Indian Ocean in all of its glory: Broome

Our westward journey came to a screeching halt when we arrived in Broome, WA.

Along the way and as always, we came across another sign that caught my attention:

Stray Animals--gotta watchout for those as they are "everywhere":

And as promised, I mentioned before that I would eventually explain a bit about the BOAB tree. So here’s the story: I first saw a boab tree in Western Queensland as we were headed to Carnavron National Park. At that time, I thought it was the same BAOBAB tree that Antoine St Exupery describes in his book: The Little Prince, and I was terribly excited that I had finally encountered one in real life! But when I went to the stockman’s museum in LongReach QLD a few days later, I found out that it was actually called a BOAB tree. So sadly, I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably have to go ALL THE WAY TO AFRICA to see a real BAOBAB tree.

Well low and behold, on our way out of Derby (NT), we visited the BOAB PRISON TREE (where aboriginals were kept in captivity earlier in the 20th century) and it turns out that as per usual, the Aussies who love to shorten every word or name, had indeed decided to apply their “shortening” principle to the BOAB tree. So, the BAOBAB tree became known as the BOAB tree and my prior state of excitement was without reason, the first time I saw one here!!

LE BAOBAB

But anyway, after this quick stop, we made our way to Broome!! Oh…Broome!!!

Originally, we planned on spending about 5 nights in Broome with 3 nights at the town beach campervan site and perhaps another 2 nights at a beach town a few kms North of the town (Cable Beach).
But once we got to our campsite, I was witness to such an amazing visual experience, I honestly thought I had died and gone to Indian-Ocean-heaven!!!!

A campsite with a view:

An aerial view of our campsite:

And, after seeing my first sunrise right outside my tent,




I said to myself: How could we possibly even consider going anywhere else??? So as soon as Laurie and I were both “awake” enough that morning around 6:40am to have a conversation, I said: do we really need to go anywhere else? And, we both decided that we should stay “just where we were” for 5 nights (which turned into 6 nights because the last “stairwell to the moon” was happening on 18th of October at 6:42pm—the last of its kind for the year before the “wet” season began).

Stairwell to the moon is a natural phenomenon that happens during the “dry” season a few days after each full-moon. At this time of the year, the tide is very low at moon-rise and the reflection of the moon over the mud-flats creates an illusionary staircase to the moon. Very cool…





So with my amazing luck in Australia so far, on this beautiful day of October 19th, I decided to go for a quick dip into my swimming pool (ie: the ocean) with a bikini (rather than a full swimsuit) and no more than 15 minutes was I in the water before I got stung by a jellyfish.
Once again, the sting did not swell up for about 12 hours and then when it finally took on its full-fledged form, I also got attacked by a million sandflies…and for the next 5 days I was an absolute crazy mess, popping antihistamines, lathering the cortisone cream, scratching myself to a bloody pulp and nearly tearing my skin off (I even had to trim my fingernails down to the skin to stop murderously tearing myself to shreds)!!!!

Another jellyfish sting:

The attack of the Sand-fly (a total of 139 visible bites!!! HOLY SHIT!!!):

But aside from these natural upsets (which most Aussies laugh about--while I whimper and cry for sympathy), while we were in Broome, Laurie and I went on an amazing sea-plane ride over the Dampier Peninsula, the Buccaneer Archipelagos and to the Horizontal Falls in the West-Kimberleys.

WHAT A DAY!!! I felt like I was going to Fantasy Island and that Mr. Rourke and Tatoo were going to greet me when I got off the sea-plane with: WELCOME! WELCOME TO FANTASY ISLAND!

I took over 200 photos that day…and here are some of the amazing highlights:

Our Plane:

Two roads meet in the Outback:

Western Coastline:

Rugged Coastline:

Aerial of the Second Fall at Horizontal Falls (a tidal water way between two inlets of seawater, solely controlled by the tides—thence “horizontal” falls. The direction of the water-flow changes of course 3 times a day!! Freaky!!!):

The First fall (we actually sped-through this channel!!):





Aerials of the Buccaneer Archipelagos:

Crocodile-shaped Island:

Hey guys, I think I finally found “my” island!!!:





Here’s barely an island:

And who ever said that water was simple…check out the crazy path that this little river has paved for itself—it almost looks like a snake got drunk and tried to find its way home…

Cape Leveque:

I had it in my head that I really wanted to go to the tip of Dampier Peninsula—being Cape Leveque…I was psyched to fly into it and get to swim in the very northern tips!!!

And what a great way to finish off a tremendous visual day, but with a sunset over the clouds…

More to come!!! More to come...I have about 3 or 4 more BLOGS to update in the next week that I am a bit "sedantary", here in Perth.

How are you all? And what were you for Halloween?? Here, they celebrated the Melbourne CUP on November 2nd and I guess it's quite the celebration--but yeah, no costumes. Oh well, gotta start getting used to the different celebrations, I suppose!!! So, yah...wonderwoman will have to wait for another year. *sigh*

Cheers, FUJ