Day 31 - Broome (WA)

We made the decision before we left home that we would spend our three nights in Broome in a hotel. The caravan parks are very crowded and as this is the halfway point in our trip, thought it was a good idea to have a little R&R here. So the car and the trailer are parked side by side in the hotel carpark. We arrived just before lunch and too early to check in so wandered down to Chinatown for lunch. I then went to the hairdresser to banish some grey and by the time I had finished, Jim had checked into the hotel, moved our gear in including the fridge from the trailer so it could be defrosted. Also found the laundromat so by the end of the afternoon, all our chores were done and we could enjoy our room overlooking the bay. Broome is a very famous pearling centre and in the late 1800s there were 100 Europeans here and 1300 Asian divers - hence the Chinatown area. There are dozens of jewellery stores all selling beautiful pieces. We also found a store selling stunning wallets made of barramundi skin and kangaroo skin.

The car went for its service the next morning - turned out the noise was a little more serious than we had thought - had to have a new alternator as the old one was about to explode. We were very lucky that it didn't happen in a remote area otherwise we would have had to call a towtruck to tow the car and the trailer.Took a drive to Cable Beach once we had the car back and as it was low tide, drove along the beach past the camels as the photo shows. We were a little disappointed with Cable Beach - seemed to us that it was just a lot of 4WDs, camels and nudists! Great sunset over the Indian Ocean though. Today we went to the Courthouse Markets which are on every weekend - again lots of jewellery and this afternoon we went to the races (see photo). After picking losers in the first four races, we decided to call it a day and headed for the supermarket to stock up (again). Tomorrow we head north to Cape Leveque for three nights where we plan to do some beachcombing for shells for Georgia and hopefully visit a pearl farm as well. We will be out of range again on our return journey home, but not for as long.