Half-lap Day 71: Broome

I was awake at 5 again and soon got up to spend some time on the computer, which now seems to be working fine. As people woke up the kids from both families started playing together, chatting and riding bikes, and Millie and her friend played in our tent with their animals again. Once everyone was up and about we went over to their caravan and Tony cooked pancakes for everyone. They had honey with them, which we haven’t had since we left home, so that was an added bonus.

My friend and I spent an hour or so looking at maps and I showed her lots of the places we’d been and stayed. She went in to town and Tony and I started planning the next little part of our trip, and the kids played Minecraft.

The others came back and we all had lunch at our own sites, then all went to the museum in town – 2^nd visit for us. The kids asked for the quiz sheet that they didn’t get to do last time, then said they’d do all of the quizzes again because their friends were starting from the beginning. My kids remembered some of the answers and where most of the items were. I helped them in between looking at bits of the museum I didn’t get to last time. Everyone enjoyed it and we were all able to look more thoroughly at things. We all went out to the sailmaking shed and practiced the knots, and spent some time watching the DVD about the history of Broome. I had a good look at the shell collection with both Millie and LiAM, and was fascinated with the old aerial shots of Broome, which really showed how the town developed. There was a lot of information on the old tramway too, which I didn’t see last time.

We were there for a couple of hours or more, then headed towards Cable Beach, stopping at the supermarket on the way to get something for tea. We arrived just as the lifeguards took the red and yellow flags down – there were still heaps of people in the water and it felt quite safe. Our friends had bought a 10 pack of choc-coated ice creams, they and our kids ate theirs straightaway, Tony and I had a quick swim first (I just couldn’t wait to get in the water) and then ate our very melty ice creams before heading back to the water with everyone else.

The water had that soft silky feeling again, and was not really cold. There was a cool wind blowing, which meant that once we were wet it was definitely warmer in the water than out. The tide was a couple of hours past full, and the waves were big, bigger than anything we’ve swum in so far. Millie came out with me, and was holding my hand at first and then swimming around on her own – the first time she’s done that in the ocean. She was happy to bob up over the gentler waves by herself, and I stayed close enough to pick her up and jump her over the bigger waves. One of the biggest swells approached and I thought we’d need to go under it – I misjudged it though and it would have  been better to jump it, we got knocked over and Millie slipped mainly out of my hands. I managed to keep hold of her shirt and we tumbled over a bit but were fine, and she wasn’t too upset, just rather surprised (and annoyed with me for getting it wrong). She wanted me to hold her for a while after that, then tried again on her own and was happy in the waves again. Tony carried her for a while too and they were able to go out a bit deeper. All the kids had a great time, and us 4 parents were in the water too. The sun was getting lower and we were getting an orange glow across the water – I don’t think I’ve swum at a west-facing  beach at that time of day before, it felt as good as swimming in the early morning, not something that I thought could be matched.

Once Millie had had enough she and Tony got out to go and get dinner from the car. I got out soon after to take some photos of the sunset, and also got some cool silhouette shots of the kids in the water. Everyone got out soon after and played on the beach and/or went to get changed, and we watched the sun go down, with lots of clouds around which made it even more spectacular. We all sat on the beach and had a picnic dinner, along with many other groups of people. There were fire twirlers on the beach, and as it got dark someone set off some fireworks up near the rocks – all pretty cool to see. The kids played in the sand and ran around a lot, and we sat and chatted and relaxed and had a lovely evening. Eventually we gathered up all our stuff and headed back to the cars.

We dropped the men off at the pub on the way home, so they could have some kid-free time. We took all the kids back home then between us organised washing and showers and so on, and the kids played or showered or got ready for bed. My friend went to get the guys once they were ready to come home, and we all headed to bed soon afterwards, after another very fun and quite full day.