The West Coast Beach

Broome? Crocodile Farms? That was ages ago. Is that the last time we spoke? Unacceptable. Where is my ink well and featherpen? Let's get another something something written.

According to my notes (which I keep on the side of our van written in the canvas that is the red dirt that is in and on and coating pretty much all my worldly possessions by now) Broome was just about a week ago. We expected to be in Broome, the last bastion of civilization before Perth, for at least three or four days soaking in the NorthWest charm. That didn't quite happen. Turns out there is really very little to do in Broome. The first night we caught up on all the necessities we have been deprived of in our van. Laundry and a full kitchen to cook with and a real shower with real hot water and a real mirror. Looking in the mirror for the first time in ages wasn't a pretty picture. Then we hotfooted it down to the beach for Stairway to the Moon. This spectacle occurs the day after or the day after the day after the full moon. When the moon rises over the mudflats around Broome it shines a very sturdy column of light down on the flats. And when the moon is just over the horizon the flats light up like so many steps proceeding up to the moon. Pretty cool thing to see. What I thought was even cooler were the hundreds of people lined up down the beach in the dark with their cameras all out. Hundreds of tiny little dots of light from the cameras display was awesome I thought.

Before bed we took a quick stroll around town looking for a little drink. We found what appeared to be a quaint little Irish pub which would seem to suit our needs. Except for it was the most bizarrest barscene I have experienced. Strolling in at half nine the lights were all on and glaring. There was no music to speak of. The place was fairly packed with plenty of people mulling around but it felt like the bar was trying to get people to leave. One of those end of the nights closing time deals where all the lights go on and the music stops and you get to see who you were apparently dancing with. We skedaddled out of there pretty quickly. A side note: OpenOffice accepts skedaddled as a word. No squiggly red line underneath like it gave me for bizarrest (like most bizarre. Duh). Anyways I was not expecting them to accept that. Moving on.

We were up bright 'n early for our full day in Broome. Bright eyed and bushy tailed for all the treasures the place had to offer. Turns out it didn't have much. An ok downtown area with shops I have no interest in. Some cool beaches which I mentioned before. They were amazing and empty and awesome. But beyond that we were pretty disappointed with our last taste of supermarkets and hot showers and Mackers (Aussie speak for Mickey D's which is youngkids speak for McDonald's). Caught some cricket on the telly that night, spent the morning down at Cable Beach again and then we got back on the road.

The writing on the wall, or on the side of our campervan, says we continued on to Cape Keraudren from Broome. I am following my notes now cuz that is way too far back for me to remember. The Cape was a pretty special place. The ranger talked it up quite a bit as we entered which was interesting and helpful but problematic as the sun was setting quite rapidly and we needed to find firewood and set up camp before we couldn't see which leads to the outside chance of running over a little kangaroo. Fortunately we were able to escape the ranger and set up our camp without any roadkill to show for it. It was a quiet night. The next day we were up with the sun to go see the beach the ranger had spoken so much about. Pretty incredible. Miles and miles of quiet untouched beach with glassy blue water. Spent the whole day on the beach playing and reading and running. Tried snorkeling a bit but the visibility was pretty terrible. The water was beautiful, just opaque. It was a lazy day by the beach for us and the last truly warm day we have seen out here. I suppose the most outstanding thing about Cape Keraudren was being able to run off a couple kilometers and be the only person in sight with tons of beach to do whatever you pleased with. I pleased to pretty much just alternate wind sprints with sitting and relaxing. But the point is the possibilities were there. I could have done anything.

From the Cape we moved onto Dampier. A small little town with a nice little picnic beach we swam in. Nothing too exciting there. From there we moseyed our way down to Exmouth which is coincidentally where I am now. I am not going to get into the story of Exmouth now because that would just leave you with a cliffhanger. Not knowing how its going to end. I don't even know how it's going to end! Ok I can make some predictions but I don't get paid here to make predictions. Plus its breakfast time so the telling of Exmouth will be for another day.

Some side notes. LAKERS LAKERS BABY LAKESHOW BOOYAH. That felt good. It really wasn't as special to see the results on my rss feed pop up in boring regular text. Not even bold. I missed that moment of watching the seconds fall off the clock in Amway arena. That's ok. I celebrated out here. Now my Steelers are superbowl champs. Lakers have their title for 09. Now the Dodgers just need to keep on keeping on winning more games than anyone else in the majors to make it 3 for 3 with my teams in 09 (that is my professional teams. I expect the great record in '09 by the pros to be shortly followed by my collegiate teams doing some damage in the playoffs in '10. Looking at you GareBear.)

Besides that I spend all my days thinking about July with Jesse and Erin creating havok along the East Coast. Jesse sent me an itinerary and I am thoroughly stoked. The chaos will continue for quite a while still. Good morrow from Exmouth. Since it is tomorrow here. We are way ahead of your time. Happy trails.

Lindy