Lap Around Australia: Whalewatching in Broome

Whale watching from a yacht in Broome

We're having a wonderful time in Broome staying at Cable Beach Caravan Park with Jess. It's a handy place to base ourselves as it's only a ten minute walk to Cable Beach. This has enabled Jess to go for runs most days to the beach and later (most afternoons) we head down there together to watch the magnificent sunsets, drink cocktails in the beachside bar (or take our own drinks) and then drift back to have dinner at home or go to the movies or just fall exhausted into bed with our books to read. Jess brought several new titles with her to share as Barb had found it hard getting access to good books on the road. Hard? Book shops simply don't exist! Katherine had a couple of shelves in the corner of a news agent, and Coles in Kununurra had half a dozen titles plus Mills & Boon. Jeez! 

We also ate out for lunch at various cafes in Broome. All were surprisingly good. Among our favourites are the Runway Café (amazing tapas menu), The Dragonfly café and Shady Lane Café all in Chinatown. These had the added benefit of being right on the flight path for the airport so you could see jets flying low about to land while you ate. Closer to our accommodation was the Old Zookeeper café (BEST breakfast ever!) and Zanders on Cable beachfront (yummy pizza).

Enough of that. What about the whale watching? We booked this through the Broome Information Centre. The ladies in there, especially Julie and Martine who helped us were so knowledgeable about what trips were on offer. We chose to go whale watching on a yacht. John was just happy to be on a yacht .... Jess and Barb keen for a whale close encounter. We'd already seen them from afar whilst kayaking.

We were picked up from the caravan park by minibus and met up with the rest of the people going on the trip. I suppose there would've been a couple of dozen people including three crew. The "dinghy" that took us out to the yacht was a special amphibious one that drove up onto the beach on wheels and then into the water and became a boat. John wants one. He has no idea what he'd do with it, he just wants one. It was cool!

All the trippers sat out on the front deck either on bean bags or on the rope trapeze between the catamaran hulls. It was a magical afternoon. We were out there from 1300 until sunset. We did indeed see lots of whales, mainly mothers and their calves who mostly didn't want to come too close to the boat with their baby. We also saw a couple of bulls chasing a mum and her calf wanting to get amorous. She ducked and weaved and led them a merry chase, at one time coming very close to the boat and diving under and coming up the other side.

It was amazing! All the while we were being catered to by the two young female crew who brought cold drinks and trays of home cooked canapes. The skipper's wife is Lebanese, so a lot of the food had a Lebanese flavour. Oh my word .... it was heaven.

We all took far too many photos. It was impossible to just stop snapping. The sunset when we were coming back to the beach was glorious as well. I think we'll remember Broome for the sunsets.

When we arrived back at the campground on a total high after such a wonderful experience, we were greeted by our camp neighbours. They had noticed water pouring out from the inside of our van. After looking at the problem with the back neighbour as well, they had decided to turn off the water and disconnect our power. Lucky that they did! When we opened the door the caravan had about two inches of water all over the floor including in the well under the bed! Eeek!

We bailed out the well under the bed and mopped up the floor as best we could. Luckily everything stored under the bed was in plastic boxes and Jess's suitcases were up off the floor on the banquette lounge. Nothing in the end was badly water damaged. The power had also tripped out by itself when the water came in with the safety switch doing its job. John quickly discovered the culprit for the water spraying everywhere. A split hard plastic hose attached to the hot water. He did a makeshift repair and then the next day sourced the correct sized tubing to replace it properly. Phew! We're learning all the time.