Red, rocky hills and cliffs lined the roads at the start of the trip. It was hot when we left and after travelling about 50km from Kununurra the weather had cooled considerably, but it did heat up as we travelled, it’s just that Kununurra is very hot early in the day.

We stopped for fuel at Turkey Creek, Halls Creek, Fitzroy Crossing and Willare Bridge Roadhouse; our fuel economy was very poor, early on in the day a head wind sprung up and it continued for the rest of the day. On a good day we’ve gotten over 340km from a tank of petrol today we got 216km. We filled the jerry can before we left Kununurra, just as well because the gap between Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing is 288km.

The further we travelled from Kununurra the flatter the land got; the road was a long straight ribbon of white stretching out ahead of us. There wasn’t much traffic on the road either; we only passed 2 cars going in the opposite direction in our first hour and a half of travelling. We did pass lots of animals both live and dead on the road, kangaroos, cows, horses, eagles and bustards. The dead cows must have been hit by trucks because they were massive animals and would have wiped out a car.

We had intended stopping overnight at Fitzroy Crossing which was approximately 600km from Kununurra. Because we got such an early start we decided to go the extra 400km right through to Broome. So we finished up having our biggest day ever, 1050km and 12 hours travelling, getting us into Broome at 5.30pm.

We stopped and rang the caravan park when we were about 60km from Broome, because we hadn’t intended going to Broome we had no booking and we thought that the office might shut at 5.00pm. There was no phone reception any sooner than that and even when we did stop the reception was poor. But we did manage to make a booking and they took our credit card number to pay for the first night and left an envelope of info for us on the noticeboard outside the park office. (Only the CDMA had service)

It was a nightmare trying to put the tent pegs into the ground, the caravan park has shadecloth pegged to the ground on the tent sites which means they don’t have patchy lawn, but it also means they don’t have to water the ground and it’s incredibly hard, we destroyed about 10 pegs.

Tony was asleep about 7.30pm it had been a big days riding for him.

We went and bought a few groceries and had a look around the town this morning. I also bought a couple of bikini tops for $5.95 each, bargain! In the afternoon we spent a bit of relaxing time around the caravan park.

Late afternoon we went for a ride to Gantheaume Point. It’s suggested that the best time to visit is when there’s a low tide, it’s then that you’re able to see some dinosaur footprints left by a dinosaur 120 million years ago. There are amazing rock formations at this beach and I thought that the glow of the setting sun would enhance the colours of the rocks; unfortunately it was a little overcast.  There were several tour buses and lots of people at the beach at when we were there; it must be a popular time of day. The road leading to the point is only a few kilometres and is sealed most of the way with a couple of short sections of corrugated dirt. We may go back tomorrow and try for some more photos.

After Gantheaume Point we went into Chinatown to go to the cinema. Sun Pictures is the world’s oldest picture gardens and was established in 1916. At this cinema you sit in deck chairs outdoors and you can even purchase a meal to eat while you’re watching the movie. We went to see the Dukes of Hazzard, it was ok.

First up we went to the Broome Port, I thought we may be able to see some of the pearling boats, Broome is renowned for its pearls. One of the guys who was working with us at Kununurra was hoping to get work on a pearling vessel. Unfortunately there was only one boat at the port.

On our way back from the port we stopped at the Chinese and Japanese cemeteries. The pearling industry bought many people from Japan and China to Broome and many of them died doing the job, sometimes from drowning other times from the bends.

After lunch we went to Cable Beach, it’s said that it is one of the best five beaches in the world. I don’t know what categorises a top beach but we’ve been to plenty that I’ve thought were as good. Cable Beach is 22km long and people are able to drive their four wheel drives right onto the beach.

One of the main reasons for going down to the beach was to see the camels, several companies offer camel rides on Cable Beach and I wanted to get some photos.

We then went back to Gantheaume Point to see if I could get better photos than I did yesterday. While we were there we spoke to the guy who runs Harley trike tours in Broome, he told us that his business was doing quite well and that he’s expecting delivery of another bike soon, he’s one of the lucky ones, gets to do something that he loves and gets paid for it!

Tuesday is cheap pizza night at Eagle Boys so we bought one and took it to the town beach to eat. There was a market in the park beside the beach; we had a look around before finding a good spot to watch the moon rise.

Staircase to the Moon is an event that happens on several full moons throughout the year in this area. It’s a phenomenon where the reflection of the moon on the mud flats where the tide has gone out looks like stairs leading to the moon.

We got ourselves a good position, well we were hoping it was going to be a good position, we just sat ourselves where everyone else was hoping that they knew better than us.

My phone rang and it was Colin and Desley ringing to say hello and see how we were going. We met them while we were in Townsville, they’ve rang to say hello a couple of times, we’ve made some good friends on this trip.

The next call we got was Sven and Julia, they’d not long arrived in Broome and were also out to watch the Staircase to the Moon. Tony went and found them and bought them back to where we were sitting. We’d been worried about them, they said that they were going to leave Kununurra after work on Monday stay at Fitzroy Crossing overnight and then drive to Broome on Tuesday. We’d sent them a text message warning them of all the animals on the road and the head winds that we’d experienced. After our message they decided to leave Kununurra on Tuesday morning and do as we did, drive right through.

The Staircase to the Moon was a little like some pagan ritual, hundreds of people sitting waiting for the moon to appear over the horizon. As it emerged over the sea there was a collective sigh from the crowd and then the flashing of hundreds of cameras, everyone anxious to record the event. It was very nice to see, but I think it was a stretch of the imagination to see it as a staircase, perhaps sometimes it looks better than others.

Sven and Julia followed us to Eagle Boys, it’s one of their favourite meals for a Tuesday night, they ordered a couple of pizzas and we bought another pizza.