Monday, August 10, 2015

Broome and Cape Leveque



What a lovely place Broome is! The weather is consistently in the low 30’s and not a cloud in the sky. Our caravan park is a drive to the beach and the township.
The town has two small shopping centres with Coles and Woolies, and a shopping strip with heaps of Jewellers selling their pearl jewellery. I walked into some in my shorts and t-shirt and loved drooling over all the beautiful pieces. (No one asked to serve me I might add!)

 We have enjoyed many hours relaxing by the swimming pool, which has a lap pool incorporated into it.



                                      
Randall and I have been improving our swimming strokes using the lap pool – my freestyle has improved out of sight! They don’t heat the pools up here, so the water is a bit fresh when you first get in.
We have driven into the township a few times. The Great Loritz Circus has followed us here yet again!




 I went in and had a look at the Broome Museum, which was quite interesting, and had a bit of a look at the shops.
We were in Broome at the right time to see the Staircase to the Moon. It happens once a month when the tide is really low and the full moon rises and shines on the mudflats. It was hard to get a good photo, so we stopped trying and just looked. It was beautiful!

Cable Beach is beautiful and goes on and on into the distance. We have done a couple of walks along it, and of course had several swims. The water is a pleasant temperature, and it is so hot you just have to go in anyway!




There are two sections of Cable Beach. One is swimming and walking, and the other section you can drive on and swim and sunbake nude if you want. When we drove on the beach there were heaps of cars there. It’s quite funny to see, as we are not used to that in Tassie. The camel rides also occur on this end of the beach, but neither of us was inclined to have a go.






The beach is so wide and the tides are so extreme, so you have to walk for ages to get to the water!

 The airport is between the township and our caravan park, so we constantly hear the sounds of planes and helicopters overhead. Once when we were walking on the beach one took off and was straight above us. It was very loud and low!

After 8 nights at Broome, we left the caravan in storage and headed up to Cape Leveque. It has 90 kms of corrugated road before becoming bitumen for the last 110 kms. It wasn’t too bad. It's amazing that the road is so wide and you can drive on any side of the road that is best. (Unless a car is coming towards you of course!)


We called into the lighthouse on the way up near the top of the cape and had a walk around, then decided we would stay at Gambanan, as it has a big tick in the Camps book. We got a beautiful spot overlooking the water and managed to see our own version of Stairway to the Moon that night.
The tides up here are amazing! When they’re out we watched the birds diving in around the mudflats to catch fish in the shallows. We had a man made fish trap out the front of us that revealed itself in low tide.



                                     
                                                 The sunsets were beautiful. 
                                      


When the tide was up we walked to Squeaky Beach – so called for the sound of the sand as you walk on it. It was very pretty and so hot that we ended up having a quick dip in the clear water, all the time looking out for crocs. We weren’t really comfortable, and were probably very foolish, but the water was crystal clear and it was literally a 30 second dip.



It was VERY windy both nights we were there and the rooftop tent was flapping away noisily, so didn’t get much sleep each night.
After two nights we headed south to Middle Lagoon. A few people had said how good it was and they were not wrong. The drive in was 30 kms of sandy road, but on arrival there were heaps of people camping, and there was a lovely beach there where you could swim. 


It was cooler in the evenings here and I even had to put a top on! I had the best sleep though! (No wind and cooler!)

The sandflies have got to me – they are awful! Their bites are very itchy initially, then they go to a blister and get weepy. They are horrible, and it takes all my strength not to itch them!!!

It took us a bit of time to get used to living out of the car when we were at Cape Leveque, and it was nice to return to our little ‘home’ again with all the comforts.



 On the way home we stopped in at Beagle Bay to look at the church decorated with shells – quite amazing!



On returning to Broome, I was able to catch up with my good friend Eraine and her husband Tony. We had an enjoyable coffee at the Runway Café, aptly named as the planes noisily took off and landed overhead!



Eraine took a photo of us too:


We are feeling very happy and relaxed and so enjoying our holiday!!



No comments:

Post a Comment