Broome

On the first night in Broome we headed over to Cable Beach to meet the rest of the group for a farewell meal and drink. The restaurant was very strange - it was like a shop with an outside patio and the food was rotten.

There was another storm brewing so we grabbed some beers and sat down on the beach to watch it.

(Yet again I hadn't brought my camera and I'm hoping someone from the group will send me some shots!!)

I got a bit of a shock the next day when I was checking through my tickets as I noticed that my plane ticket had been booked for 15th December not 15th November. I raced to the airport and fortunately there were still seats available on the flight I needed. I had to pay a bit of money but the travel agency I had booked with agreed to refund me half of it. After sorting the flight I felt a bit more chilled and I had a look around Broome, did some chores and relaxed around the hostel.

I had wanted to see the dinosaur footprints at Cable Beach but you can only see them at very low tides at certain times of the month. The Tourist Info office recommended a Hover Craft tour where you could see lots of footprints all year round.

I got picked up from my hostel and got driven to the hovercraft port. It was nice to see some more of Broome as it was too hot to walk very far during the day.

We arrived at the port then had our safety briefing before boarding the craft.

We headed off around Roebuck bay as the driver showed us some points of interest and talked us through some of the hovercraft controls. The hovercraft seemed really difficult to control at times but looked great fun to drive.

We pulled up on a beach accross the bay and got out to take a look at the dinosaur footprints.



The first few prints were not too impressive at first until the guide asked people to stand in each of the tracks so we could see the scale of the strides. He saved the best set till last though and showed us this set:



Here you can see not only the footprints but a cross section of what used to be the planal forest floor with the impact caused by the weight of the dinosaur.

After checking out the footprints we boarded the hovercraft again and set off back accross the bay. On the way back we saw some of the pearling boats including an old boat which had been restored.

After the trip I headed back into town for a quick look around China Town. I also checked out Sun Pictures - the World's oldest picture garden.

Next day I took a flight to Darwin with Skywest. It was a good flight and the snack was a cream tea!