Sunday, June 28, 2009

Broome according to Tor

At 3 and a half, Mum and Dad reckoned me old enough to take on the Gipp River Road in remote North western Australia. They suggested we do something called 'camping' - first in a place called Broome and then in a different spot each night for 10 or so days.










I helped them pack. We agreed my 'motorbike' could come and I suggested that bigger bags were needed to fit in the furniture - particularly my bed. Mum said 'no', I said 'yes', Dad said 'wait and see'...

It turns out there are things called 'sleeping bags'. This is my Mum's, where I usually ended up from 5am each morning. Also, there are 'hammocks'.




























Dad said we were in Broome to 'see stuff'. In Broome, this means pearling museums, historical buildings, pearl shops and indigenous art gallerys. (Yes, Mum was in heaven).

My motorbike carried me happily around town, and when it wasn't allowed inside the Nintendo DS usually was! (Here's Dad and I at the Sun Pictures open air cinema).





Gantheaume Point has lots of rocks and this is where I started learning to 'scramble'...you know, that funny cross between walking and climbing! Scrambling is great exercise and I was determined to prove myself "big and strong!"













































Its 5km from the point to the surf club along Cable Beach and you guessed it, my parents wanted to walk it. They said 'motorbike?', I said 'no', they said 'icecream?', I said 'try and catch me' and the race was on! That night I was pretty tired.

We had lots of fun in Broome, but the best fun of all was the Courthouse markets. I scored a whistle in the 'lucky dip' and was eager to join the local muso's with some cool feet-tapp'n busking action! We drew a quite a crowd, particularly my indigenous partner who announced our act as 'mid-day and mid-night!'





















Cruis'n on a pearl lugger was also fun. Dad's cousin Diana joined us for the day and she likes hammocks too.















The captain stopped the lugger so that we could swim 'round the back, cling onto the ropes and be dragged through the water. I didn't like this as much as they adults who kept calling it 'spa treatment' or something. More fun was when Mum through me off the boat to swim 'round to the ropes with my Dad. She told the panic-stricken crew I could swim, which of course I can :-)

Diana has cool parents called Vic and Pat. They have a huge teddy collection and let me borrow one each day to motor around Broome.




There was plenty of wild action too, but I'll leave that for mum to blog once she's finished sorting the 2,000 odd snaps we clicked on the trip!

Catchya, Tor

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