Walking with Dinosaurs: Our NW WA discovery

As soon as we walked off the plane, the heat hit us with a force that said "What idiots! Will they ever learn that trousers are not cool here!?" Even though we were landing in Broome late in the evening, it was like walking into a warm soup and our jeans were not ideal attire for the sticky situation.

We were up in Broome for a week of, well, nothing much at all really. V had looked in the Lonely Planet and been mesmerized by the stunning photos of camel trekking along one of Australia's most stunning beaches (and believe me, that's quite a competition to win). But our time spent here will go down in history as a period spent doing rather more than nothing, and missing the one sporting event that the whole of Australia stops for...

After not doing very much the first day (aside from catching a glimpse of the legendry Broome sunset), we rose early the next morning to meet a rather flash hog - a Harley Davidson Trike. Roger the resident Hell's Angel showed us round the place, being a mine of information for far too many things (including pointing out to Rob the location of the local ladies places!) and scaring V a little when her eyes strayed too close to the speedometer. Having survived this, we spent an enjoyable few hours wandering around the town, trying to jump between the shadows to keep cool.

Broome has a strong Asian influence, being an old pearling town that was mainly populated in the old days by Japanese pearl divers. Most of the buildings are made of corrugated iron, giving it a slightly temporary air.

An adventure of a different kind was in store that evening, when Esra, an ageing camel, agreed to take both Rob and I for a safari along the 22kms of Cable Beach to watch the sunset. There's more than a million camels in Aus, and I bet she was feeling that she had drawn the unlucky card, carrying both of us! After her owner assured us that they can carry up to 300kg (which is definitely more than our combined weight!) we were on our way, with a gentle if slightly un-uniform movement across the sands. Would have been quite romantic if the naughty camel behind hadn't kept biting Rob's bum!

The next day was another early start (they like those around here, it's ever so slightly cooler!) to satisfy a boyhood dream of Robs - to ride on a hovercraft. The zippy 16-seater 1980s machine was piloted by another mad Aussie - who delighted himself if not us in performing full-speed donuts. It was quite a relief to get dropped off to a deserted beach to see something quite amazing...dinosaur footprints.

The "brachiosaurus" prints are quite an amazing sight. These enormous creatures are said to have weighed 80 tonnes, and when they walked, made very certain that their dustpin-lid sized feet plodded in their own footprints, so each print has been subjected to 160 tonnes weight. It's thought that when the dinos walked here, Aus was still attached to the African subcontinent. See www.uq.edu.au/dinosaurs /index.html?page=14161 &pid=0 for more information, Jurrasic Park Fiends! It felt a little eerie, standing there on the otherwise deserted beach, looking at this trail that stretched from the sea into the forest. We hoped that if any more arrived, they would avoid us!

After another fun speedy journey back on the hovercraft, we decided to do very little for the next few days, so we headed to the nearest bar to live it up as the miners who visit Broome do on their days off - with a nice cool beer. Now we know why the stubby holder was invented - the beer heats up so fast here that the end of the bottle is quite unpleasant without one!

We were staying at the excellent Beaches of Broome - a brand new backpackers place, which was pretty good. It got even better the third day we were there as they reopened their pool which had previously had some leaking problems. It's not safe to swim in the sea at this time of year due to nasty jellyfish, so we were glad at last for the chance to cool off.

We spent pretty much all day in there for the next couple of days, enjoying the cool  water so much that we couldn't be bothered to get out to watch the Melbourne Cup - much to the disdain of the Aussie locals who viewed it as quite a national institution.

The last afternoon was a special highlight for V, a sail on an "original" pearl lugger. This gaff rigged boat wasn't as old as true antique vessels, having been built in the 1980s by an adventurous capitalist, but it was a lovely fun afternoon enjoying the onboard bbq and ice cold beers, which had followed a very adventurous drag-like swim in a rope net which was cast over the stern. V was too worried about holding on to avoid drowning rather than getting stung by jellies - but luckily all was well.

We returned to Perth relaxed, and a similar muddy brown colour to the fired sandstone earth that is so prevalent around the area. A great week.