.

A"Giant Clam."  We're not allowed to take these.

A sea biscuit, with its "fuzz".  There were hundreds of these.

A sea biscuit, de-fuzzed.  

Look closely.  These are little balls of sand,
rolled up by crab and taken out of their holes.
To think they do this every low tide is amazing.

Here, we can see the fog in the distance.  It is tinted pink over land.

Cable beach is close to the airport, and we saw and heard lots of planes!

We are now in the mist of the fog!

More cool rocks in the fog.

Even more cool rocks in the fog.

Oh, look!  I can finally see the hill!

After a while at Cable Beach we rode the bikes further south, in hopes to get to a beach on the other side of the point.  Most of the way was paved road, then we got to a dirt road, where we had to park the bikes and walk.  We couldn’t find a way to the beach without climbing down a cliff, but the views were gorgeous!  There wasn’t even a high tide line of debris, so probably few shells. It was a nice bike ride, and got some great pictures.  Then off to the grocery store and back to the B&B.

This is a view from on top of the cliff, before we were very close to the beaches.

John, standing at the top of the cliff over the beach.

Looking down the cliff... John said he could do it.
I said I could get down, but not back up. :-)

A good view of the cliffs.

JULY 24, 25, Broome to Sydney:

This was our last morning in Broome!  We have loved our B&B, the beaches, the bike rides, everything!  Packed up and Frank took us to the airport.  We had to vacate our room by 11 (we were a few minutes late), but our flight wasn’t until the afternoon.  We left the B&B about 11:30 or so, and had a couple of hours at the airport before our departure.

It was a 6 hour flight, and a time difference of 2 hours.  We arrived at our hotel about 9 p.m., and went to bed about midnight (10 p.m. Broome time), and slept in until 9!  We stayed at the Sydney Travelodge.  Very nice. It was our 2^nd cheapest hotel, but possibly the nicest, besides our free hotel next to the Sydney airport.  We could have gotten one free breakfast buffet, but since it cost $25 for the 2^nd person, we opted not to do that!  We slept in too long anyways.

Our hotel, Travel Lodge, Sydney.

Our flight to Honolulu didn’t leave until 3:20 p.m., so we had practically the whole day to spend in Sydney.  We checked out, stored our luggage at the hotel, and walked first to the grocery store for breakfast and lunch food, then off to Sydney Park. (About a 45 minute walk total.)  Absolutely beautiful park, where they have set it up for wetland birds.  We saw several birds for the first time here.  

This is a Superb Fairy Wren!  We were so excited to see it!

Our plane!  Oh, good, just our airline.

This flower is super cool.  Because it's winter, we missed the big showing.

Just one of the dozen of kids of birds we saw. 
This is a purple swamphen.

The few of downtown from the park. 

The parks definitely cater to dogs.  We saw birds using these water dishes, too.

This is an old brick kiln.

How we checked in.

How our bags were weighed and checked in.

It was the best way to spend our last day in Australia!

We LOVED our trip!  Super fun and relaxing, and loved the time spent together seeing beautiful things and having great adventures!