Bet you weren’t expecting another entry so fast! Neither was I, but I ended up here in Broome a little quicker than I expected. I tried to stay at the station listed in Lonely Planet but they had a big sign up on the main road saying they were forced to close to the public. Instead I camped across some dunes from 80 Mile Beach, which was quite spectacular. In fact, it’s 80 miles long (supposably), nice and wide with a very gradual slope into the ocean, which had beautiful azure waters. Only problem is that they advised against swimming — which didn’t leave much else to do around there. I took a long hike up the beach yesterday afternoon and kept running into 4WDs using it as a highway. Looked kind of fun, actually.
Broome seems huge compared to the other places I’ve been visiting. Most towns consist of nothing more that a handful of little shops, but Broome seems like Grand Central Station with all the tourists around. I’ve been warned repeatedly that it would be extremely expensive and I will have to get out of town quickly — but lo’ and behold, I found a camping spot on the town beach for $11 a night. It’s very nice. I will have to see if there are any surprises with it over the next 24 hours. If not, I may extend my stay. And to think others are spending $400 a night here…
Broome is an old pearling port that was once run primarily by Japanese investors up until WWII (if memory serves me correct). It was in the middle of nowhere until Lord McAlpine got stuck here in transit and fell in love with the place. He built a huge expensive resort (The Cable Beach Club) and now it’s overrun with tourists (at this time of the year, anyway) with directly flights from Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth (and probably Asia) dragging people in from all over. Broome has a reputation for being very multicultural. It even has a Japanese graveyard and a Chinatown that is supposed to have really good Chinese food.
I will post more about Broome after I get a chance to explore a little more…
