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Broome to Goombaragin

Broome

Our time in Broome was hectic as always with the fast pace of city life. With shopping, a haircut, more shopping, eating and of course a few drinks down at Cable Beach.

School holidays were in full swing, and we counted about 35 camels doing the sunset trip on Cable Beach every afternoon.

He's no swimmer and he sinks like a stone, but loves to paddle.

Goombaragin

Just 171 kms north of Broome is the paradise they call Goombaragin - it's definitely one of our favourite camping spots. Of that 171 kms, 88 kms are corrugations plus 26 kms of one-lane track both with and without corrugations. Total 114kms dirt. The Aboriginal Communities of the Dampier Peninsula have been consulted over the years about sealing the dirt road, and a decision was made to only do small sections at a time, to give them the opportunity to adjust with the influx of tourists into their homes. This time we drove up, we saw roadwork which is now going to connect Broome with the tip of the Dampier Peninsula with a sealed road. No more red dirt corrugations and we're already noticing new camping areas opening up on local land which will benefit from the huge number of new tourists able to drive up here in standard cars. Hopefully places like Goombaragin will stay quiet as it will be still 26kms of dirt to get in there.

Goombaragin is a very small Eco Resort owned by an Aboriginal woman Kathleen, and her husband John. They don't allow dogs there and Bailey was going to be boarded at Broome vet. After Bailey not responding to his Chemo, we spoke to Kathleen and told her Bailey wasn't well, and she let us bring him. She mentioned that she and John wouldn't be there this season and they'd arranged to have caretakers look after the place in their absence.

John and Jan are doing a great job looking after the place, and after sunset drinks on the cliff each afternoon, we sat around the campfire with the other guests. John made damper with golden syrup and butter and Jan cooked up a fresh fish dinner for us all one night.

The camping is right on the cliff, what a view!

It's well worth the rough drive in as the place is certainly a paradise.

Jayne getting ready for the sunset. They're burning off on the background,

which made the sunsets even more spectacular some evenings.

Tides out!

While we were getting the van ready to leave Broome, Jayne was attaching the sway bar for the van, but it wasn't seated properly on its hook and sprung down crushing her second toe. This is unconfirmed with no X-Ray, but after Mel's experience a few years ago when she fell off the bike and broke her elbow, we know how long these things take at Broome Hospital. So we headed off knowing that there's not much you can do with a broken toe anyway.

Jayne's broken toe with lots of bruising

We have a couple of floor storage hatches which open up with this ring latch which usually sit flush with the floor.

There are 10 toes that could have got caught in here, but it was the broken one that found it's way in. Toe recovery took a major setback!

We went down to the beach every day for a swim (nude some days). Jayne was struggling to walk, so after one attempt trying to scramble down then back up the rocky path, we decided to drive down after that. It was also hard work for Bailey's little feet too, so he enjoyed the 10 minute 4x4 car trip as well.