Waking with the glorious bird calls but not getting out until sunrise, unanimously we  decided to give Cape Leveque a miss (approximately 180 km of rough dirt road).  We are still recovering from the atrocious rough roads we experienced last month. Sue & John went into town for breakfast & an exciting drive through a car wash.  We did separate touristy things, at times the same places but not at the same time. Our first stop was Gantheaume Point, named after a French explorer, with a prominent stainless steel lighthouse with an Osprey nest built on a platform near the top.  The Osprey had a fledgling still in the nest & brought it a fish while we were watching, boy, did the youngster make a noise wanting the fish.  The point is also significant in that the fossilised footprints of nine different dinosaur species have been found there, exposed only at very low tide, today was not low tide & the wind was whipping the sea up a fair bit so we had to make do with the concrete copy of some of them on top of the point.  Apparently some anthropologists found fossilised dinosaur footprints all along the coast line from Broome to Cape Leveque. The rocks at the point are sedimentary sandstone around 134 million years old & the colours, textures & erosion of the rocks is quite a stunning sight.  We also had a look at Anastasia’s Pool, built for the wife of Captain Percy who lived in the lighthouse keeper’s house. Anastasia had arthritis & used the pool to exercise & relieve her pain.

Next we visited the cemeteries where the unfortunate victims of pearling were laid to rest.  The Japanese cemetery is the most impressive, a few years ago a significant sum of money was donated by a group of Japanese shipbuilders to refurbish it & they have done an excellent job.   The headstones are laid out neatly, (as Japanese do it with everything) there are small white stones laid on the ground & the garden is well tended, simple & elegant.  A tragic symbol is the obelisk that marks the loss of 140 Japanese pearlers during a cyclone.  The Chinese cemetery has an impressive entrance but is less cared for & does not have many headstones, there must be a number of unmarked graves.  The Muslim cemetery is very insignificant with a small number of unpretentious gravestones with no inscriptions, most of them are at an angle to Mecca.  There must be a significant number of unmarked graves.  We visited the Pioneer cemetery down at Town Beach, overlooking the ocean, they had some prime real estate.

The children’s playground near here is the best one we have ever seen, it has a fantastic water playground under shadesail & flows into two other play areas.  There is plenty of sitting room & tables, all overlooking town beach.  We could only think of our grandsons, they would have loved this.

We had a look around at different parts of Chinatown & visited the Paspaly pearl shop, they do have some impressive pearls in there.  Ron declared his love for me by saying “the pearls are very beautiful but none of them are good enough for you”.  Tereza picked up a few things from a gift shop & we had a bite to eat.

Cable Beach was again closed today due to crocodiles so instead of swimming we went for a drive a fair distance up the beach & checked out the ships of the desert again.  They certainly look elegant when they walk.  It was still windy & the sea was a little wild so we turned around, dodged the rocks at the end of the beach & headed back to camp for cheese & bikkies.  John shared some fresh wild barramundi with us & a nice glass of red.  Broome is a lovely town, but according to the locals for only about 5 months of the year – it gets very humid – you walk out and you are saturated from the humidity.

We will most likely be out of mobile coverage again for around a week as we plan to head into the Pilbara region & visit Karijini National Park.