We spent our last couple of days in Broome stocking up for the final 2 weeks of our trip and exploring the nearby points of interest as well as indulging in some excellent dinners of Thai one night and visiting Matso’s Brewery for our last night in Broome. Matso’s is located in a 120 year old lovely rambling building that used to house a bank and is near the waterfront. They have some interesting variety of beers such as Chilli Beer, Mango Beer and Monsoonal – my preference. For a person who does not drink beer it was surprising to taste a beer with hints of cloves and cinnamon and actually enjoy it!
After a tearful goodbye to Graeme, Sar and Daisy who are leaving for Melbourne from Broome, we headed off to Fitzroy Crossing some 300kms east of Broome. It seemed as if we were travelling at the speed of sound on the smooth straight bitumen.
Fitzroy Crossing is a stopover town, usually used as a midway point between Broome and Halls Creek. It is also where the mighty Fitzroy River is crossed although it was all but a sandy bottom at this time of year. However the location of the ablution block in the camp ground gives some indication as to the might of this river during the wet. The block is positioned on top of a fairly substantial mound (mountain??!!) and we felt we were climbing up a staircase to visit a sacred temple rather than to go to the bathroom! All permanent structures are on stilts at least 6 metres off the ground. Obviously lessons have been learnt from many huge floods in the past - the last big one to inundate the town was in 2002.
Our main reason for being in Fitzroy was to attend the annual Rodeo as Paul’s cousins, Nick and Michael were participating. As Oliver noted, it was an entertaining day! Lots of cowboys, magnificent horses and horsemanship on show and same mighty large bulls. We could only admire the courage (stupidity??!!) and skill of the bull riders – the bulls were not only BIG but mean so after they unceremoniously dumped their riders into the dust they then charged them for more revenge!! We have new respect for the clowns in the arena who are there to ensure the riders are safe and distract the bulls whilst they head for the safety of the barrier. Michael did this job very skilfully and even threw in a couple of tricks such as riding a bull backwards and then jumping over one that was charging him! Oliver and Sienna were suitably impressed.
Nick did well in the buck jumping (horses) and managed to qualify for the final. Very talented menfolk in the Reimers family!
It was great to see and experience this “other” culture of the Kimberley’s. We also enjoyed a surprise rendezvous with Sar and family who decided to explore this area as Broome was in the midst of a bout of wet weather.
