097-099 - Broome Part 1 (3/6 - 6/6)

If it wasn't for the impending arrival of Poss and Pop (my folks), I'm not sure we'd ever have left 80 Mile Beach. Well not at least until the weather forced us out.

But the promise of grandparents and an impending 8th birthday party just around the corner, we hooked the Big Green Lizard up and rolled out of 80 Mile Beach, a little sad, but genuinely pretty happy.

A bit of a slog up the highway, particularly leaving 80 Mile as some Nomads decided to tow their vans at 30km/h on what was a quality dirt road. This was shaking the hell out of the car and van on the corrugations so at one point we simply stopped and waited, gave them their distance and then resumed our trip at 50km/h. You'd be surprised how much of a difference matching your speed to set up can make. Slower is not always better.

Pushing into the wind I wouldn't have needed a time lapse camera on the fuel gauge but we made it with little fuss or drama and found our way into Broome to set up the night before Poss and Pop touched down.

And so, let me take you through the first part of our stay Broome, pictorial-style...

We'd got word from the Butchers that they were down on Cable Beach with some other families they'd met on their travels.

"C'mon down, you'll find us!"

No one told me this beach was like this... Made 80 Mile Beach look like a small rural road (which is was in practicality) compared to the Hume Hwy. Still, the novelty of driving on the beach is yet to wear off. And yep, we found them, and had a great evening catching up and meeting new friends.

Our site for the first part of the Broome stay was a weird one. At first I didn't like it, hated that it was awkward and all over the show. But as you'll see later, it came into it's own and ended up being one of the best sites we had. Still, it's a bit weird to run your water hose through someone elses site to get to the tap isn't it?

The moment we'd been waiting for... Poss and Pop!!!! Evie and I went to pick them up to ensure there was enough room in the car!

In all of the excitement, I forgot to take pictures. In the meantime, Sam and James enjoyed the very very impressive pool the park had to offer.

The photos below need to be viewed in series. This was one of the true great moments of the trip. Not sure where the boys were but it was a great bonding moment between a girl and her Pop. Both of whom are story-tellers of EPIC proportions.

 

Evie was full of questions, and Pop, as always, was full of answers. I love these shots in combination. A very very special moment, to me, let alone those involved.

But it was birthday time. Our first on the road for this trip but not to be the last. Evie had been talking up this day for a while, as most young girls do about their birthday...

Wearing the special PJ's Poss and Pop had brought back from their trip to SE Asia, here is Evie channelling her mother perfectly with a morning cup of tea.

Modelling a necklace B and I gave her, it stuns me to think she is now 8yrs old. Where did my chubby little moonface girl go?

Poss and Pop also managed to hand deliver some post from Wales which was very nice!

Ah.... Holly Polly the Sloth. Evie fell in love with this sloth in Karratha and wished and pined and whined for it for her birthday but we said there wasn't space for ANOTHER soft toy in the van. Little did she know that when I asked B if she could "go back and get some beer from the shops" (a common request!) B was quietly going back into KMart to find her. Parenting Win right there....

As I mentioned, the site came into it's own on this day. Our weird corner block actually gave us our own personal shaded party area without impacting any other campers. Perfect!

With birthday cakes on the road, one must be flexible and ingenious. Some supermarket muffin/cupcakes with homemade butter icing. Boom! Well done B and Poss!

A beautiful party needs a beautiful party dress...

The best part of this party though was that our two best travelling families, the McGuirks and the Butchers both went out of their way to ensure they were around for Evie's party. An extremely nice gesture that I know Evie really loved. It was great having kids, family and friends all around, all whilst being 1000's of kilometres from anyones home!

As the sun set on the birthday, story time with Pop went into overdrive. This time with the boys chiming in. Here the kids are hearing the tale of "Methuselah the (Mythical) Murray Cod" which is one of Pop's great tales. If you haven't heard him tell this one, I suggest you get a couple of beers (one for yourself and one for Pop) and get him to take you through it. There's movie rights in there somewhere I reckon. 

The next day was a day that Sam, Pop and I had been looking forward to probably just as much as Evie and her birthday. When Pop and Poss decided that they were joining us for a stint on this trip, Pop and I hatched a plan to get out on a fishing charter. Sam got wind of it and wanted in. And so it came to pass...

Sam looking resplendid in his new fishing shirt and sunnies. This was before both he and I decided we'd be the first to provide 'burley' for the boat. Sam whilst the boat was in motion and me as soon as the boat stopped and the fishing began. I'm happy to say that it passed though and after the first 30min he and I were in full swing.

In the mean time, the girls and James were hatching their own plan of a perfect day.

Part One - First it was coffee and cake down on the waterfront, doing a bit of 'people watching'.

Pfft... people watching. We were charter fishing baby!! Three generations of anglers keen to see what the ocean had to offer!

Part Two - Milkshake or slurpees or something. Sugar methinks... They look happy...

...but not as happy as Sam with this ripper Spanish Flag he pulled in!

Then a small cod jumped in! Sam and I were going toe to toe with the fish count, but I couldn't catch him. Pop, the more experienced of the trio, was pulling in fish hand over fist, some he even got to keep! :)

Part Four - An impromptu stage show in the local shopping centre. One of the few benefits of travelling at school holiday times...

And then, after we'd had our fill of reef fishing the skipper of the boat annouced we'd "chase some mackerel" on the way back in. Now, please indulge me for a minute whilst I relive the best 5min of fishing I've ever had I reckon.

 I've never fished like this before, trawling lines out the back. 

I asked "How will we know where they are?"

"Watch for the fish jumping from the water, and we head there" came the reply.

Sure enough, we spotted a bit of a frenzy and headed in that direction, three lines out the back with the biggest lures on them I'd seen.

And then bang! One of the lines took off  and the cry "fish on!" sounded as an instruction for the skipper to kill the engine. Before they could get the other two lines out another went off as well.

"Grab it!" yelled Pop to me, as I'd strategically manoeuvred myself near one of the rods.

Picking up the rod, the reel was still fizzing away as the mackerel was going as if he was running for some mythical border. Once the line slowed down, it was game on. After watching another gent lose one previously I didn't want to lose this. I'd seen one mackerel come in the boat and I desperately wanted to make it two.

Lifting, reeling. Lifting, reeling. It was a constant battle to keep the tension on the line. It was pretty tough work I'll admit, and I'm glad the battle only went for around 5min. Still, I wasn't happy until I saw the fish onboard. Soon enough though the first mate managed to gaff it, knock the crap out of it before heaving it into the boat. I understand now why he killed this thing before bringing it in. It was huge and 100% all muscle. It is a pure hunting machine. This thing flicking around in the boat would be flat out dangerous.

In the end though I got my first 'big fish'. It's easily the biggest fish I've caught. Amazingly we never measured it, but sizing it up against Sam, it was easily over 1m long and probably weighed a good 10-12kgs. In around 3yrs time I'm sure it will be 1.5m and 30kgs...

And if you haven't seen the pic (and where have you been if you haven't), here it is again...

It was an awesome finale to our day out on the boat and one Sam, Pop and I couldn't wait to tell the others about. Amazingly too, we got to keep the whole thing. I thought we'd share it out over the boat as not all got a chance to 'chase the mackerel' but I was told in no uncertain terms "you caught it, you take it!".

So around 5-6kgs of fresh mackerel fillets were provided, which almost pays for the trip itself when you look at the market rate of mackerel these days!

Meanwhile the others had set off on a whale watching cruise. We actually followed a whale around on the fishing boat as well so we ticked that off the list too!

Sam's favourite spot for the day. Not sure what he was thinking. He wasn't crook, perhaps just liked the wind in his face as we headed back in at full throttle...

And so the sun set on a beautiful day out on the water. One I won't ever forget, thanks to The Mack.

To finish off, The Marshians headed down to Broome market for some grub and a taste of beach nightlife. Kids stuck with the old faithful hot dogs whilst B and I grabbed some awesome Thai from one of the stalls. Brilliant stuff and I recommend anyone in Broome heading to the markets for the grub alone!