Broome 2025

Broome - The Celebrations Continue

The celebrations with Justin, Mel, Casper and Dash continued.

We had a special celebration for Alexis' new position with Avi Air. It's going to be exciting to see her grow into the new responsibilities as Engineering Coordinator!

We had a big night out, starting at the Mangrove Hotel for sunset drinks, then Papa Fuego's for a fancy dinner.

Justin and Mel had the night off, after booking a babysitter for the night.

MH2 — The Mangrove Hotel - always an enjoyable place, especially at their huge outdoor area overlooking Roebuck Bay

PF1 — Papa Fuego's - Spiced margarita, delicious, but boy were they hot.

PF2 — Justin had the fanciest drink on the menu! "La Diabla". Complete in a smoked glass cage.

Broome Surf Lifesaving Club, Sunset Bar

SC1 — Beautiful sunet, with a beautiful lady

SC8 — Dash contemplating his next move with the dump truck Jayne bought in Broome

Goombaragin By The Bay

We went to meet our special friend Kathleen at beautiful Goombaragin. We've been here so many times we're like one of the family.
We left the caravan parked at Alexis's campground, and stayed in her 2 Eco tents, and 1 chalet.

On the way we stopped at Roebuck Plains Roadhouse for lunch, as their meals are exceptional.

Casper and Dash got to sit near the bulls.

Dash, Casper with the 2 bulls Malcom & Douglas

RH2 — Out the back in the car park were 2 huge dump trucks waiting to hit the road to their next destination. They're so large they need a pilot vehicle in the front, and one at the rear while travelling on the road.

truk — Alexis with her best boy Stormy who came along as well.

Bra tree up the Cape Leveque Road on the way to Goombaragin

Goombaragin a1 — Quality time with Auntie Lexie

Goombaragin 2 — As you know from the dinosaurs footprints in Broome, this area is famous for dinosaurs.

Goombaragin 3 — Here's a collection of 7 of them :)

GM5 — Stormy (and before him Bailey) are the only dogs allowed at Goombaragin.
Stormy was allowed to run free most of the time as Kathleen was more than happy to have him around.
He had the time of his life chasing his ball down at the beach.

twocars — An incredible backdrop to the 2 Landcruisers

GM7 — Little Dash surrounded by beautiful yellow flowers at Aalin's Lookout.
Aalin is Kathleen's youngest son, doing really well in the Air Force in Queensland.

2289 — Justin and Casper enjoying some alone time

2290 — No wonder that Pindan gets into everything!

Kathleen in her kitchen preparing leaves for her special Jilunjin tea. It made us think of Lisa's description for Earl Grey - "just twigs and sticks"! Jayne enjoyed it, and it's supposed to be very relaxing, especially at bedtime.

Jilunjin: Australia's Golden Sleepy Tea

Mud Crabbing

We had booked a Mud Crab tour as last time we did this it was exceptional. Unfortunately not as good this time, but we did enjoy ourselves.

The tour started at Lombadina Aboriginal Corporation, a community around an hour from Goombaragin.

When Jayne spoke to the girl on the phone, she said the tour would be about 2 hours long. She didn't tell us it was an hour each way driving narrow, corrugated, bumpy dirt tracks in the middle of nowhere until we got to our destination, with all of us bouncing around in the back of the Troopy.

Bud found a suitable spot, and we headed off through the mangroves with high hopes.
We stabbed into crabs homes with traditional metal poles and tried to hook a big one.

Alexis was most enthusiastic, but had to leave the actual catch to Bud. The kids had an absolute ball splashing through the shallow water.

In around 3 hours we found 3 large crabs which we took back to Lombadina at sunset. We were so late back Bud cooked them on the community BBQ and we took them back to Goombaragin, then ate them next day at Alexis's place.

MC1 — This involved a very long, rough 4WD drive, with all of us crammed into a Toyota Troopy

MC2 — Nothing can stop our tour guide Bud. Not even a fallen tree across the track after a fire had just gone through.

MUD — Casper trying his hand at mud crabbing.
Shove your long hooked wire into the hole, and hopefully snag a mud crab.
Not so easy when the school holidays had just finished it seemed everyone went mud crabbing.

splash — The tide coming in meant the 2 boys could play in the water

MCd — Alexis was determined to snag a crab

finished — Thankfully the crab tasted much better than it looked!

Justin, Mel, Casper and Dash have to leave

Before we knew it, it was time for Justin, Mel, Casper and Dash to fly back to cold Sydney.

It was an amazing 10 days they were here with us.

Alexis was so proud to show off her Broome home and give them a taste of what Broome life is like.

It was way too hectic, and sad to see them go.

On their last day, we all visited Avi Air where Alexis took us on a guided tour, including into one of the 12 seater Cessna Caravans on the runway.

aa1 — Captain Casper and First Officer Dash

SC3 — Mangrove Hotel (again) - After the family flew home.
We also met up with some of Alexis's Avi Air friends and had a drink with them

Pender Bay Escape

Once the family flew home, we had 2 days to shop for the next 11 days, and head up the Cape Leveque Road and the Dampier Peninsula again, past the turnoff to Goombaragin, and on to Pender Bay Escape. Certainly one of our most favourite camping places around. Kathleen (Goombaragin) and Andrew (owner of Pender Bay Escape) are cousins.

PBE5 — This might look like a pile of rocks, but it's a volcanic explosion and a geologists dream.

PBE1 — The ugly black rocks below are sensational up close, and once the tide comes in are completely covered.

When we arrived at Pender Bay Escape on Saturday, one of the first things we noticed was a naval ship anchored in the centre of the bay. It looked like a Australian Navy Ship, and after some research discovered it was the Cape Pillar, an evolved Cape Class Patrol Boat. There as border force protection.

This exact ship was moored in the centre of the bay. It remained there all Sunday as well, and was certainly brilliantly lit up at night.

It was still there on Monday morning. We went and prepared our coffee and when we came back the sun glare was right where this vessel was and we couldn't see it.

We watched all morning and bugger me, when the sun glare cleared, it was gone! Tele-ported out of Pender Bay without any noise or even a ripple of a wave!

Later on Monday, another vessel appeared, again moored in the middle of Pender Bay.

This is an Australian Customs Border Control vessel. It departed on Tuesday morning, again in a cloak of no noise or waves!

We read on ABC Kimberley that in late July the Australian Border Force arrested 2 lots of foreign fishers. Six were suspected of illegally fishing off Australia's northern coastline near Ashmore Island.

A couple of days later, a second foreign fishing vessel near Adele Island was intercepted with five crew members, they had 66 sharks fins on board!

All 11 crew have been detained and taken to Darwin.

This had to be these boats we saw in action. Here we were thinking that they were just fishing in Pender Bay!

It was Alan's turn to cook a real meal. So he was told.

Apparently cooking a BBQ isn't classified as cooking a "real" meal?

PBE10 — So it was double fried Spicy Korean Chicken with coldslaw, not coleslaw as Alan likes his slaw cold!

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