Broome

March 9
Broome

We were in Broome today, a small town in northwestern Australia…small and freaking hot! After some rehearsal scheduling confusion, I ended up getting off the ship with Aaron to help him get video footage of one of the tours – Highlights of Broome. Aaron was the guy who got me on that rafting trip for free and again needed someone to go with today. The deal was simply that I carry around a large tripod for his video camera, not such a bad gig in exchange for a tour of the city and surrounding area. So we set out around 2:45, me with the tripod playing camera man, and heading into the scorching hot Australian afternoon.
The first thing I learned was that this area sees extremely large tidal movements. On a single day, the tides can change the depth from just over 10 meters to less than 1 meter! That’s over 30 feet of tidal movement a couple times a day, something I never would have thought possible.
Our first stop on our amply air-conditioned bus was at a lighthouse and the point of the peninsula the city was built on. It was a beautiful area with some nice rock structures and a great view of world famous Cable Beach. There was also a replica dinosaur footprint that was found way out at sea, one that is only revealed at the most extreme low tides. It was probably way more interesting in person, but for the sake of telling a better story, we’ll pretend the dinosaur swam out there and left his foot print especially for my air-conditioned bus load of old people.
The next stop was at Cable Beach, a beach that is certainly in my top three of all time awesome beaches. This was the largest white sand beach I’ve ever seen! Not only did it stretch as far as you could see, but from the tide being fairly low when we arrived, the beach was unbelievably wide. It literally took minutes to get from the grass to the water, all the while walking over pristine white sand. And…this beach had tons of tiny little crabs that had this wonderful compulsion to make tiny little sand balls. And I don’t mean a couple, I mean this was the goal of every crab’s life, and they made as many tiny sand balls as their tiny crab arms would allow. The entire beach (which I think I’ve explained already as huge) was overrun, not sprinkled, not dusted, not even covered, but overrun with tiny sand balls the size of peas, all made by tiny little crabs you couldn’t see unless you really looked down amongst the sand balls. Anyway, the water was warm when I put my hand in it (Indian Ocean – sweet), the scenery was perfect, and I had to return to the bus…
Next was a stop in the city. The town itself was tiny, really nothing more than a small outpost where people sell local pearls and other jewelry. Aaron and I broke off from the group thinking we’d get back to the ship sooner for other plans (my 6:00 rehearsal), took some videos of the city, and hopped on a shuttle back to the ship.
And that’s about it for the day. Seeya