We arrived in Broome in the late afternoon and set up our van next to the pool at Cable Beach Resort before heading straight down to the town beach for their Thursday night markets. It felt a little like being at the Mindil Beach markets in Darwin – the warm and balmy evening, cultural food trucks scattered around the place, hippies and kids in tie dyed clothes dancing to the sounds of folk singers playing live and lots of jewellery stalls.

We plonked on the grass for some dinner and wondered around the markets until closing time at 9pm – by then we were ready for bed. After a bit of a sleep in the next morning, we headed to town for groceries and to go to the visitor centre. A friend from work arrived in Broome that morning and met us at the visitor centre to join us for the day.

Our plans to check out dinosaur footprints had to be put off for a few days until the tide was out so we ended up going to the museum which was very interesting and the kids got to do an activity sheet as we wondered around. Broome is yet another town that was directly involved in the war with an air raid on the town – I’d only ever really known about Darwin’s war history and had no idea other towns had been so directly affected.

I still had to grocery shop and remembered that we had to vote tomorrow but we’d be off doing tourist stuff so I found a polling booth and voted early (I didn’t really think about these sorts of official duties that I’d still need to undertake while travelling).

With the chores out of the way we headed to Cable Beach to enjoy the remnants of the sunset and splash our feet through the warm shallow waters. While there we noticed orange signs with a croc head on them – we figured this was a warning that crocs lived in the northern end of WA but that we were in a safe spot for swimming. Once it was dark we headed off to Divers Tavern for some dinner and a cold beer beneath one of the biggest TV screens I’ve ever seen – it seemed almost as big as the scoreboard screen at the MCG!

The next morning we thought we’d head out to Malcolm Douglas’ Wilderness Park but it doesn’t open until 2pm so back to town where we drove to Port and despite the jetty being closed for repairs, we ended up spending a few hours meandering along the beach collecting shells and admiring the crab and bird life.

It was the weekend so we headed to the markets to check out some of the stalls – many were the same as Thursday night with a few different ones and a yummy mango smoothie van that we had to visit. We dropped my workmate off for her big nine day tour and headed to Cable Beach for our pre-sunset camel trek.

Miss6 and I were on Cocoa – possibly the worlds tallest single hump female camel, and Master14 was on Jerry – named after Jerry Hall for her long legs. The ride took us along the northern end of the beach along the shoreline where there were cars parked on the beach.

After the camel ride we decided to get the car and drive down onto the beach for sunset. It was so convenient having the camp chairs in the boot – we relaxed on those between having a swim and a kick of the footy on the sand and watching the sunset. Sunset here is one of the best I’ve seen and can certainly understand what all of the fuss is about. These pics were all taken at the same sunset – the colour changes are amazing. 

We tried to sleep in the next day but Miss6 was in terrible pain and I had to take her to the hospital where, after a few hours, we had some antibiotic cream for a skin infection (we joked that she just wanted to join the ‘been to hospital on the big trip’ club!). After lunch we headed to Cable Beach again for some chill time before we drove to Gantheaume Point to hunt for dinosaur footprints.

We managed to find the first two prints but, like nearly everyone else there, wondered aimlessly around for ages trying to find the third set of prints. It wasn’t until we got back to the carpark that we realised that there were actually around nine different types of prints found in the area and we had probably been walking over heaps of them without even knowing.

The sun was setting as we were leaving and the views from the point were almost as pretty as those we’d admired at Cable Beach – Broome certainly puts on a show at sunset. We were leaving in the morning so I asked the kids if I could stop in at Matso’s Brewery on the way home to try their chilli beer I’d been told about. We decided to stay for dinner while we were there and I ended up trying the chilli beer and the mango beer – both were delicious and so were the meals. It’ll be hard to leave in the morning but we know we’re coming back in a few days and can catch another two days here before heading south.

We made it to Fitzroy Crossing at about 2.45pm and secured ourselves the last unofficial powered site hidden in a corner up the back of the park. We quickly unhitched and plugged in the power before heading off to catch the 4pm Geiki Gorge boat tour along the Fitzroy River.

The colours at that time of day were just beautiful. As we made our way up and back down the river, we saw some amazing rock surfaces – a colourful reminder of the areas ancient past. As the sun was setting, the colours of the rock walls turned a deeper red and reflected perfectly oof the glass-like water. We even managed to see a cros floating past us plus a couple of agile wallabies – a very aptly named local animal!

We followed our caravan park’s mini bus on the way back to camp. For those of you who don’t know Fitzroy Crossing, there are a few single lane bridges along the main road – I had forgotten this fact so at one point when the mini bus in front of me pulled over I thought the driver was letting me pass because he was going so slowly. Turns out of course, that he’d pulled over to let other cars coming towards us cross the single lane bridge.

I was so embarassed that rather than turn into our caravan park driveway with the bus now following behind, I went straight past and did a U-turn further down the road before coming back – I didn’t want the bus to see who we were and think ‘what a stupid driver’ – the kids thought all of this was hilarious.

I had plans for us to be on the road by 9am the next morning so we could make the drive to Derby and then Broome. We were all dawdling along as Master14 was off at the little boys room and Miss6 found herself a puppy to play with. I soon realised it was 8.47 but we managed to pack in record time and get on the road by 9.07!

We made one final stop for fuel and to take in the lush green grass on the main road before it was back on the freeway to Derby. We made sure we took a photo of the road sign at the other end of the Gibb River Road before stopping to check out the boab prison tree.

I was saddened to learn that (innocent) Aboriginal people were captured and forced to work on pearling ships and that the prison tree was often used to hold them on the journey to the coast – another shameful example of our past and there were many others reading the information there with us that were angered or saddened by the stories of the past also.

After taking in the enormity and emotional history of the tree we headed to the Information Centre for some lunch and to grab some postcards and Gibb River souvenirs Back on the road to make our way to Broome where we hoped to swap red dirt for sand and possibly swap some of the intense adventure of the Kimberley for some relaxation by the coast.

We left the rugged ranges and even more rugged road of the Bungle Bungles and headed back down the highway after re-inflating the tyres for the umpteenth time. On the way back down to Halls Creek we needed to refuel with one of our jerry cans. I have three – two plastic and one old school metal – I’d filled all three when doing the Gibb just in case and still hadn’t had to use the metal one.

The funnel that connected to the metal jerry can was in the back box of the camper which had been locked shut full of dust for the last week so I had to use a little funnel to empty the fuel from the metal jerry can, into an empty plastic jerry can and then into the car. It was a delightful pitstop made even better when I realised that the catch on the metal jerry can wouldn’t close no matter how hard I tried so I gave up and stuck gaffa tape over the opening to keep the inside clean and headed to Halls Creek for a proper refuel and hopefully some assistance.

When we got to Halls Creek the queue at the servo was a mile long – they had no Diesel at their normal pumps so everyone was lining up then going in to ask where they could get Diesel before moving off. Luckily for me they had unleaded but there was no way I was getting help with my stubborn jerry can with a mob of grumpy grey nomads trying to get answers about when they could get fuel so we headed off.

It wasn’t long before we hit the turnoff to the Tanami and the road looked like it was in pretty good condition. We let down the tyres 25% and headed off down the road – so much better than the road into the Bungle Bungles and even the Gibb.

It’s funny how the kids games change as you get further along a trip like this and they learn new and practical things. Miss6 started out this trip playing make-believe games about being a rockstar and doing concerts and now she plays games about camping and asks things like ‘what tyre pressure do you use on the dirt roads?’ rather than ‘what colour outfit do you want to wear to the concert?’.

The entire drive to Wolfe Creek Crater I kept telling myself ‘don’t think about the movie’ and I reckon I replayed the movie almost scene by scene in my head! The kids wanted to watch the movie so they knew why I was trying so hard not to think about it – especially after I’d told them that their dad used to do impressions of one of the characters to give me nightmares for a laugh.

When we drove into the entrance there were a bunch of abandoned buildings and sheds on the side of the road which looked a bit eerie – especially with one of them displaying ’12 people died here stay out!’ in spray paint! I did have to laugh at one of the Wikicamps entries though that had ‘the crater was great but our car wouldn’t start when we got to the carpark – lucky there was a lovely truckdriver there to help us out – Aussies are so friendly :)’ and at the main sign to the crater someone had put a red hand print smeared down the side of it to look like blood.

We got to the crater in time to walk up to the rim and make a start at walking through the crater. The aim was to get to the other side and watch the sunset from the top of the crater on the eastern side. We got about 3/4 of the way through and found an abandoned cap on the ground which looked just like my castro cap – this made me feel a bit uneasy, as did the fact that we couldn’t see any obvious sign of a pathway back up the side of the crater when we got to the other side and the sun was dipping rapidly in the west.

We decided to turn around and walk back through the crater and watch the sunset from the western side of the rim instead. I’d heard that sunrise over the crater was pretty spectacular so after watching a DVD in the van before bed (no, it wasn’t Wolfe Creek), we set the alarm for 5am so that we could hike up the crater. Miss6 was keen to join me for the early morning spectacle, Master14 however, didn’t see anything good coming out of getting up that early so he stayed in bed.

We’d kept the car hitched to the van for a quicker pack up so Miss6 and I walked to the day use area carpark. The walk was a lot longer than I thought and I started worrying that we would miss it so I put Miss6 on my back and started to run up the road. We made it in plenty of time to walk up the side of the crater and sit on the rim ready for sunrise. The early morning night sky was just as spectacular as what I was expecting from the sunrise – the night was so clear and the silhoutte from the crater as we approached it was serene and beautiful.

The wind blowing directly at us from the rim of the crater however, was anything but serene. There was another family at the top with their young daughter who was crying from the cold wind. Her dad eventually ran back to the car (they’d driven to the day use area lucky things) and grabbed a picnic rug so that his wife and daughter could wrap themselves up in it and shelter from the wind – they were generous enough to share this with Miss6 and I so we got a little reprieve from the wind.

With tears in our eyes (from the wind not the view) and noses running, we watched the sunrise first as a mass of colour in the far off distance and then, as it rose over the edge of the crater wall. It was a long wait in the wind but well worth it for that view. Our picnic rug sharers kindly gave us a lift back to camp in their car so that we didn’t have to walk back.

When we got back to camp we woke Master14 and happily bragged about the glorious views we’d just witnessed while he’d been snoozing. We packed up the camper and drove to the day use area to read up on the crater and have one last look before we hit the road again on the way back to Fitzroy Crossing for some green grass and with any luck a powered site.