Days 22 to 26, Derby & Broome.
After leaving Windjana we headed off to Derby where we were due to board a seaplane to take us on an overnight trip to Horizontal Falls, this is something we were really looking forward to.
At derby we had lunch by the wharf, was going to have croc burger but they had run out of crocodile.
We were looking at the clouds getting darker and were concerned that the plane would not be able to take off, rang the organizers and they assured us it would still go ahead, then it started raining.
We put our cars into storage and boarded the bus to the airport and the rain was getting heavier.
Got to the airport and waited and waited while the pilots were under the wing of one of the planes having a discussion, did not look good for our trip, finally they came in and gave us the bad news, cancelled.
They told us it was only the second time it had been cancelled due to rain.
Now we had to decide what to do for the night as we were not booked in any ware and it was pissing down by this stage, after a few phone calls we booked into rooms at the Broome Gateway about 30km out of Broome.
The Broome Gateway was an interesting place, when we got there it was pitch black and raining and we are driving up this long driveway to what looked like an old farm, visions of American movies where people book into dodgy motels in little towns and get murdered one by one came to mind. it consisted of a common area with kitchen, dining area and lounge with two rows of rooms coming off it, the rooms consisted of a bed, toilet and shower and no other furniture so very basic. The room next to ours was used by the old lady that ran the place and the walls were thin so bedroom antics were out of the question.
We survived the night and found the place much more pleasant in the daylight, we then headed into Broome.
We set up in the Broome Caravan Park, the camp sites were large and actually had green grass, something we had not seen for a while, after setting up we noticed a Frilled Neck Lizard up a tree next to us, he would stay up the tree until someone was packing up then come down to feed on the crickets that would hop out when tents are folded, the caravan park owners said there are about 80 of the Lizards around the park.
We were fortunate that the Stairway to the Moon was occurring while we were in Broome so that night we headed down to the viewing area along with about 5,000 other people.
The Stairway to the moon is where the moon rises when there is a very low tide and the light reflects of the wavy sand giving an appearance that there is a stairway leading to the moon, I was very annoyed with myself that I forgot the SLR camera and tripod so could not get a good photo of it.
They put on a big night market next to the viewing area to cash in on the tourism as much as possible.
Another thing that can only be viewed at very low tides in Broome is the Dinosaur prints so we got up very early one morning to see those.
Staying at Broome also gave me a chance to conduct a few repairs before continuing on our journey so I went shopping for a few items for the Trailer,got a second hand tyre from Tyre Power for a carton of beer, a set of brakepads from a auto shop and a new tyre and tube for the jockey wheel from Bunning's so the trailer was back to normal again.
We tried fishing a few times on the jetty and caught nothing and nobody else on the jetty caught anything either so we went looking for a shop that sold fresh local seafood but there is no fresh fish shops in Broome, I had thought they would be every ware.
I was happy to leave Broome as I found it too busy and very expensive.
I have tried several times to load some more photos but it keeps failing with the poor coverage where I am, will try again later.
