Bacon & eggs on the BBQ to start another day in paradise.  This morning we awoke to a sea mist, the Broome township was covered in fog that had drifted in from the sea.  Apparently it’s common this time of year as the temperatures start to rise.  We visited the Buddhist gardens, just next to the caravan park, where there is a 4 metre Buddha carved from crystal sitting serenely in the back corner of the garden, there were a number of people meditating in front of the statue.  They also have yoga classes there.

We decided to part our ways with Sue & John this morning, they haven’t had the chance to see the pearl shops – I told Sue she must get a string of pearls to go with that little black number we girls all have hanging in the cupboard.  Ron took me to the wharf to watch the sea mist & fisherman trying to catch fish just so that we would be as far away from the pearl shops as possible.

Next stop was the wharf & a walk along the pedestrian footbridge, the fog was still thick & the far end of the wharf was barely visible.  A number of people were fishing off the footbridge with little success & we chatted for a while to one of the fishermen.  The tide was out so it was a long way down to the water, we saw a good number of large fish swimming around the wharf pylons or close to the wharf.  We walked down under the wharf & around on the rocks a bit, the tide was rising very fast.  I found a mermaid sitting on one of the rocks & decided to bring her home with me (she really wanted pearls).  We called in at Woolworths on the way back to camp for a few food essentials plus a few more bottles of red.  (We had no RED, we have plenty of food).

After lunch we went to the Broome Bird Observatory, 16km down a rough red dirt road – more corrugations.  It was set up on the shores of Roebuck bay by Birds Australia as a research & education facility.  Around 150,000 migratory shorebirds visit Roebuck Bay annually.  The migratory birds have just started returning from Siberia where they spend the Siberian summer before heading back to Roebuck Bay for the Australian summer.  We saw around 20 different species of birds during our afternoon visit, timed to coincide with high tide that pushes all of the birds to the shore closer to where we can get a better look at them.  (There were more birds in our bush caravan parks).

We made a brief stop at Malcolm Douglas’s crocodile farm & wildlife park where Tereza had to wrestle her way out of the mouth of one of the giant crocodiles there, it lays in wait for unsuspecting visitors in the doorway.

The rest of our afternoon was going to be spent at Cable Beach swimming & watching the sunset but we had to cancel the swimming part, a 4 metre crocodile had been spotted at the beach by the beach patrol & they closed the beach for swimming & got all of the people out of the water.  http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/breaking/7864891/crocodile-closes-cable-beach/   So, we had to get by with sitting on Cable Beach with some nibblies (smoked salmon, pate, dips, blue cheese, etc) & a bottle of Margaret River red watching the sun set & the camels walk past, it was absolutely magical, we really enjoy our time with Sue & John, it’s lovely to have good friends to share moments like these.