Day 34 (24 May) – Broome

The Landcruiser was booked into Broome Toyota today for a 30,000 km service at 7.30am.  So we set the alarm (yes, on a holiday) for 6.30 to give us time to have breakfast and drive into Broome town.  We got there at 7.15 – it was a 5 minute drive!!  We waited for the car as this gave us a chance to get some Telstra phone service to upload our blog photos and post it.  Across the road was a café and bakery.  Of course, we had to have a coffee.  Helen had an almond croissant, and I had a chocolate éclair.  We needed some sugar.

After we got the Cruiser back we did some shopping.  We came across a Telstra store in the Mall with this “misleading” sign.

Telstra service is what we have and it’s absolutely abysmal unless you’re in the main street of Broome.  Cable Beach, the main tourist hub, has almost no service.

We then went looking for a car wash so that when we come back from Kooljamon Resort we’ll get the Cruiser washed.  Then back to the caravan to veg out.  Tonight, we are going to the Sun Outdoor Cinema to see “The Dry”, but on the way we’ll detour via Matso’s Brewery for another beer.

We got to the outdoor cinema and sat in a good seat in the middle.  The seats are hessian deck chairs and awfully low.  Not very comfy either. 

Before the film started, a few aircraft fly over so low that we could almost touch their undercarriage.  Bit of a fright.  Wasn’t expecting that.  The film we saw was the Australian film “The Dry” with Eric Banner.  Excellent movie and sitting outdoors made it even more special. Towards the end of the movie there is a one liner that all the audience laughed at. It really showed that the audience were made up mostly of grey nomads. The line was delivered by the publican as the main character, Eric Bana, was leaving the pub. The publican wanted to make sure he left a good review of his stay on TripAdvisor. It got a big laugh.

Day 35 (25 May) Broome to Cape Leveque

Today we left for Cape Leveque and the Kooljamon Wilderness Retreat.  It’s a tent camp at the tip of the Dampier Peninsular 200km north of Broome.  The road up here until recently was a sandy track and it took about 4 hours to get here.  But now it’s nearly all sealed with a fair bit of roadwork for the first 15km.  Once at the turnoff to Kooljamon, it a sandy track to the retreat.

We got there too early to take our room so we went for a drive around the sandy tracks of the retreat.  Definitely need a 4WD for this place.  First stop was the western beach where we ate our lunch.  Stunning scenery

We drove up the track to the accommodation tents to see where we would be staying and the track was a real challenge.

We didn’t take a picture but should have, of a semi fuel tanker down by the beach trying to get back up.  No way he was going to make it.  We went back to reception to tell them the tanker was in trouble and they would need to get a bulldozer to help him out.

We decided to drive back down the track and go to Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm.  Rough track in but quite scenic.  The place however was pretty run down and not much money had been spent on improvements.  Also this side of the peninsular was exposed to the winds being the eastern side, so the water was a bit rough.

Back to Kooljamon and our tent was ready.  Pretty rustic but a stunning view over the protected bay where you are able to swim without being eaten by sharks or crocodiles.  BUT…..  there are millions of mosquitoes.  As I type this I’m on the deck and even with repellent wipes on my exposed surfaces the mozzies are having a feast.  Helen has gone down to reception to get some Bushman’s which we know works.  There are mosquito coils here but with this sea breeze they would be useless.