Well I've been in Broome a few days now. I've started work, although I've only had the one shift so far, on the breakfast shift, so I started at 6.15am. That was quite painful...
I've also found my way around town a little and got to know the people in staff accommodation a little better. The big night in town is a Thursday night when everyone heads down the Roey for the wet t-shirt competition. Yes I really am in the middle of nowhere!
Yesterday it was wet. There isn't a lot to do in Broome apart from drink when it's raining. And seeing as they can't sell alcohol in volumes larger than 1 litre here, that means no goon. I'm going to have to be careful with my money. I'm guessing the alcohol rule is because they have a lot of problems with alcohol addiction here. As Broome is the regional centre, the street that I walk down into town has the police station and prison on one side of the road and the courts and “dry out centre” on the other side. I guess that pretty much says it all...
This afternoon a group of us are off to Cable Beach, which will be my first time on any of the beaches up here. I'm looking forward to the turquoise sea, even if I know I can't swim in it because of the crocs, sharks and stingers. The way that people talk you start to suspect that the sea is full of creatures with a taste for human flesh just waiting for you to get close enough. I suspect that this is a slight exaggeration, but I'll let you know if I see lines of eyes watching us as we wander along the beach, and if I see any holding salt and pepper shakers I'll be getting out of there pretty pronto. Maybe a little paddle along the shoreline – it is about 30C. A few of us played tennis this morning in the hotel. Or more specifically we headed to the tennis court with rackets and balls and proceeded to hit them vaguely in the direction of each other, but missing them more often than not. I for one need some practice. I certainly hit some balls, as evidenced by the balls that ended up outside of the court, but it probably would be more conducive to a rally if I kept them within the fences... The heat doesn't help either – suddenly hitting a ball doesn't seem so important if it means running for it, but we gave it a good go and I now feel that we deserve to crash on the beach for the afternoon.
Well, I still haven't posted this, so I'll say that we all went to Cable Beach, piled into 2 cars, we all swam in the sea, if only briefly and in the shallows. We bought beer and were just settling in to enjoy the sunset over the beach (Broome is apparently the only place in Australia that you can enjoy both the sunset and the sunrise over water), when three mobile phones rang as the hotel realised they were understaffed and called us in. Mine was one of them, so one of the guys drove the three of us that were working back to the hotel and I had my first evening shift in the restaurant when it was slightly chaotic and I'd already consumed 2 beers. So I have yet to see the sunset over Cable Beach.
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