April 8, 2018

We were in Broome today. The ship docked around 3:00 am because of the tides. We weren’t allowed to begin leaving the ship until 7:00 am. This is a working port so we had to take a complimentary shuttle bus to town.

David was released by the medical staff so he was able to go on tour with us. Our tour was scheduled for 9:00 am so we went down for the shuttle around 8:30 am.

As soon as we got off the shuttle in Broome our tour guide was waiting for us with a sign so we could easily identify them. This was a change from our last 2 ports where we had to go find our guide instead of them finding us.

Broome is famous for pearling. Our guide, Kerry, explained about the pearling and how so many people lost their lives doing this. We saw the Chinese cemetary where many of them are buried.

The soil here is red and there are gorgeous rock formations. We got out of the car and walked down to some of the rock formations. It was so HOT! I didn’t go as far as I could because I was afraid I would fall. David on the other hand was crawling all over the place. I was afraid he would slip and fall but he didn’t.

We went to several other places to see the views. Kerry was rich in history and had a story to tell about everything. We got to see where they have their big horse races. I think she said they were in June. It is quite a big deal. To look at the track it doesn’t look like much but she said they all get dressed up and come out to the races.

We went to the popular Cable Beach where parts of it are nude. There are also camel rides along the beach. We didn’t see any camels when we were there but Kerry did drive her 4 wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser on the beach. She said they had just opened up the beach to drive on so a path had not been made through yet and she had to drive on some pretty big rocks. At one time I thought we hit bottom but she pulled us through. We all got out and walked along the beach. Beth and Kerry went in the water. They then yelled that they saw a stingray so the rest of us followed. I wasn’t able to get out far enough to get a picture but I did see it.

At the end of the tour we were back in the center of town. Beth wanted to look at pearls so we went into what looked to be a high end pearl store and all tracked sand in there. I’m sure they were glad to see us go.

We were so hot all we wanted to do was get back to the ship. Once back on board we took showers and out on clean clothes. Mary P and I went and got a hot dog for lunch. We also checked out the New Zealand Ice Cream shop on board. A sundae was $9.50 so I passed. We went back to the cabin and took a nap.

We were to leave at 5:00 pm and it was about 5:10 and we hadn’t left yet. We were discussing that something must be wrong and then the Captain came over the speaker and announced that a tour bus had broken down and had not returned yet as well as a passenger that needed to go to tge hospital for surgery and we were waiting for an ambulance. Because of the tides we needed to leave by 5:15 and that time had passed and the next opportunity for us to leave would be 1 in the morning. We are supposed to have a scenic sailing of the Kimberly Coast tomorrow. The Captain said he wasn’t sure how that would be affected. We need to be in Darwin on Wednesday morning.

We had dinner with the Morgan’s at 8:00 and closed the dining room down. After dinner Mary P and I went back to the cabin calling it a day.