Broome Arrival

Its hard to beleive I'm sitting in Broome writing to you on my laptop... the hard to believe bit is that I'm taking the laptop with me on a bike ride across the Kimberley.. Very long story.

I arrived in Broome on Sunday around 12 noon with my cousin, Steve on a flight from Perth. Jill, Denice, Uwe and Brigit were waiting for us at the airport. Actually they had been waiting for us since 9.30am because I had forgotten to let the guys know what time our flight was... Oops

We spent the rest of the day putting the bikes back together. Uwe & Brigit had built their bikes the day before. I had meet the guys at the Perth International at midnight. Their next flight was at 7am from the Domestic airport and we needed to be there at 5am for checking in the bikes. So what does someone do at 2am in Perth? Not a lot. We went for a drive to the South Perth foreshore to take alook at the city lights, only to find that most of them were turned off due to the gas shortage in Perth...(about 3 weeks ago there was a gas explosion on at Varanus island and now gas supplies to Perth are short 30%). So we then drove to Cotts Breach and made a cuppa (cup of tea)and to dip our toes in the cold Indian Ocean. From here he drove back to airport via Kings Park to again take a look at the view and to introduce Briget & Uwe to Grass Trees.. We were treated to an unexpected flowering of a single Kangaroo Paw.

We arrived at airport very early 4.50am and joined the que for check-in. The QANTAS girl checing us in was great... she was excited about the bike trip and didn't bother to weigh the bikes :)

I returned home for a nanna nap by 7am. In the arvo I returned to friends in the city near the airport to spend the night as they were giving me a lift to the airport with both mine and Steve's bike boxes. We spend a good part of the late arvo getting the boxes to weigh the required 32kg... it was touch and go!

AM & E dropped me at the airport at 7am where we met Steve. We managed to get the bike boxes and our extra bags though with out paying excess. I'm not sure how as Steve was 17kg over the limit!. It pays to get to the airport early. Our flight was great, especially when 80 mile beach was in view.