Beautiful Broome

Yes....Broome was pretty stunning, as reputed.

We caught up, literally, with the Spences at the Cable beach caravan park.   They have only ever once caught up with us, by the way!  The kids were glad to see each other after nearly a whole week apart!  The next couple of days were fairly full of beach and swimming pool action which I think was enjoyed equally by all concerned, regardless of age.  It was SO great to be back in the ocean without significant fear or risk of fatality...  We did have a gentle reminder of those said risks on the two occasions we went to the beach and couldn't get in the water - once for a saltie sighting and once for shark sighting!  The weather was perfect and so was the water, 28 degrees and endless torquoise.  

After a couple of days in Broome, we heard news that Emma's aunty had died and so we planned a trip back to Sydney for the funeral. Before we left, we went on the the obligatory camel ride on cable beach.  The Spences came down to wave us off as we ascended rather alarmingly to standing camel height. The boys were pretty impressed, and Isaac and Sascha got to ride the smallest camel in Broome, called Gemma.  She was the only female camel in the train and was hand reared from a baby contributing to her small stature.  It was lovely, once you settled down on the photo front, to just drink in the magic of the place. The colour of the water, the gentle cool breeze on your face etc, were good for the soul.  After about 25 minutes, my rear end and Emma's left knee were looking forward to a return to our own two feet.  The kids were ready to hop off and enjoy giving their camel a carrot by the end, but without any mid-life aches and pains!

When we came back from Sydney  we had to wait around for a few days for our tyre winch to arrive from Perth (tough place to have to hang out, really!).   Emma had the great idea of going out to the Willie Creek Pearl Farm for a tour. It was fantastic. We learned a lot about pearls, including that one salt water oyster can only produce at best four pearls during it's working life of 8 years.   Also that the chance of getting a pearl in an "unassisted" oyster was 1/100 000,  hence the development of the whole cultured pearl industry.  Previously they used to dive for the mother of pearl in the shell - it was just extremely good luck to get a pearl as well.  It was a perfect day, and the colour of the water was magnificent. We took a boat ride up the creek and had a chance to take some photos with our fancy new zoom lens. The brahminy kite turned up at just the right time for his photoshoot. Dom was a bit over the boat ride after a while but a friendly little hermit crab kept him out of mischief for the rest of the tour.
When we got back to the farm building, they took us in to the showroom to show us a few pearls and teach us the five qualities ("virtues"!) to look for. Our guide then went through a range of pearls and whoever guessed closest to the price, got to wear the pearls for the rest of the talk. She just told us the price of the strand that she got Emma to model...$39,990!!! They were pretty, but you could buy a caravan for that!
Emma chose something a little more discreet, but still pretty special, as her 40th birthday present to herself.

With all the waiting around I had opportunity to have my birthday in Broome! I had a great day. Emma sent me to the beach by myself while she and the boys slaved away in a hot caravan cooking up a great cake. I went for a swim, lay around on the beach, went for a walk to get an icecream, had another swim and all without having to keep tabs on anyone except a very large stingray I saw right near me in the water. It was pretty special.  The cake also turned out to be pretty special as Emma described it to me first "Hazelnut Mocha something something" Tasty.

Because we had hung around in Broome for so long, it was time for another full moon the night before we were due to leave. We had some dinner then headed down to town beach to get some photos. I made a bit of a rookie mistake and forgot to change the shutter speed setting so the first frame I took was a 20 second exposure and just a great orange blur. By the time I got around to my second or third shot, the moon was up and away from the horizon. Still it was a fairly spectacular thing to see and great fun to fiddle around with the camera to get different shots.  We have plenty of moon shots and if anyone is interested, and you can put in a request in the week or so before slide night when we come home.  Those further afield will just have to imagine how great they all are!

I do love our new lens