Sunset at Cable Beach

Cable Beach is one of those famous beaches in Australia.  White sand for ages, warm water…it’s too perfect.

We hadn’t been to the beach in ages.  We’d had a nice sunset in Darwin, but no beach play because, well, it was Darwin.  Croc country.  So we hadn’t had a proper beach day since…somewhere on the east coast.  Months. (Do you feel sorry for us yet?) Our first visit to Cable Beach had little TurboBug (2) sooooo excited.  There are steps leading down to the sand, then a long walk to the water.  I was lagging behind with him and he didn’t make it past the bottom of those steps.  He immediately had his shovel in the sand and was filling up his bucket.  He needed lots of convincing to go any further.

Meanwhile the rest of us were fighting off seagulls!  They were not afraid to explore our belongings when our backs were turned.  The kids kept trying to scare them away but they’d just hover in the air nearby, not intimidated in the slightest!

We came back another night for the sunset.  We rode our bikes and stayed up on the grassy part with a good view of the beach.

Plenty of seagulls in the evening as well.  We see so many missing a foot or a leg, like this one that was hovering above us.  We’d taken sandwiches with us that evening and the birds were very hopeful.

I’m always drawn to these statues of locals.  I wondered if this man, Lord McAlpine, was still alive because there was no date of death but he died just last year.  He invested much money and time in the town in the 1980s, believing Broome could be a good tourist spot.  He was given the honour of ‘Freeman’ by town leaders just a couple of years before his death.  I wondered what it meant to be a freeman, a search reveals that the term originates with serfdom, of granting respected citizens their freedom.  It’s still bestowed as a title of honour.

Meanwhile, on the beach…

Can you see the light from the lighthouse way out in the distance?  It’s just a speck of light.  That’s the lighthouse at Gantheaume Point.  This beach was the beautiful white sand we could see in the distance.

After sunset we saw the camels in blue heading back to their home.  Camel rides on Cable Beach are one of those iconic Australian experiences in Broome.  They walk the camels right down the sidewalk, all the tourists happily snapping pictures along the way.  There are also camels who wear red, and others who wear yellow.  I promise these camels aren’t on their own though it kind of looks like it from the pictures!  They are all tethered together and they’ve done the route many times.  There is someone at the front to clear the way and at the back to keep them in line.  The camel bringing up the rear even has a light on the back to make them easier to see after sunset.  I missed getting a picture of the camel roadsign in Broome but that’s okay, I got the one at Uluru.  :)

A camel ride was in our future, but back to that beautiful sunset for now!

These sunsets in WA are spectacular.  We are spoilt to get to see so many of them.

Kununurra: Crocs & a Jabiru

Our first stop in Western Australia was Kununurra, just over the border.  We stayed at a caravan park right on Lake Kununurra which offered some lovely sunsets and wildlife spotting.

 

It didn’t take long to spot our first crocodile gliding by in the water.

There was a platform nearby that the kids made use of.  I suppose it was a stage.  The boys all took turns pushing each other off of it.  TurboBug (2) even participated, though he’d often run up and touch one of his brothers, then just jump off by himself, pretending he’d been knocked off.  It was so hot in Kununurra that he spent much of his time in just his nappy.

We enjoyed the sunset and watched the Jabiru who was resting nearby.  I only knew he was called a Jabiru because of our visit to Kakadu and the town of Jabiru. 

We headed closer to the water to see if we could spot any crocs and had no trouble finding them.  These are all freshwater crocs.  They don’t view people as food but you still don’t want to reach out and pat them on the head.  :)

Meanwhile the Jabiru headed on his way and I was happy to get a picture of him up on those long legs.

We could see some people gathered near a bench by the lake and found them all gazing at this rather large freshie.  He had no teeth and was probably hoping for a handout.  He mostly stayed in the shallow water and every once in awhile would roll his head to one side and try to grab one of the small fish swimming around the water’s edge.

The hill we could see is called the Sleeping Buddha, we were told that if you view it from the other side it looks more like an elephant head complete with trunk.

The next night I wandered back down to the lake and the Jabiru was much closer to everyone.  He  kept looking in the water, I suppose for some food, while keeping one eye on the nearby croc.  I was so thrilled to see him up close!  I nearly could have reached out and touched him.

The crocodile that was visiting that night definitely had teeth.  And scarring all over his head, presumably from fights with other crocs.  He was one of the larger ones in the lake.

I know this is a blurry picture, but I so often forget to take pictures of where we are camped that I’m posting it anyway.  We love our string of lights though we don’t always get them out.  We were camped right next to the pool which was lovely because it was so stinking hot in Kununurra.  The heat was relentless and we made use of the pool multiple times a day.

That’s LadyBug’s new purple camping chair, she had her birthday while we were in Kununurra, and so did SkeeterBug.  Post to come on that!

Overnight in Timber Creek: Croc Feeding!

Another of those whirly winds we often see as we are driving.  They come and go quickly, often whirling themselves out of existence in seconds.

As we moved west we started seeing a more varied landscape.  Goodbye flat outback, hello mountain ranges!  We have seen so much scenery that reminds us of southern Utah or Arizona.

Our last night in the Northern Territory was spent in Timber Creek.  We wanted a place with a pool so we could have a swim but this caravan park also has a croc & kite feeding every evening.  What a fabulous way to draw in travellers!  The creek at the back of the property (I’m assuming the creek was Timber Creek) was home to a dozen or so freshwater crocodiles.  We got to watch while an employee of the park fed the crocodiles from a bridge, even getting them to jump a bit.

It was very nerve-wracking being on this bridge with a toddler.  The railings were too far apart, nothing to stop a small child from falling in.  And of course he was not willing to be held the whole time so we had to kneel down with him and have an arm around him or hang onto his shorts.  [What’s really scary is that we snuck away from the kids that night and came down to the creek with a torch to look for glowing crocodile eyes…well, we thought we’d snuck away but he came after us and caught up with us on that bridge.  In the dark.  Yikes!]

I’ve looked back through my pictures and really don’t have any good ones of them jumping.  She held the meat out on a hook dangling from a pole.  I was wondering how the crocs don’t hurt themselves on the hook but it had just enough give on it that they could get the meat off without injuring themselves.

Quit growing up, kid.  His hair is a mess because it’s way too long he’d been in the pool.

There were a couple of bigger ones, most were small.  She said not all of them showed up every day at feeding time.  She only gave them small bits of food, not enough to keep them from looking for food on their own.

Where’s the crocodile?  There.  There’s the crocodile!.  (What you can’t see in this picture is Dad’s hand holding onto the back of his shorts!)

I think it’s so interesting to see how they float in the water.  I just don’t picture crocodiles as swimming creatures.  I picture them crawling up the river bank after some food!

Next it was time for the kite feeding.  She led us away from the bridge and suddenly there were ten or so kites circling overhead!  They knew it was feeding time.

A couple of them kept landing directly above me.  None stayed there long, too much chance for food to keep still!  When we visited the Billabong Sanctuary in Townsville they fed a kite during their free flight bird show, throwing the food up for the kite to snatch out of the air.  I remember him saying that in the wild a kite has to fight for its food as there are always other kites around going for the same thing.  We often see them as we are driving, groups of them circling around.

I know this is an exciting picture, but it’s the only one I took of the kids feeding the kites.  The woman had little chunks of meat and after she’d thrown a few she invited everyone to have a go.  It was great fun watching the kites swoop in and grab the meat out of the air.  Occasionally they’d miss due to our inept throwing and if it landed far enough away they’d grab it off the ground.  (That strategically placed black rectangle is to hide how much someone’s swimsuit was riding up.)  :)

TurboBug had a go, and it was the cutest thing.  He had to try several times to even get the meat to land far enough away that a bird would come get it.

He was so, so satisfied with himself when one of the birds dropped down out of the sky in front of him to eat the piece of meat he’d thrown.  The look on his face here (and those gumboots!) makes me laugh every time I see it.

In the trees along the creek was a huge bat colony.  A noisy one.  Did you know bats are noisy?  They remind me of angry budgies clacking away at each other.  There were heaps and heaps of them.  We could hear them from our campsite, after they’d left for the evening it was much quieter!

There was a good sized boab tree near the creek.  There was a sign on it and I expected it to say something about how old the tree was.  Nope, it was an old warning sign that crocodiles inhabit the creek.  Boab trees are becoming more plentiful as we move west.  This is a big one.

Bonus cute toddler pic for the grandparents.  Love my boy, he’s getting so big.