A friend of ours, Wendy, has just left to return to her home in rainy Perth after having spent five delightful days here with us in Broome. My Face Book friends will have been noticing a lot of Face Book posts in which Wendy’s been tagging me. I’m not very technically savvy, nor very technically aware, and I suspect some of my friends in a similar age group to myself are the same. I never knew that when someone tagged you on face book, the post ends up sort of looking like the person tagged contributed in some way to the post. From some of the comments added to Wendy’s posts by some of my own Face Book friends, I’m sure some of you must be thinking I’ve gone well and truly Face Book mad. Stop worrying, I haven’t. The posts have been made by my dear friend Wendy, and, in case you hadn’t realised it – Wendy is completely and utterly, Face Book mad! But I digress, this post is supposed to be about, Why Broome! Why do so many come back here, year, after year, after year, and why we will always try to incorporate Broome into our winters away from Busselton.

First and foremost one of the biggest attractions of  Broome is it’s consistent winter warmth with either very little, or no rain at all for the entire dry season. Day after day, week after week, month after month, from late May until late September the forecast is the same, fine, warm and dry, with tops around 30 degrees. Wendy wasn’t convinced the ocean would be warm enough for swimming, and wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t have a need for sweatpants and jackets. I’m delighted to say the weather honoured our predictions, and bathing costumes were daily attire, with sweatpants and jackets being nowhere to be seen by day, or by night.

At least part of most of days were spent exploring the beaches around Broome, either fishing (not catching), or swimming, or just relaxing and soaking up the sun.

We took great delight in showing off one of our favourite beaches, Entrance Point. It was  late in the day with the sun low in the sky. This meant some of the gorgeous colours in the rock formations were dulled by having insufficient light shining on them. However, for the rocks directly in the path of the sun’s dropping light, the colours were enhanced as if by the most powerful of torch beams.

The tides were perfect for late afternoon drives down Cable Beach to watch the sunsets while we enjoyed our happy hour drinks.

We enjoyed a couple of lunches out, at places that we’d not been before, and places that had been on our list to visit. The first one was at the Wharf Seafood Restaurant out near the Port. The Wharf advertises half price oysters from 2 – 5pm, and they’re also noted for their chilli mud crabs. We ordered a couple of dozen oysters to share, and one serve of the mud crabs, also to share. The oysters didn’t disappoint, although, I can say, I’d hate to have been paying their full price if $27 a dozen was their half price. The mud crabs – well they were okay, but at $120 for one serve to share it’s a dish we all agreed we wouldn’t be buying again. But trying them had been on my list, so I had to take advantage of the opportunity when it presented. Another thing ticked off my bucket list.

Matso’s Micro Brewery was a place recommended to Wendy, and another place we hadn’t yet been. We saved that for our final alfresco lunch today. The building is quite old, and has some history attached to it that I would have loved to have investigated. However, today it was so incredibly busy, with so much hustle and bustle that even taking photographs didn’t seem like a good idea. We shared a few grazing platters while sipping a couple of Matso’s own beers, but investigating the history, and photographing the delightful old building will have to wait for quieter time.

Wendy left late this afternoon declaring Broome is well and truly on her radar for a return trip. She had never understood why Broome delighted so many people, why so many people come back year, after year, after year. She now gets it, she understands now – why Broome! The perfect weather, the colours, the beaches, so much to do without any need to spend money.  Broome – It’s such a pleasure.