20th August 2008

Another fairly quiet day today.

Prue did some little jobs as well as wrote some more post cards. Later in the morning she went by bus into the Paspaley Centre for a pedicure. Later in the morning, she met up with Wes and Vicki, Wes’s brother Ian and his wife Jen for coffee. The girls decided they wanted to go for a camel ride, couldn’t get the 1 hour sunset ride so decided on the 3.45 pm, 30 min. ride instead.

This morning, I went for a 30 km bike ride along Cable Beach Road and along to the Port of Broome. As usual for the Kimberleys, it was quite windy but not too strong. I checked out what Cable Beach looks like and then rode along to the Port.

Along the road to the Port, there are numerous industries that obviously service Broome and its surrounds. Also, there were several caravan parks with people waiting outside for a vacancy. There is such a demand for caravan spaces up here at this time of the year.

The Port of Broome is not very large but seems to have a lot of activity. While I was there a livestock ship was coming in and I had noticed cattle in yards not very far away. I assume that these cattle will be shipped to Indonesia as there is a lot of this trade in this part of the country. There is a large Customs building along with an office of AQIS. Nearby there is a large BP fuel terminal farm and a large tank that may contain natural gas.

As I returned back to the caravan park, I diverted up a road which took me to the Broome Racecourse. It looked like a lot of country racecourses with not too much spent on it but just enough to grab some gambling money occasionally.

I did another massage today. It was for, a fellow traveller, Dave that we also met at Mataranka with his wife Irene. They were also on the wonderful Horizontal Waterfall trip with us last weekend. At the moment I really need a massage but I am of Scottish descent and not prepared to pay at least $95.00, if I can get in. For some reason my shoulders are giving me trouble and I suspect it is because of my posture perhaps while I drive. I guess I will manage.

After lunch, I went in to town to primarily collect Prue and to empty the toilet cassette at the BP service station. They charge $2.00 to dump into the town sewerage system. It is just another way to generate some income. As I have mentioned previously, the caravan park does not have a dump point.

Wes, Vicki, Ian & Jen called at our caravan park and picked Prue up. I will now hand over to Prue to report on the ride.

Well we arrived at Cable Beach for our camel ride. Wes & Ian had decided not to ride but to take a drive up the beach as it was reported that the far end was a nudist beach! But not before Wes took photos of us girls on our camels, mine was called “Randy”! Well we laughed and took photos along the way, we also saw the sights along the way. As Vicki said “not only did the camels have lumps and bumps the scenery had plenty too”! Our 30 minutes was over very quickly. Vicki asked Wes to take us for another ‘scenic’ drive up the beach to get a second view of the ‘sights’, which he willing obliged! I think my sides are still aching from Vicki’s commentary. It was decided that we had to finish the evening off with a drink while we watched the sunset. Once again we had plenty of laughs, Duncan missed a fun afternoon/evening!