Having a holiday from the holiday

We left Tunnel Creek and started heading towards Broome. We didn’t have any definitive plans, but knew we’d needed to get the car fixed. It was Saturday, so we’d have to wait until Monday before we could call anyone. As we were driving, Telstra coverage resumed signalling we were back in civilization. Becky started looking at Trip Advisor for hotels, motels and cabins in Broome. She found a great deal on a 5-star place called Kimberley Sands Resort that in season can be upwards of $500 a night, but she’d got a quote for five nights at $166 a night. After discussing if we should take this deal for 0.2 seconds, we booked it, excited that we’d have a few nights out of the tent, with our own toilet… proper luxury.

We pulled up at the 5-star resort around 4pm in our banged up, dusty car looking rough as fuck. We spent the evening unloading all our dusty shit into our lovely room, well, lovely-ish. To be honest, if I’d spent $500 on the place I’d be pretty disappointed. It was very nice, but it was a little shabby round the edges, definitely not 5 star nice. The Wi-Fi was terrible and the housekeeping wasn’t as thorough as Becky likes, although sterilised operating theatres would often fail her inspection. Anyway, we hadn’t paid full price, so fuck it, we were very happy with the place. It was great to slump in a comfy bed, that wasn’t on the floor and had a mattress thicker than 10cm. We didn’t take many photos of the room (ie none), as the blog photographer (Becky) wasn’t on point, and neither was I. However, it was very close to cable beach, and we did get some photos of that.

Dreamy days

The next day we started off dusting everything inside the car, before heading to the only car wash in town to hoover the inside and wash the outside. This included cleaning our fridge that, thanks to a beer bursting and the lid shaking off the milk, stank of milky beer. When we got there we found it was busy, as it was Sunday, so we decided we wouldn’t wash the car that day, and instead went to the shops to buy some food, beer and replace the fire extinguisher. We decided that this was enough for one day, and retreated back to the resort to get on with doing fuck all.

We wandered down to the famous cable beach, and Becky got her selfie on.

New place, time for a selfie

We then discovered it was quite good fun for me to run and jump in frame behind Becky.

Ignore him, he'll tire himself out.

This kept us amused for longer than it should.

He must have had some extra sugar at lunch

We even switched roles.

Equality means everybody gets to act like a twat

After the beach we spent some time by our courtyard pool. My biggest achievement of the day was stretching across the total width of the small pool.

I achieved something today

After another lovely sunset, we went back to drink, eat disgusting pizza and watch shitty TV. What a great day!

Everybody loves a sunset

The next day, we had shit to do. We got up early and washed the car.  We were back at the room by 8am, and started calling around to get the car booked in for the exhaust and oil pressure gauge. We finally got it booked in to a place on Wednesday. After all that, we were poop’d and spent the rest of the day doing fuck all again. My biggest achievement of the day was fashioning the noodles in the pool into the perfect relaxation device, helping me work on my belly tan.

Float like a butterfly

This is only the third time I’ve ever had anything resembling a tan, due to a medical condition common in the UK called “Ginger Skin”. It means after exposure to the sun your skin turns bright red, before pealing and returning to a near translucent white. However, living an outdoor, nomad lifestyle has given me something of a homeless man’s tan, and I quite like it.

That evening we ate the rest of the crappy pizza, drank more booze and watched some different shitty movies while surfing on the shitty wifi. Now, this is holidaying!

The next day we had absolutely nothing to do. The car and our stuff was “clean”, and booked in for repairs the next day. We had lunch at the resort, delicious prawns and extra chips so we could be sure we hit the required 5000 calories that day.

Gi' us a kiss

After that we spent the afternoon wandering on the beach, swimming and general doing what normal people do on holidays, e.g. not putting out fires in the engine bay.

'Avin a little stroll

The day finished as the others had, with a wander down to the beach for sunset, before heading back to the room to drink, snack and watch shitty tv.

Clichéd

but nice

Wednesday was a big day, as we had to drop the car at the garage by 07:30am. We decided that rather than taking a bus or taxi we’d walk the 5km back from the garage to the hotel. In our minds this would count as “exercise” and help balance out the inordinate amount of shit we’d been eating. We geared up by putting on sweaty gear, trainers and taking drinking water. When at the garage they offered us a lift back to the resort, which we spent 0.001 seconds contemplating before accepting the offer; fuck exercise, this ain’t biggest loser and this is our holiday.

Once back, we ate some more high calorie crap, and then went to the beach again. This time we walked past the rocks to a part of the beach you can drive on, and also tan your bits. It was a very nice stretch of beach, but getting the occasional eyeful of old man testicle was a little off putting.

Don't look, but that old man to our right has his nuts out

Later that afternoon I picked the car up, and was stung to the tune of $350. Mitchell Falls wasn’t a cheap excursion. They’d fixed the exhaust, the oil pressure gauge and fitted a new bracket for the battery, so I’m not complaining. Well, I’m complaining a little bit.

That night, as we prepared for our last night in a proper bed, we noted that housekeeping hadn’t put a cover on the duvet. As I mentioned at the beginning, for a five-star resort, housekeeping had been a little slack during our stay; they’d forgotten to replace our bottled water, hadn’t changed the towels and the cleanliness wasn’t what even I’d consider five-star.

The next morning we awoke to a fog that had come in off the sea. Neither of us wanted to leave, and the damp mist wasn’t helping the mood. As we were checking out and settling our bill for lunch, I decided I was going to moan about the housekeeping. Sure, we hadn’t paid full price, but still. I moaned in a very English manner; “Yes, um, I, um just want to say that, um, housekeeping didn’t put covers on the duvet yesterday, and um, haven’t been particularly good during our stay, um you know, um, sorry and all that”.  The receptionist was super apologetic and waved the $75 bill for our prawn lunch… What a win! I’m definitely complaining to more than just Becky from now on.

And with that, our fiveish-star stay was over. Before leaving Broome, we headed down to the lighthouse for a quick gander into the sea. Although the fog had lifted we still had proper clouds in the sky, the first time since Cairns, 55 days ago. At the lighthouse there are some dinosaur footprints visible during low tide, but it wasn’t low tide, so we didn’t see them.

Under that body of water are the footprints of a dinosaur

You could also see Cable beach stretching out in the distance.

A picture of pure dread... we're camping again

And with that our holiday was over and we headed towards Broome Bird Observatory for our first night back in the tent…