….and we’re off. This time we thought we’d explore our own back yard, so the next three weeks will be a trip along the magnificent Kimberly coast of Australia’s top end. But first, a little stopover to visit Tona and Malcolm in Perth.

So, the trip could have started better: We arose in the morning with the first flatulence of the feathered friend and made it to the Melbourne airport with plenty of time to spare. After our boarding call, we wandered onto the plane and settled in before an announcement from our Captain. Apparently, the plane had a small maintenance issue, which was easily rectified, however the paperwork would take two hours to complete. Two hours? For paperwork? I mean, how long does it take to fill out a form! Anyway, we gathered all of our things and headed back into the terminal for two hours before boarding the same plane and finally taking off west.

Fortunately, it was smooth sailing from there and Tona and Mal were waiting for us at the airport. The weather in Perth was rubbish. It was freezing cold and raining and we hadn’t packed any wet or warm weather gear. It’s supposed to be hot all year over there! Anyway, Mother Nature hadn’t got the memo on that, so we rugged up as best we could, grabbed our umbrellas and started bar crawling across Perth.

We landed at a very quirky bar called Foxtrot Unicorn, or F.U. in the phonetic alphabet. I chose a hot buttered rum, which was a hot cocktail made with rum, cinnamon, and various other spices and such. It was strong, hot and tasted like a camel’s butt. I paid $24 for it, so I choked it down and swayed to our last stop, a restaurant called The Sentinel.

When we arrived at The Sentinel, as we waited outside for someone to come out and seat us, “Praise You” by Fatboy Slim was playing. Tona and I started singing along and I didn’t notice that she had stopped singing as I hit my stride, singing with gusto, “I have to praise you like I shou-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oold”. I turned around to find that the waiter has snuck out a side door and was standing right behind me.

I lowered my blood alcohol limit with red wine and we all enjoyed a beautiful meal.

The next morning, we headed back to the airport to catch a flight to Broome. The weather was much better up there, and we landed in 30 degree temperature. It was a 2 minute taxi ride to our accommodation, which was directly across the road from Matso’s brewery, so we wasted no time in popping over to enjoy an ice cold Matso ginger beer on tap (or two). Oh yeah.

Broome is actually a really cool place and we agreed that we should have allowed more time here. There is a fascinating mix of Indigenous and Japanese culture here, all stemming from the pearl shell companies that used to operate there. Throw into the mix a thriving Malaysian and Chinese population and you have a very cool mix of cultures.

We took a cruise across Roebuck Bay to a secluded beach where dinosaurs left their footprints in the clay that subsequently turned to rock. We literally walked in the footsteps of the dinosaurs. It was very cool. Broome has the highest number of dinosaur footprints in the world, by far.

While crossing Roebuck Bay, we found out that Broome also has one of the highest tidal ranges in the world. It is over 10 metres between high and low tide and at low tide you can walk 2 kilometres into the bay. At low tide you can also see the wreckages of a bunch of boat planes that were shot to pieces by the Japanese in the second world war. We just missed out on this phenomenon, which only occurs a couple of times a year during a king spring tide.

We returned from our cruise and had them drop us at Cable Beach where we witnessed the iconic Cable Beach sunset. An endless convoy of four wheel drives line up on the beach to watch the bright orange sun drop below the horizon, and then file out again afterwards. Given the high tidal range, apparently heaps of them get caught in the water every year. The record is 10 in 3 weeks. It’s so common that there is actually a Facebook group called “I lost my car on Cable Beach” which stacks of morons, I mean members, have joined.

We also missed out by a mere few hours on seeing another natural phenomenon in Broome, the stairway to the moon. This occurs a couple of times per month, when the moon rises over a low tide in the evening. The reflection of the moon over the wet sand flats makes it look like a staircase. The photo is courtesy of Tina McDonald, a friend who just happened to be in Broome while we were there. We caught up with Tina and Bill for lunch and they stayed on to see the stairway to the moon. We boarded our ship at 3:00, 3 hours before this amazing event occurred. We definitely will have to come back to see that.

Anyway, we boarded our ship, Le Jacques Cartier, were allocated our ship cards and checked into our state room. We were told to take our ship card with us everywhere, since it is our credit card, our pass on and off the vessel during shore excursions, and the key to our room. Lidia and I wasted no time in getting down to the lounge to sample the cocktails before our briefing and lifejacket drill. At the briefing we were told to go to our rooms, put our lifejackets on and meet in the muster area. The “abandon ship” alarm sounded, we went to our room, only to find that my ship card had fallen out of my pocket somewhere between boarding and briefing and we couldn’t get into our room to get our lifejackets. There were passengers and crew running everywhere as I frantically retraced our steps to the cocktail bar and the theatre. No card in sight. Finally, I went to the reception desk, which was unmanned. I ran around like a chook with no head trying to find someone to help me until I eventually looked on the reception desk to find my card sitting there. I quickly grabbed it, ran to our room, threw on my lifejacket and hot-tailed it to the muster point. I’m glad it was only a drill, because the ship would have been at the bottom of the ocean by the time all that was over. I’ll definitely be completing a feedback form to tell them to store the lifejackets outside the staterooms. Getting your passengers liquored up with free booze and then expecting them to retain possession of their room key is a tall order.

The next morning, we arose and took a zodiac out to the Lacepedes Islands. These islands are teeming with birdlife and there were even a few turtles floating around in the aquamarine waters. We saw brown boobies, pelicans, oyster catchers, terns and many other species of bird. I told Lidia that the terns are always found in pairs, because one good tern deserves another. Absolute ornithological comedy gold with a severely unappreciative audience. We returned to the ship to find humpback whales frolicking around the ship. I took some great photos from our room balcony. Simply magic.