Bye Bye Broome

While we were up at Cape Leveque over the weekend, we got a call on Saturday afternoon to say that Bertha was up and running. Yay! She had been repaired in under a week, which in Broome is a minor miracle. “Yeah.. Broome-time mate!” Admittedly, Duncan had sourced the parts and had them delivered to the mechanic from Brisbane and Sydney via Perth. And Duncan had gone and purchased and delivered the right oil for the oil change. He’d spent our first entire day in Broome on the phone and the ‘net figuring out how the repair could be done. If we’d relied on the mechanic to do all of that, we may still be in Broome now! (I got told a funny story about another motorhome that was in for repairs. It took 6 weeks, and he lived in a tent that whole time. Picked up the motorhome, got 10 minutes out of Broome and hit a Brahma cow and wrote it off. DOH!!)

So we said goodbye to Broome once more. We all REALLY like Broome. The friends we had there helped, but it is a lovely laid back town and the sunsets at the beach are just to die for! We spent many a night eating an easy dinner at the beach, watching the sun go down and taking photos. The kids dug in the sand, played beach soccer or did loom bands. They were lovely nights.

We even discovered a 4WD shortcut and Baby Bertha got to play with the big boys! She kept up incredibly well. We are continually impressed with how much the little RAV4 handles. We didn’t really intend to use it in this way when we got it 5 years ago, and it really does keep up. Our clearance is always our concern, as its much lower than “proper” 4WDs, but we’ve managed to muddle through so far.

Lexie has discovered a new obsession. We’ve moved on from loom bands, to yarn friendship bands. Jacqui from work sent a little care package to the kids as soon as she heard we would be stuck in Broome for repairs. Bless her!! I picked up the package from the post office and the kids were RAPT! Lego for Angus and friendship bands for Lexie. It was a perfectly-timed gift, as Lexie had just purchased a heap of cottons in Broome and she had been working with an old set she had. (The newsagents next to Mitre 10 is a haberdashery too, for any other future travellers. Took a while to find that one!) The new set had MUCH better instructions and now every child she has come across since has been shown what to do.

Our last night in Broome was the Crab races once more. This time we joined in with the all-you-can-eat buffet and again, no luck for us, but Cameron won 3 crabs AND they all kept pulling in the $$$. Lucky bugger!

Monday morning we were up early and packing away the tent AGAIN. We really appreciated our bus after this! I dropped Dunc down to the mechanic and he brought Bertha back to where we were staying for a spring clean. I borrowed a vacuum cleaner to do the carpet properly. I have to put it in writing – Duncan was right! When we bought the vacuum for Bertha, Dunc wanted to spend $100 more for the little Dyson with a standard hose and head. I thought the small handheld one would be enough. I was wrong. But thanks to Marty and Belinda’s vacuum, both vehicles are clean again!

After some emotional goodbyes, we were off once more. All the way down the road to collect the trailer. LOL. We finally hit the road proper at about 1pm and had no interest in doing anything other than stopping at the roadhouse for some more delicious Yeeda meat. Bertha was purring away, the outside temperature was a few degrees cooler than previously and Dunc was happy to drive. We made it as far as Ellendale rest area before stopping for the night. Check out the pic at the roadhouse below. Even Bertha can play with the big boys!