We didn't cycle to or in Broome, but it is worth a quick mention in this journal. We hired a dual cab ute to transport ourselves and the bikes to Broome from Derby.
Along with Kununurra, Broome is likely to be the start or finish point for any cycle-tourer wanting to ride the Gibb River Road.
It has an airport with links to state capitals and is a the major tourist town of the Kimberley with all main services which go with tourism.
We decided not to cycle the 160 or so km from Derby to Broome because the highway between the two is fairly busy and I suspect fairly tedious cycling compared to the Gibb River Road. Nevertheless, it would certainly be possible and safe to cycle from Derby to Broome.
From Broome, John flew back to Canberra and Will and I drove back with the bicycles. The drive took six days via Perth.
A few sights of Broome are in the pics below. It is an attractive town and well worth spending some time there.
In Broome and having a celebratory dinner at Matso's Brewery with John and Will.
Technology overload...reaching the masses. At Cable Beach, Will and John discovered they could be seen by the webcam covering the famous beach. So they logged on to the webcam feed with the smartphone, and rapidly confirmed (by seeing their real-time image on the phone) that they were indeed at Cable Beach. They then, while they were visible on the webcam on their phones emailed/messaged their wives so they could also look up the webcam feed (and possibly see us waving) thousands of kilometres away. If only there'd been a way to Skype and YouTube simultaneously as well, the multi-media overload would have been complete.There must be a doco in this.Isn't it great to see that the Internet is not being wasted and only being used for really important things?
Cable Beach sunsets are speccy. They must be to attract hundreds of tourists, including us, to stand three deep on the coast to watch the sun sizzle into the surf.No need to go there. Check them out on the webcam :)
Broome also hosts cruise ships. This one was on its way from Fremantle to Indonesia. I had occasional thoughts of Brendan and Caroline enjoying the comforts of the Med while we had been skipping over the Kimberley corrugations.Cruising the Kimberley coast would be an interesting experience. Kayaks aside, it is very difficult to access other ways.
