Exmouth to Broome is a long haul of around 1,400 km but we decided to try to make it in three days of driving, rather than four as originally planned, so we could have an extra day snorkelling in the Indian Ocean at Turquoise Bay on the shores of Cape Range National Park (where to our delight we had a great sighting of an echidna (see photo album)).  We aimed to stay in Karratha on the first night.  This was our longest single haul so far at around 600 km.  Up here in the north west of Western Australia there are huge distances between settlements with only the odd roadhouse dotted here and there to provide much needed fuel and toilet stops.  Contrary to our expectations, the scenery between Exmouth and Broome varied from wide flat landscapes with nothing but sparse clumps of shrubs to lush, thick greenery, rocky outcrops, rolling hills and mountains in the distance.  So it wasn’t a bad drive at all and with the two of us sharing the driving much easier, and more interesting, than we’d thought it would be.  Although gradually emus and roos became much less obvious the further north we went, cattle and birdlife were much in evidence, especially eagles and other birds of prey.  So we were rolling merrily along the (as usual) pretty empty highway enjoying the scenery and singing along to ‘Smooth Soul of the 80s’ when Eric suddenly slammed on the brakes yelling “Get off the b***** road you couple of dozy great bustards!!”   But would they move?  Oh no, not them.  Totally oblivious to the danger of a two ton (sorry Annie if you’re not that heavy) Winnebago thundering towards them at 110 kph.  Slowly, and with much grace they wandered off across the road none the worse for the encounter, thanks to Eric’s vigilance and fast reactions. We were pleased to reach Karratha when the ocean and the Dampier Archipelago came invitingly into view.  While at Exmouth, we’d made lots of arrangements in advance for ‘big’ tours when we get further north.  So Karratha was going to be a low key/cost stopover.  First stop was the visitor centre to find out what there was of interest to do and see so we could decide whether to stay for one or two nights.  We knew this was mainly an industrial area but had heard some good reports – it has a theatre, the islands are well worth seeing, and tours of the salt and iron works are supposedly interesting.  But disappointingly, this was one of the poorest visitor centres we’ve encountered.  The staff, though not entirely unhelpful, were a bit lackadaisical and uninformed, and didn’t react positively to our request for help and information.  They did tell us though that all the campsites in Karratha were full.  Blast!  However, because we didn’t have much confidence in the visitor centre’s advice we decided to try the nearest campsite.  They confirmed they were full, but very helpfully and without prompting gave us the name and phone number of a site a little further on up the road which had spaces.  A quick call and we had a site for the night at Harding River Caravan Park at Roebourne.  The decision about staying one or two nights was taken out of our hands, and we also benefit from being 40 km further on the road.  We also benefited from having two nights, instead of one, at the delightful 80 Mile Beach Caravan Park – 10km off the highway down a gravel road.  It’s gorgeous here and the beach is, as its name implies, verrrrry lonnnng. It’s also a shell collector’s delight – we’ve never seen so many unusual and colourful shells.  Not so sure that it’s a fisherman’s delight though as none of the many folk fishing ever seemed to catch anything. Unfortunately, when we got up the next morning we discovered Annie had a flat tyre!!  Now, getting the spare wheel down and out from its location under the rear of the van was a challenge which we didn’t quite rise to.  We managed to get it only so far and no further.  Bear in mind that we were really in the middle of nowhere - 350 km to the nearest town.  Strewth, what do we do now?  Fortunately, the family-run caravan park also has a handyman service which does tyre and minor mechanical repairs.  Soon the wheel was changed and the repaired tyre is now the spare.  Those of you who have followed our Australian blogs will know that tyres have topped the list in terms of woes.  We were lucky that this latest episode happened when we were on a site –  shudder to think what we’d have done if it had happened on the road miles from anywhere.  We’ll really need to learn to be more self-sufficient so we can sort these sorts of things out ourselves in future.  Cross fingers we won’t need to but, given the mileage we’re doing, chances are we will.  

We bid a fond farewell to 80 Mile Beach and were soon rolling along Highway 1 once more on our way to Broome.  As usual, first stop was the visitor centre which was very modern, efficient and extremely busy - not surprisingly since the July is the start of the peak season and the town is packed with southerners escaping the winter.  We were really pleased with our caravan park (Palm Grove).  The sites are spacious and shaded by palm trees, and the location is really good, right opposite Broome's famous Cable Beach about 4km out of the town centre.  The beach is yet another glorious one and we enjoyed a few sunbathing and swimming sessions there - glad we weren't put off by reports of a crocodile sighting a couple of weeks ago!  Broome itself is an attrctive town.  All the buildings are low level, keeping a low profile against the regular cyclones, and the town has a good, buzzy atmosphere and lots of good eating places.  The Saturday morning market was great for a good old browse and a 15 minute session of Reiki massage worked wonders on shoulders tense from the recent long days of driving.  Because the town is pretty spread out (with signs of even more building and expansion due to the present boom in the Western Australia economy from mineral mining) we hired a little car for a couple of days.  It was nice for a change just to jump in a little car and tootle around town without any ado - although as it turned out there weren't all that many places we could go to out of town because all were via red dirt roads on which we weren't allowed to travel.  

But we made good use of the car to get ourselves to the golf course for short 9 holes (too hot for us to do the whole 18). Broome's is a really nice golf course and is the first one we've come across for ages that actually has proper grass fairways and greens.  The clubhouse is also one of the best places to view the Staircase to the Moon, a natural phenomenon that occurs along the stretch of the north west coast when the combination of a full moon rising over low tides gives the moonlight's reflection on the water the appearance of a ladder leading up to the moon.  So we booked ourselves a table at the golf course for that evening (delicious fish green curry) and had a wonderful view of the 'Staircase' - it really is an amazing sight (see photo album - it wasn't easy to photograph but hope some of our shots give a good showing of what it's like).   Another main attraction in Broome is to view the sunsets from Cable Beach and this attracts crowds and crowds of people each evening, either just to view or have a drink/meal at Zanders restaurant, or do a BBQ on the beach, or take a sunset camel ride.  We weren't too bothered about doing the sunset thing again because, as regular visitors to the blog/photo albums will know, we've already seen hundreds of great sunsets in WA.  But we had to go along to see it for ourselves and compare with others we've seen.  Whilst we think we've seen more spectacular ones, the sunset over Broome seems to be consistently cloudless so you can watch the sun dipping down into the sea, the colours are wonderful and the atmosphere among the crowd is great.  

Because of its clear skies and its location 18 degrees below the equator Broome is a great place for star gazing, and we'd heard that Greg Quirke's Astro Tours was a must.  You get picked up from your accommodation and taken bout 10km out of town to a spot in the bush where he has powerful telescopes and binoculars set up.  He gives a fascinating and informative talk explaining how things work and points out constellations, stars and planets.  It was absolutely incredible to see Saturn with its rings, and Jupiter with 4 of its many moons, all clearly visible through the telescope.  We'd already heard of the stars Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri, but now we know that they are the two stars which from the 'pointer' to the Southern Cross.  And we also now know, and have now seen, that Alpha Centauri is a binary solar system and is actually two suns revolving around each other.  Everybody was really enthralled with what we saw and learned - a brilliant night out, nearly as brilliant as the stars!

All too soon it was our second last day in Broome and we had an early start (up at 05.30) for a trip with Brad and his Aussie Off Road Tours over 200km north of Broome, mostly on red dirt road, to the Cape Leveque peninsula.  We had a right good crowd on the trip - a bunch of accountants and their wives from Sydney and a couple from Melbourne. On the way, stopped for morning tea in the Aboriginal settlement of Beagle Bay, which was established by catholic nuns/priests to provide help and support to the local Aborginal people who were forced into pearling and badly mistreated by the Europeans.  The priests built their Sacred Heart Church here, beautifully decorated inside with mother of pearl and oyster shells.  Next stop was Cape Leveque beach for lunch and a swim.  A beautiful spot - so isolated and peaceful.  There is a camp ground there that you can either drive fly in to, and that's about it apart from bush, beaches and miles of ocean. Then it was on to Lombadina beach for another swim.  The waves here were higher and rougher.  We'd heard about these waves they call dumpers, because they completely upend you and dump you on the ocean floor - and now we experienced them for ourselved.  E was turned turtle and had his head shoved into the sand and M was seen arms and legs flailing and tumbling over themselves.  What was worse was that M was hit twice in quick succession.  The first dumper undid the neckstrap of her cozzie, and before she could tie it up again, and to the delight of our male fellow trippers, the second whipped the cozzie down to her waist!!  But E got his own back by sneaking a shot of one of the guys changing behind the jeep - see photo album.  The day was topped off with a barbie on Cable Beach watching the sunset while Brad got out his guitar and serenaded us with a few Aussie folk songs - and not a bad voice too!  Next morning it was off for a couple of nights to the Broome Bird Observatory about 15km out of town.  But first it was to Beaurepairs for a new tyre to replace the one which had burst at 80 Mile Beach.