We settled in to the van park and prepared for a couple of days in Broome. This place is interesting. You either love it or find it difficult to rationalise. G loves it; Peter………….
Thursday is apparently the day everyone in WA is in Broome rushing around doing not much but get in each other’s way. We were among the crowd doing just that. Our morning was spent from shop to shop looking at all the ‘only available in Broome’ goods on display. We did come across a nice pendant G was interested in, however decided not too this time.
We dropped in to Paspaley Pearls. Naturally they greeted us by first name and asked us where we had been lately. Well it seemed that level of familiarity anyway! We looked around, decided that pearls are so yesterday and left.
Our afternoon was spent doing house work type stuff before we ventured to the Town Beach night markets for some street food. G devoured some Bau Buns whilst Peter tucked into some beautiful honey chicken from the genuine Thai honey chicken shop.
Friday was our day to really relax. We headed off reasonably early to the world-famous Cable Beach. This is the beach where all the world’s rich and famous go to be seen. It’s famous for its stunning white sand and all that goes with that image.
Now for reality. Cable Beach is a big wide beach and is attractive in that sense. The white sand is actually a mix of sand and grey mud so the beach is a sickly grey, not white. The rich and famous may turn up once in a blue moon, but not today.
Our picture of Cable Beach as we trudged miles and miles up and down was of aging men doing there once a year day of exercise with their shirts off. This mostly consisted of touching their knees to their stomachs, all whilst standing still not moving. Beach rule number one; dick togs and big guts are not attractive to anyone. No one!! Use it before you are 50 then hide it!
To quote Dolly Parton, “you cannot imagine how much money it cost to look this cheap”. Welcome to Cable Beach’s latest move to the cheap and nasty side. You heard it here first. At least 50 chairs with umbrellas set up on the beach for hire European style. Truly un-Australian. Truly an eyesore.
All was not lost though when Peter noticed a more than considerable number of young ladies wearing what he has tagged ‘ hide and seek bikinis’. Those are the ones where you close your eyes, count to ten, but still have trouble finding them. Broome is not all bad.
After our walk, obligatory coffee and pancakes, we headed back to the van for a bit of a rest. The afternoon was spent walking again. This time in the area of Town Beach and the art galleries. We entered the Black Stump gallery, were instantly impressed by the amazing arts and weird other things. We left many hundreds of dollars lighter. We bought a stalk type bird thing that looked quite nice.
Pizza was dinner. Tomorrow we head for the world-famous Fitzroy Crossing with its stunning white sand river bed to hopefully see some of the rich and famous.
