It feels like we’ve been heading for this fortnight all along as we finally make it to Broome, meet up with our two daughters and go find out why this town and the surrounding areas north and south are teeming with people and booked out a year ahead. Check out Parrott’s OzLap Week 10 and 11 video for more on our adventures this fortnight.

Monday 14^th – Friday 18^th June – Cruising at Cable Beach & Broome

Our 5 days, 4 nights at Cable Beach were super chilled with the first time on our travels feeling like a holiday. We stayed at the RAC Cable Beach Caravan Park which is in a great location with a 15 minute walk to pretty much everything in Cable Beach! We walked up the sand dunes to the beach, along to the lifesaving club for the food truck and bar Wednesdays to Sunday, and up to the Cable Beach Resort next to the club with its public playground, picnic tables, café’s and restaurants. The Caravan Park is also across the road from the Tavern, a good bottle shop, the Bali Hai Resort and Sands Resort & restaurants and the bike track that takes you the 7km in to Broome. We had big runs along the wide white Cable Beach, swam, tentatively, after almost stepping on a stingray the first morning, in the clear blue water, watched the camel trains at sunrise and sunset (and the poor guy whose job was to walk behind them picking up their droppings!) enjoyed delicious dinners at the Bali Hai and Sands restaurants, grazed at the Thursday night Town Beach Market and again at the Saturday morning courthouse market, ducked as planes flew overhead as we sat in the outdoor cinema watching a movie (world’s oldest outdoor cinema), explored old Chinatown (which is undergoing a makeover and covered in hurricane fencing making it tricky to get around), marvelled at the incredible rock colours out at Gantheaume Point and watched stunning sunsets every night on or over Cable Beach.

So three things to tick on a trip to Cable Beach and Broome would have to be: 1. The beach sunsets – from up high at the lifesaving club or down low on the sand 2. The Saturday morning Courthouse market for delicious food (GF Poffterjes!) and 3. Gantheaume Point – you can drive on the beach here but the real attraction is down the red dirt road to the Point with its indigenous storyboards, Dinosaur footprints and intensely red rock formations that glow at sunset.

Saturday 18^th – Monday 21^st Kicking our heels up at Barn Hill station

Saturday morning we hit the Broome Courthouse Market for breakfast and enjoyed live music, delicious poffertjes (even had Gluten Free ones for our daughter), corn fritters, and mango smoothies, browsed the stalls then hit the road for our next adventure 90 minutes south down at Barn Hill. This working cattle station has quite a reputation for its Saturday night live bands. We’d seen live music at cattle stations / campgrounds before (Yardie Creek, 80 mile beach) but this was on another level. Barn Hill don’t take bookings but luckily, I called the day before to ‘check capacity’ and they said they were booked out – unless we had a ticket to the Band. I quickly booked online and secured us a spot and after rattling down their 12km red dust driveway we pulled up to find a metropolis of campervans and a very active place. There was a bowls tournament on as well as the band and a Sunday market so it was packed to the brim. The music started at 5 with a great guitarist who played for 2 hours then the big band came on at 7.30 and played until 11pm! There was even a mosh pit and a lot of red dust flying around as people kicked up their heels. It was an epic night and we were grateful to have a stunning day to enjoy a peaceful Sunday walking along the beach down to the beautiful rock formations, swim in the ocean (until we saw a 5 foot shark roaming in the shin deep shallow along the shore!) and sample the pandan ice creams and watch pizza being delivered from the farmhouse on dune buggies all afternoon/evening.  It’s a pretty rustic campground with open spaces, open air bathrooms (complete with green frogs) and no camp kitchen but its location and red cliff lined beach is first class.

Three things to tick on a trip to Barn Hill are:  1. The Saturday night band 2. Walk north along beach to the pinnacle rock formations and 3. The beach for sunset and just lazing about.

Monday 21^st – Wednesday 23^rd June lapping up the luxury at Eco Beach

After morning runs and a pancake breakfast we headed 30 mins up the road to Eco Beach resort and a little touch of luxury. The 12km drive down to the resort was on a pretty rough road, in worse condition than Barn Hill access road, with big soft sandy patches the Duke did not like and some pretty corrugated rough road in between – we took it easy and arrived in time for a late lunch – a delicious trio of tacos on the deck overlooking the ocean – then checked in to our Eco Tent, did a swift change into bathers and hit the infinity pool! Happy hour started at 3pm and we were the only ones not availing ourselves of a MilkyWay, Negroni or Aperol Spritz for $10! (although the girls did the following night!)  Instead, we went for a beach walk and found all sorts of weird sea life washed up on the sand – spider looking starfish, sea cucumbers in all shades of pink, grey and black, sea sponges, long conical shell thingies and lots of jumping fish evading something larger chasing them. No red cliffs here but some nice hammocks and lounges on the beach to relax on and a big sandy beach plus kayaks and stand up paddle boards at our disposal. A thunderstorm hit around midnight on our first night bringing a torrential downpour that lasted about 5 hours and we were glad to be in a fully weatherproof canvas tent. We chilled out the next morning at a free yoga session then lounged by the pool all day soaking up the sun before heading down to the lounge suite and fire pit on the beach for boules at sunset and followed by  dinner under the stars. There’s a camp kitchen and a herb garden so you can cook what you bring otherwise all meals are at the restaurant – no shop for any supplies or take aways.  We had one breakfast and one lunch at the restaurant to make the most of the lovely views but the menu was limited, expensive and the food of middling to average quality. The real highlight here is the lovely pool, beach and well equipped tents with ensuite, sun deck, Eski and picnic baskets and big comfy beds.

Three things to tick on a trip to Eco Beach resort are: 1. Sunset and dinner on the lounge suite on the beach 2.  Read and swim by the infinity pool and enjoy the happy hour cocktails 3. Run/walk at low tide along the long beach and marvel at the wide variety of sea creatures on the mud flats.

Wednesday 23^rd  June Mercedes Cove Tranquility

After a big beach run and delicious breakfast on the deck at Eco Beach we headed back up the highway in to Broome to drop off the van, do a quick shop and all piled in to the 4WD to head 120km up the Dampier peninsula on the newly paved Cape Leveque road to Middle Lagoon. We passed the Banana Wells and Beagle Bay communities, both closed due to Covid, and turned off at Middle Lagoon to our private accommodation for the night at WhaleSong on Mercedes Cove. The 33km rd in to our cabin was rough and our ‘4WD’ hire car didn’t really have the clearance we would’ve liked as the road had a big soft middle and deep rutted sides. It was single lane with big rocky outcrops and some mud and puddles from the rain that passed through 2 days prior. Mercedes Cove on arrival was a little oasis of calm on a property overlooking a lovely yellow sand beach. There’s only 5 dwellings to stay in , 2 cabins, 2 eco tents and an open air sleeping platform and strangely enough, we didn’t run into and hardly saw another person except our host Pat and her trusty sidekick, Rex.

Three things to tick on a trip to Mercedes Cove are: walk, swim, sit on the rusty red cove beach and walk around the pandanus and other natives on the property  2. Sunset from the well positioned table and chairs on the clifftop and 3. Eat, chill, play cards on the big wide verandah of your cabin.

Thursday 24^th  – Saturday 26^th June Gumbanan, Cygnet Bay and Kooljaman at the tip of the Dampier Peninsula, Cape Leveque

After a relaxing morning at Mercedes Cove we drove another 90 mins up the Cape Leveque road towards our campsite for the next two nights at Gumbanan Bush Camp. We passed the Djaradgin airstrip and called in to the roadhouse but every other road and community closed due to Covid. We checked out our dinner destination – Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, which is a working pearl farm with accommodation and a café-restaurant and small pool, and returned later for happy hour and to watch the full moon rise and enjoy a lovely grilled fish dinner. Our bush camp was another 10 km up the road and we bashed our way in along 2 km of thick dirt to our family tent. It was blowing a gale so were glad to see our tent tucked in to the trees The camp is a large, dusty, dry paddock perched on cliffs overlooking tidal mangrove swamps and is a little worse for wear after being shut down for 18 months due to Covid. The manager, Gerard. is making an attempt to fix it back up again and we wish him luck! Our family canvas tent had two good double futon style beds, an outdoor BBQ and sink and  a lovely hot outdoor shower. Unfortunately, there was only 2 (flushing) loos for the entire campground which was challenging but we made do. We found a 1 km 4WD track down to  ‘Squeaky Beach’ so-called for its small strip of fine white, squeaky sand that at high tide offered swimming and at low tide crabbing on the mangrove-mud flats. The campground overlooks a large, traditional aboriginal fish trap which is also the sunset or moonrise viewing spot and we were lucky to see the first night of the full moon rise over the mudflats on our last night which presented the phenomena known as ‘staircase to the moon’. Friday we headed 20 mins back down the road to Kooljaman, a remote wilderness camp owned and run by the Bardi Jawi communities. We bought day passes, thinking we’d spend the day on the beach swimming and relaxing, only to find out that a crocodile was sighted the night before and the eastern beach was closed to swimming and the western beach has sharks and you cannot swim. The area is very spiritual and they ask that you do not wear bathers but remain fully clothed, so we walked and sat on the beach and admired the beautiful red and ochre cliffs, and explored the walking trail, reading about ‘bush tucker’ and indigenous culture and life and had a delicious fish taco lunch in the café then headed back to our bush camp for ‘staircase to the moon’ from our cliff tops.

Three things to tick on the tip of Cape Leveque are 1. Dinner at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm 2. Staircase to the Moon from the clifftops at Gumbanan bush camp and 3. A day trip to Kooljaman to explore the indigenous culture and enjoy lunch at the café.

Saturday – Sunday 27^th Back to Broome for the Staircase to the Moon

We made it back to Broome in time for the Saturday morning courthouse market where we grazed and shopped then picked up the Van from Keshi storage, washed and returned the hire car and checked in to our Broome YHA hostel for the night. It was the 2^nd night of the 3-day ‘Staircase to the moon’ festival and we had heard that the Mangrove Hotel was the place to watch this much touted phenomena so we walked down around 5.30 pm and were blown away by how many people were at this unassuming hotel that from the street looked very low key. The backyard of the hotel faces the mud flats and there were hundreds of people lined up at tables all poised for the magic few minutes when the moon breached the horizon and threw her rays out in a ‘staircase’ of gold. It was such a big event for such a few moments, but I must admit those moments were pretty golden! Sunday was our last family day and after running down to the Town beach Café for a delicious breakfast we dropped the girls at the airport for their flight back to Perth then on to Melbourne the next day. A fabulous Broome and surrounds fortnight, with every kind of weather, stunning sunsets, golden moonrise, delicious dinners, beautiful beaches and some really special family time.

Next week we head back down south again to discover the wonders of Karijini National Park.