Day 46 – Broome (Cape Leveque)

Despite the noise and the interruptions to sleep, I got a good night’s sleep and was awake by 6. I got up and showered and dressed, then had breakfast and was soon joined by Lynn. We were off about 7:45 and I called around to the Woolworths servo – success! They had the mags in, so I filled ARTIE. Then we headed off to Cape Leveque. Lynn had heard horror stories of the road (backed up by comments from staff at the Visitor Information Centre) but I was convinced it wouldn’t be too bad. By 8 we were on the road up. After about 20 kilometres it changed to dirt, but after 97 kilometres of dirt and sand, it became sealed again. Our first visit was to the Beagle Bay church. Here we saw the little church and the altar – and Lynn met a new friend, who told us a little of the history of her tribe in the area. We headed off to One Arm Point, but were disappointed with what we initially saw, so turned around and went to Cape Leveque. Here we had lunch – the ubiquitous hamburger which can be served up in so many types of bread/buns and with so many fillings. The restaurant, shop and caravan park/resort are all run by Kooljamin (a local community). After lunch we walked around to see the swimming beach (a boardwalk leads to the beach with its own little café) and then down to see the main beach with its cliffs. Standing on the beach and looking out to the west, it is hard to imagine that the next stop is Africa! We left just before 3, expecting to be back to the YHA at Broome just on sunset. The unsealed road is a mixture of graded and scraped clay (good surface), clay and sand (good but often corrugated) and sand (deep and corrugated and soft), so the 97 kilometres took just under eighty minutes. We arrived back as predicted and then settled in, having no tea because of the size of lunch. Again it was blog and photo time, plus time for a chat to some others at the hostel. Sleep came fairly quickly once I was in bed, and it was earlier than most here.