Day 61, Broome, WA

Our time in Broome is almost drawing to an end with just one more day until we pack up and move on.  We have enjoyed our time here very much and will be certain to return.

So, todays tour was to see the Dinosaur prints on a tiny little island in the Roebuck Bay Marine Park.  The tour is family run with Mum picking us up in the 52 seat bus and taking us to where our boat was waiting for us.  Her daughter Lisa and her husband Will, were our tour guides.  We all had to don reef shoes for this tour as we were wading through water and walking across rocks that may be slippery.  Philip already had reef shoes from his trip to New Guinea and had packed them in the van for this trip.  You had the choice to hire reef shoes for $10 or purchase for $22.50.  I chose to purchase as I know we will need them when we get to Ningaloo.

After Lisa had given us the safety talk we made our way to the edge of the water and then waded in knee deep to board the boat.  The tide was out, but was coming in rapidly - at walking pace!  Once we were aboard it was anchors away, or so we thought. The anchor cable became tangled in the winder so it was a matter of feeding the anchor out and then reeling it back in, several times!  I think if there were not tourists on board there may have been a swear word or two issued between husband and wife.

As our tour was very much dependent on tide times we sped across the bay to reach the little island to see the Dinosaur Footprints and Lisa promised us that the talk she would normally give on the way over would now be given on the way back, which it was.  Once we reached the island we all disembarked and walked the short distance across the sandy, shelly beach to where the dinosaur footprints were imbedded in the sandstone rock.  They are very impressive and I still can't get my head around the fact that they are more than 120,000,000 years old! Will gave a very informative talk about how the prints came to be and said that his talk changes each time somebody from the University of Queensland pays them a visit. There are literally thousands of prints in the area.  This strip of coastline, 80km, has the most significant number of dinosaur prints then anywhere else in the world with some 20 varieties of dinosaur.

Once we were all back on board the boat, Will steered us towards Barred Creek where we drifted slowly along the mangrove edged creek with its turquoise waters and marvelled at the birdlife.  We were all keeping our eyes peeled for the Snubfin Dolphin but we weren't lucky enough to spot one on this tour but we did spot a giant manta ray. While we were cruising along, Lisa prepared some delicious grazing platters for all on board and you could have either, Champagne, Orange Juice, Tea or Coffee to go with it.

Our van park is nestled in amongst those trees

 

The four hour tour passed very quickly and in no time at all we were back to where we started from.  When we arrived home we made ourselves a light lunch as we were still quite full from the grazing platters and later this evening we decided to go back to Cable Beach to watch the glorious sunset.  This beach is so beautiful and once again there were dozens of cars on the beach to watch the sunset.  There were also two teams of camels making their way along the beach this time and everybody seemed to be enjoying the ride.  We debated whether or not to do the sunset camel ride but have decided against it.  We rode camels in a Bedouin Camp in the Middle East and I didn't really enjoy it that much.  It's the getting on and getting off that's the worry.......

It will be a leisurely day tomorrow and we will eat out for lunch.  We haven't really decided where at this point in time but I'm sure it will be good no matter where it is in Broome.