Mario and Pat's Australian drive holiday

Day 16:  19/9/2014   Broome, WA    Leisure day

A nice slow start to the day. Today is another R&R day.

We have finally decided on our new route; though as always it will be open to change. Broome is our point of no return. Whicever route we pick it will be a similar distance to home. To date we have traveled around 6,600km and we have a similar distance on the way home. To check our new route click on the “The Route” tab and see the updated map. Remember to click on image to enlarge.
Basically we are now going to head south along the WA coastline and our next stop will be Karratha, which is 832km away. Hard to believe, Perth is still about 2,500km away.

Today is a low activity day.  We went to a place (Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm) where they talk about and show you opening up oysters and harvest pearls from them. Really interesting!  We learned a lot about the process of culturing pearls, and all the various types.  They also have on display the ‘World’s Largest Fine Quality Round Pearl’ – at a whopping 22.24 mm diameter!   Broome was  founded on the pearling business.  Luckily for me (and for our trip budget) Pat was interested in the process, but wasn’t looking to make any purchases!

Then we went to a brewery (yep I actually went into a brewery despite my dislike for beer).  Matsos’s is a Broome icon, and they make a variety of beers and even a couple ciders.  Pat got a tasting sampler, which included their most popular mango beer, and a really refreshing ginger beer.  I settled for a mango & lime cider.   The food was good too.

This afternoon we managed to re-pack the car.   We have, of course, realized that we brought more stuff that we are likely to ever need, and so have re-arranged things so we won’t need to keep sifting through the camping gear and extra books when we are looking for the things we really do need.

Tomorrow, it is back on the road again. 

 Priceless Pearl

Pat and her samplers