Sunday 14th, need to say the day and date to ourselves occasionally, else we forget! Is this really week 10?

Starting to edge our way southward. Left Broome on Friday. Two overnight stays on the way to our current location, Port Hedland; still some 700km above the Tropic of Capricorn.

But first, Broome! 9 nights in a perfect location with plenty of time for r&r. Dining out, but not silver service; crab racing; fishing; swimming….

A few of us first timers were talking about the place. A fabulous tourist destination without too many tourist traps or exorbitant prices was the general consensus.  Though if you wanted non-freshwater pearls – oops – money, money money! There are plenty of cheap cultured fresh water pearls about – but not the ‘real’ stuff. Mind you it hardly matters as even an expert can not necessarily distinguish between the two!  Which is in itself a statement to mull over!

A camel ride on Cable Beach is one of the “must do’s”, so we did. Yeah well.

Right up there with the Catalinas and Dinosaur footprints [op. cit.] and the ‘big Buddha’. But don’t get me wrong. We enjoyed the place immensely; its just not what we expected (again).  Hopefully we may catch up with the ‘stair way to the moon’ here tomorrow night. It was one of the Broome ‘attractions’ we missed so we are not really holding our breath over it.

New tyre and automatic belt tensioner now in place.  Could rant about vehicle ‘service’ in Broome for a while, but at least we got 2 out of 4 matters attended to. Bloke next to us was told “2 1/2 weeks before we can look at it mate” by the local Toyota dealer, who then just walked away, before he could even finish explaining his problem!

Our two stops on the way down were Barn Hill and Cape Kerauden. Both beachside locations and interesting in their own ways. It is a geologist and palaeontologists’ dream world here!

That big fish still eludes Geoff – as indeed do the smaller ones!  He bought 4 frozen prawns from Coles (“Going fishing are we sir?”) and still has three left!  Mind you he has also tried a bit of spinning as well. Think next time he opens the bait bag will be the last time as they will not be going back in our fridge again.

Sue has added a tick bite to her collection of mosquito, midge, sandfly and ant bites! Impressive eh?  Geoff thinks he may have been bitten by a mosquito sometime in the last 2 months, but can not prove it.

Port Headland officially means we have bid a sad farewell to the Kimberleys and arrived in the Pilbara. Not an auspicious arrival. Tourist information Centre closed Sundays (despite advertised opening times in brochures).

Bottle shops closed Sundays (throughout the Pilbara apparently). And the caravan park has set a new record, for us, of $50 per night (powered sites only).

Seen a giant ore train (1km + long) and the port already and do not anticipate a long stay here. Karijini National Park and Tom Price are the next two items on our list. After that unsure. Back to the coast near Exmouth or down through the mining heartland? Somewhere we will have to view one of the mines, but Ningaloo Reef in particular beckons.