(NOTE: This is my favorite blog headline so far on this trip.)
Broome is about as isolated as a town can be. If you’re driving, it’s 1473 miles south to Perth with just a few small towns — wide spots in the road, really — in between. To the east, it’s an 1150 mile drive to Darwin, a city that’s not worth the drive. If you’re flying it’s 2040 miles to Canberra, Australia’s capital city. And you really would want to fly, because it’s a 3293 mile drive across some of the most desolate country you’ll ever lay eyes on.
To the north, Jakarta, Indonesia is 1317 air miles away. To the west, Nairobi is 5822 air miles across the Indian Ocean.
In other words, Broome is not easy to get to, but Jamie and I agree that it’s worth the effort. This is our third time here and we’ll defintely come back again.
Here’s why:
We’re lounging on the town’s main beach, which stretches for miles in both directions, at 11:00 a.m. and there’s almost no one here. If I had to guess, I’d say we’re being forced to share the beautiful white sand with 50 other people. Unacceptable, I tell you. Unacceptable. UPDATE: I actually walked down the beach and did a headcount the next day: 37 people plus two lifeguards.
Last time we were in Broome we had absolutely perfect body surfing conditions. Every single wave was perfect. It’s a little choppy today, so I’m sitting under a beach umbrella and sulking. Damn it, man, my choice is either sittiing here admiring the white sands and crystal clear waters, or body surfing in conditions that aren’t quite perfect. Sad, isn’t it?
Yes, that’s a tire track in the sand. The beach is so wide and the sand so compacted at low tide that the beach has almost as many cars as it has people. The guy who rents the beach umbrellas and chairs drives his rig right down to the edge of the water. He sets the umbrellas up about 100 feet apart, so you never feel too crowded. The closest people to us are under that umbrella on the right side of this photo
Welcome to Australia, and our beautiful beaches. Remember Wallaroo? Looking forward to seeing you guys again real soon xx
Can’t wait to see how the kids have grown.
Yeah they’ve definitely done that
Beautiful! We miss you guys!
Tammie is the world’s greatest bank manager. Miss you, too.
Killing me….
You are sitting there lamenting the surf conditions when any fool can see that the waves are nearly perfect just a little walk down the beach.
A little background is in order. Steve has been one of my very best friends since high school. We used to go to the beach (along with his younger brother Randy) as often as we could and often made long, long walks down the beach because the perfect waves always seemed to be “just a little walk down the beach”, but when we got to the spot where they had looked so perfect from a distance, they were never as good as we expected them to be. But as we looked down the beach, more distant waves always looked better. The cycle repeated endlessly until we were too damn tired from all the walking to body surf even if we had finally found the elusive perfect waves.
Jamie and I were sitting there and I was lamenting the lack of good waves, she said, “The waves look perfect down there” and pointed down the beach. I said, “Oh, no, I’m not falling for that” and told her the story our fruitless teenaged search for better waves. So Jamie and I found your comment especially funny.