Broome

All good things must come to an end, and that includes our time in Broome.

We arrived in Broome on 24th June, and we left on 12th August. We're heading east to Kununurra, Lake Argyle, across to the NT, south into Queensland and then home.

In that time we spent 4 days/nights in Singapore, 3 in Goombaragin and 11 at Pender Bay Escape.

Justin, Mel, Casper and Dash visited us for 9 days.

Talk about pack a lot into 7 weeks!

Alexis and two friends Lisa and Mags (Magdalena), and Lisa's 15yo niece Molly, joined us for a weekend at Pender Bay Escape.

It's a very spread out campground, and they were camped in tents about 600 metres away from our site.

The two girls used to work with Alexis at Avi Air but have moved onto different jobs in Broome, and have maintained their special friendship.

We were really pleased that the whales finally came to Pender Bay before we left. We were last here in 2023, 2 weeks later than this visit. We saw heaps of whales and their young then, so we were happy to see the few that did arrive.

The whales didn't turn up until after the 1st August. They were also only off in the distance, not up close as before.

Andrew, the owner of Pender Bay Escape has a blanket rule whereby you can't launch your boat for the entire month of August, because the whale Mums and babies spend their time together in the bay, teaching and learning. However this doesn't stop people staying in other campsites from going out fishing. We were really disappointed to see these boats chasing the whales for a better view.

We went to Barred Creek one last time with Alexis and Stormy for a sunset dinner.

In January 2022 two young blokes drove from the northern side of Barred Creek across the channel and parked their car on the furthest sand bar to go fishing.

There were people watching them and they were amazed. However the tides come in so fast up here that once it was too late for them to drive off the beach, nothing could be done to help them.

You can only see this car at very low tides, so we were lucky this time. When we were here last time we couldn't see this car as it was fully submerged 6m (20') underwater.

So what's left of the car after 2.5 years on the beach up here?

...not much.

This isn't the first time a car has been devoured by the ocean up here.

In 2020 a Nissan Pathfinder was flooded at Town Beach in the centre of Broome. Another very expensive exercise!

There's even one for sale.

The most famous of all is the car at Town Beach in the centre of Broome in October 2022.

Even made stubby holders (drink coolers) out of this photo.

For more pictures like these search in Facebook for "I Lost My Car At Cable Beach".

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Access by vehicle onto Cable Beach north of the rocks was suspended in June this year while they undertake Stage 2 of the redevelopment of Cable Beach. It's going to be amazing when it's completed, with 2 lane access onto the beach north of the rocks.

But this has been a blow to everyone who loves to drive down for a picnic, BBQ, drinks and a sunset. Work isn't due to be completed until mid-late 2026. There are a few private properties with beach access, but unfortunately they won't allow anyone through due to "environmental reasons". Yeah right....

Kerry Stokes owner of Channel 7 is one such owner.

There are so many tracks via different access points, we went out exploring one day to see if we could find a way through.

Most importantly, we wanted to take Alexis out in her car to make sure she had enough 4x4 knowledge to get herself out of any sticky situations. Her sidekick Stormy isn't any use to her if she gets bogged, so we ventured out to do some training.

Many were through Yawuru Aboriginal Land with warning signs and cameras. Tracks are extremely narrow and sandy with bushes and shrubs on either side for kilometres. We discovered one route and got to a rocky ledge before the beach, but there was absolutely no way to turn around and go back.

In the end we didn't really find anywhere with easy beach access. Barred Creek is the closest, driving through the same narrow tracks, but shorter and with easy access onto the beach. It takes about 1 hour to get there, or 45 minutes if Alexis is driving :)

We eventually found a small clearing, and she had to do a 10 point turn to get out.

We ventured out to the Spinifex Brewery with Alexis one last time. It opened in February 2024, and is such a great destination for friends and families. The food and beer are excellent. There's a playground for the kids and a huge outdoor screen and stage.

The camels walk past every night going home from their tourist rides on Cable Beach and stop along the fence so the kids can feed them a carrot.

And the Broome Golf Club for one last sunset dinner.

That's a wrap for Broome as we're now heading east towards Kununurra, Lake Argyle, across the NT, once we hit Queensland we head south and then home.