Goodbye to Broome.

Shopping area

Japanese cemetery

The hire car was handy to have in Broome. It saved us packing up and unhooking the motor home for two days. We are used to doing all our driving and shopping before we book into a caravan park. Or book in and go into a town to the shops and sometimes the Visitors Centre, to check out what we might be seeing the next day. We have two nights in most towns, Broome we had five, as there were lots of things to see.

Broome has pearl shops everywhere and I looked in a few. Good to see the various designs. Both Willie Creek Farm and the Pearl Luggers had displays and pearls for sale.

Chinatown was not like the other Chinatowns’ I have been to. I wouldn’t have called it an authentic Chinatown; however the Chinese influence has been strong in Broome as were the Japanese. Pearl divers were mainly Japanese, but now there is not much of a remainder of their influence except for the cemetery, where all the headstones face west in keeping with tradition.

We went to the museum run by the historical society and afterwards came across a café close by with a lovely water view, where we had coffee and cake.  John drove out to Matzo’s brewery to take a photo.

The markets on Saturday were a must see, always fun to wander around and check out new stalls. I bought some zucchini relish and lemon butter plus a cranberry slice. I was feeling a bit out of sorts for a couple of days, so the purchases haven’t been sampled yet.

There’s a large shopping mall in Broome with a supermarket and specialty shops. I needed some scripts before we moved on and a few groceries as usual.

I was going to make scones to have for our morning tea on the road, but forgot to buy more flour. A packet cake mixture came to the rescue and now we have little iced cupcakes instead.

We left Broome on Sunday morning after breakfast, thinking we might stay at Sandfire Roadhouse, 348 klms away, but decided after getting fuel, to drive on to Pardoo Roadhouse, another 138 klms further on. Much nicer and closer to Port Hedland, our next stop.  

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