Days 41 – 44 (13 Aug – 16 Aug ) Broome to Port Hedland - The Beauty & The Beast

Broome! A bona fide Australian city, evidenced by the trifecta of Coles, Woolworths AND McDonald’s. Home to the world famous Cable Beach, complete with camel sunset rides and the occasional surfing crocodile. Kilometres long, much of it permits cars. Drive up to a spot on the beach, pull out the esky and chairs, and settle in to watch the sunset. Hundreds of cars line the shore for kilometres each evening – a sight to behold.

Staying at the nearby Cable Beach Caravan Park, we walked to the beach, an adventure in itself the second night.
“Let’s take a shortcut!” said Dave. “There’s a path showing on the satellite picture!”
A little later, with the sun sinking fast, we were somewhere in almost impenetrable bush, trying to make our way toward the sounds of the ocean. Wearing a sundress, thongs and backpack when what I really needed was overalls and a machete, I resorted to crawling through scrub on my hands and knees to fit under branches and overgrowth. When I finally came to some sort of a clearing and was able to stand, Dave was on a yonder hill.
“Just keep heading west!” he bellowed through cupped hands, indicating the sand dunes looming before me. Scrambling up and down nearly vertical dunes, we finally found ourselves looking down on Cable Beach from very high up.
“Nice shortcut” I said.
“I vote not to go back that way” Dave said. 

Our caravan park (one of several in Broome) with over 500 sites is a small city in itself, larger than most of the communities we have passed through in our outback travels. It was a very busy weekend while we were there - a rodeo on the Friday night and annual race day on the Saturday. By Saturday evening there were ladies in full dress, hat, heels and pearls swanning around Cable Beach (another sight to behold).

I was just excited to be in a civilised town on a weekend, with hope of getting hold of the Weekend Australian - I hadn’t seen or heard any news in nearly a month. But there were none at the newsagent by midday on Saturday. The shop assistant shrugged. “They didn’t come in yet – must have missed the morning flight”. Broome went down in the civilised stakes. In civilised cities such papers are on your doorstep at the crack of dawn, rather than out of date by the time they arrive.

Things were a little more exciting in Coles where we stumbled across a TV crew filming an episode of My Kitchen Rules 2017. When the Broome couple do their Instant Restaurant, watch out for an unglamorous Liz in the baking aisle, clutching a bottle of pancake mix. Sadly, I did not spot Pete or Manu anywhere.

We did love Broome, with a few lovely days swimming in the pool, going to the markets, walking the beaches and spending some time with Dave’s workmate Paul and wife Danielle, currently doing 12 months caravanning around Australia with their young daughters.

On the downside we had to find another Dr – Dave’s staph infection is back in his toe.

Then it was on to 80 Mile Beach and Port Hedland, further west. If Broome is the pretty face of the North West, Port Hedland is the guts. The approach is dominated by huge salt hills and countless settling pools. Bay and beaches are commandeered by BHP Billiton / Rio Tinto, muscling out any chance of this being a tourist town. This is the business end of the Pilbara, a port of endless railways and huge cargo ships for the mining industry. We had lunch there and continued south towards the Pilbara, stopping at a bush rest stop for the night. A lovely stop, but on the main drag between the Pilbara mines and Port Hedland. Huge road trains thundered past. All. Night. Long.

Tourists? Again?? Tonight??? (Dave, Cable Beach)

Just Another Day at Cable Beach (Dave)

I literally carried this wine up hill and down dale, through thick scrub & dangers all (Dave)

Sunset at Cable Beach (Dave)

More Sunset at Cable Beach (Dave's tripod)

With Paul & Danielle & the girls (Dave's tripod)

Sunset at 80 Mile Beach (Dave)