Broome - Day 35

Mackenzie : Today we drove from Pardoo to Broome.  When we got to Broome we setup the caravan and had a look at the caravan park.  Then we went into town and went to the market, I got a hair extension and a glow fan and for dinner I had all different sorts of food.


Fletcher: Today we left Pardoo Roadhouse to go to Broome.  We stopped at Sandfire roadhouse there were lots of peacocks and we saw a white one too.  Then we left sandfire to go to Broome, when we got there we unpacked the van and went to the market we were supposed to watch staircase to the moon but it was covered with clouds.

We stayed hooked up to the car at Pardoo so it was a really quick getaway today.  It was about 450-500kms today and I spent most of my day watching DVDs on the laptop.  We passed through mainly station properties today and the last of the wet season storms followed us a fair bit of the way and we could see the rain far off in the distance too.  We have all been bitten by little critters and they are driving us crazy, they aren't mozzie bites and we are wondering if they are the little red ants that drove Daniel crazy at Exmouth.  We have done our best to put creams and lotions on but I even find myself behaving like a four year old and scratching until I have broken the skin, even though I know I shouldn't.   We haven't been bitten until now so that is amazing for us as Dan and Mack are always being bitten by mozzies.  Ha I'm scratching as I type, so bad.  We got into Broome and if we thought that we were discriminated against for having a dog, Broome is bad, there is only one caravan park that allows dogs and not allowed at all in June, July & August and the rules are beyond explanation.  Dogs aren't even allowed to wee in the park- what!!  You have to take them out of the park, oh yes this will be fun.  The park it self was lovely, grassed sites for the non doggy people, dirt for us doggy owners but lots of shade and very clean toilet blocks.  Even down to ceiling fans in the toilets and showers.  Seriously you are on the toilet and you have a ceiling fan above the cubicle.  There is also a full length mirror, the first I have seen on this trip, I know no one cares what they look like when your camping but it was a nice touch and all the teenagers used it.  They had left a note for us so we just went and setup with the details left and the owner headed on over when she got back.  She lives in Temora in NSW and works for 7 months of the year here and heads home over the xmas/wet season and her daughter and family fill in at the park over the wet season.  It is really interesting to hear peoples stories on how they live.  We are ahead of our schedule by a week so we are in Broome in time for staircase to the moon, this is a phenomenon where the moon reflects on the mudflats and it appears to be stairs up to the moon.  They have a night market on the weekends when this happens which is once a month on the full moon.  This is something on my bucket list too so I had been devastated that we were going to miss it by only a week so to be here on time I was so excited.  So double that excitement when a market was involved.  We went to the market about 5 and the moon was due to happen at 6.55pm so we had some time to look.  The stall holders there again had dogs tied to their tables so we felt comfortable with Bentley tagging along.  The food vans were fantastic and there was every type represented there, philipino, indian, thai, chinese, french, aussie bbq etc.  Broome has a very mutli cultural population.  So the powers were in their element.  We did look at the other stalls but that was just to talk about what we were going to eat for tea!  Mackenzie had a hair braid put in her hair with beads and stones in it which is really cute and Fletcher got a fantastic 4 dvd which he loves.   They both got a neon flashing thing that sings crazy frog and flashes like a nightclub neon light, annoying much.......yeeeeeessssss.   We all chose something different for tea and shared it all around, the highlight of the night was a $2 ice cup, the most simple icypole like treat that was so yum, the kids want to suggest it for their school market next year or the Harkaway show, so we wont give away too many details until they chat with their teachers.  There were some aboriginal performers on guitars and didgeridoos.  It was a great family night and you haven't been to an open air concert till you have heard this amazingly shy aboriginal man sing, Johnny Cash, Elvis & under the board walk by the drifters I think.  He had the most beautiful voice and we sang along but it was still funny to hear him with his strong aboriginal twang rip out Elvis.  We went and sat on the grassed area of the beach, that you cant have dogs at, well by now Bentley was exhausted from trying to sneak all the scraps of everyone's food they had dropped so he fell asleep.  We must have had a good half hour wait but I had no intentions of missing this amazing event.  6.55 came and went and people started to leave saying it was never going to happen because of the cloud cover.  No way was I moving from that spot until I was physically removed.  By 7.30 we were one of a few people left of the many hundreds that started, it wasn't going to happen and I couldn't contain how sad I was.  I couldn't believe that we had got to Broome, got there while this was on and then clouds were going to take it away from us.  Our only saving grace for me not having a big cry was that we had one last chance tomorrow night, so fingers, toes and everything else crossed.  We went home and I couldn't lift my mood, I knew exactly how the kids felt when they didn't get to do something important and they thought their world was ending.  Pathetic, yes but I will get over it.  By now crazy frog was driving me insane so I removed all the screws from it and did my best to pretend I was an explosives expert to work out which wire to cut to stop this noise.  Well it wasn't hard even Mack picked it was the green, so on a promise if I broke it I would buy her a new one, I cut the green wire and crazy frog was never to sing again.  I was happy now and so was Mack as she was also on a promise that she could have the lights going at anytime if I could stop the music.  This is a promise I can see I'm going to break too, it driving me crazy on day 1, hopefully the novelty will wear off.