Day 28: Study and sea snakes

What does study and sea snakes have to do with each other – absolutely nothing - but both were part of our day today. Unfortunately, Kim had to spend the entire day at the van studying again today, while I (Rich) went out exploring. And yes I did find a sea snake (called a Banded Krait) and no, I was not silly enough to try catch it as they are rather dangerous.

 I decided I had to once again see the parts of Broome that the average tourists don’t get to see. Once again Google Maps showed that there was the Broome Bird Observatory on some obscure sand road on the other side of the wetlands south of Broome. This time I had to let down the tyres as the sand was rather deep. I found the Bird Observatory, set up to study migratory shore birds that migrate from Siberia to the wetlands of Broome (not that I saw many birds).

Well not to be deterred, I then found a mangrove estuary nearby and set about fishing on the incoming tide – complete with saltwater crocodiles (tracks everywhere, so I stayed out the water). Well I did catch a large catfish and the crocs did not appear.

 After a quick lunch (and smoothie in town) with Kim, it was off fishing again, this time on the Broome wharf. As with nearly every town, Broome has a long wharf, but this one has a special walkway for pedestrians to walk and fish along. This is where I saw the sea snake and a number of green turtles in the sea. Oh and by the way, caught 5 fish and was the only one out of about 10 people fishing to catch anything (the guys next to me caught a fish about 5 cm long). So it was Trevally for tea! What I had not appreciated was the strong presence of Customs Services here in Broome. With Broome being so close to Indonesia there is apparently a drug trade crossing into Australia through small boats and planes. This is really hard to monitor as there are private luxury boats plying these waters all the time and meeting up mid-ocean is really easy (and apparently happens quite frequently). Thus it was strange to initially see a very strong security and customs presence on the Broome Wharf, but not once you understand the reasons. 

Tomorrow I am off on the deep sea fishing charter (and I usually get badly sea sick – sucker!). Here is hoping that the Kwells tablets actually work and I neither get sick nor fall asleep on deck from the medication.

 By the time I got home, Kim was at the end of study, so we took ourselves off to the beach for sundowners – becoming a bit of a tradition! And it is a particularly good way to end every day – we do love Broome!