To Broome and Back!: Day 63. Derby to Broome. 13/07/2015

A 9.00 o'clock departure saw us travelling on the great Northern Highway again on our way to Broome. Another tail wind made the trip an easy drive apart from a stupid cow that raced across the road from scrub. The brakes went on pretty hard to avoid damage to the Prado and I think we left some rubber behind. Calinda rode the sudden stop beautifully she never wavered. Terrain changed noticeably, we began to see less Boab trees and ant hills.
The Tarangau Caravan Park is quite small but in close proximity to Cable Beach. Our site turned out to be only 3 down from Keith and Pat Boyd, another of Wendy's cousins who comes to Broome for 4 months every year to escape the freezing weather at Sale. What a life! He leaves his van and car in storage here and flies back and forth from Victoria to enjoy this beautiful spot. Food for thought.
Being here for 14 days meant we could finally set up the full shade cloth annexe and enjoy the outside living. Dale, the strips we put in for the shade cloth fitting worked a treat.
A quick lunch and we went to discover Broome. A short drive (we could have walked) and we were at the famous Cable Beach. Beautiful white sand and turquoise sea where hundreds of beachgoers had already settled down for the afternoon. We then drove down onto the sand at another location and travelled some distance weaving between many parked vehicles and people that had set up picnic tables and were waiting for the sunset. Something we will be doing in the next few days.
Sighted our first Camel Trains, very colourful and loaded with tourists enjoying a walk along the sandy beach. This will be a "must do" for us before we leave here.
A 10 minute drive saw us at the wharf and a possible fishing beach that John will visit later and the lovely Broome Golf Course. We returned to the city centre to get our bearings so in the future we will know our way around town. Our park is some 5kms from the main town so we will have to drive when we need to shop.
On our return to the park we spotted a Pacific caravan, so decided to knock on their door and introduce ourselves as fellow owners of a Pacific van. They were delighted that we had stopped as they too had been looking for another Pacific. They purchased their van just a short time before us from Caravan's West in Springvale and are also very satisfied with their decision. Merv and Betty are travellers from Bendigo and have been doing a very similar trip.
Pat and Keith invited us to dinner to share a meal with them and son Scott who is staying for a holiday. A very pleasant night and beautiful meal with much reminiscing of the days on the Boyd farm in Oakleigh.
A great start to our stay in Broome.