riverECHO

8,683 kilometers around Australia

We have covered some ground and I can’t believe we woke up on an island off of the east coast just two weeks ago. As we left Katherine to head further east we drove into a part of the country called the Kimberly. The terrain of red cliffs and rivers was much different and a nice change to the vast flat outback. It was still just as hot. We managed to drive through a full on downpour as well as a bush fire and every night we watch the sun turn into a glowing red ball and the clouds produce an incredible sunset.

When we reached Broome it was as if someone had hit the humidity switch. We were sticky all over and later heard a report that Broome was at 80% humidity. We also heard that this wasn’t even close to how hot or humid it becomes during the “wet.” We spent two nights in Broome, just a short walk from Cable Bay, where at low tide you can see dinosaur prints from roughly 120 million years ago.

The nights are cool again now that we are back on the west coast and we took advantage by going out to outdoor dinner and an outdoor movie. At dinner we sat at a picnic style table with two other couples who were actually surprised to hear that we were from the U.S. They actually thought we were Australians on holiday. We must really be doing a good job of fitting in. One of the couples was already planning on going to the cinema and it wasn’t hard to convince the third couple to join. So we spent the evening on a triple date with a group of Ausies we had only just met. I love Australians.

The “picture garden” is actually the oldest outdoor cinema in the world and it was awesome. It was partially covered but all open air. There were rows and rows of lawn chairs as well as a grassy area up front. The best part is that it is located right next door to the local airport and in the middle of the film we watched a noisy plane fly way to close for comfort over our heads. It drowned out the movie for a few minutes but it was more like a bonus feature. To top it all off we watched the moon set behind the cinema screen.

Before leaving town yesterday morning we hopped on our bikes for a ride out to the lighthouse at Gantheaume Point and back along the firm sand on the beach. The water was a beautiful sea green and was particularly stunning set against the bright red dirt and rock around Broome. We quickly showered, jumped in the car and drove straight to Port Headland, where the only mean Australian in the country checked us in to a campsite for the night. We drove through the rest of our weekend and now find ourselves in the small town of Exmouth, near the famous Ningaloo Reef. We have about four days in the area and we are excited to get exploring. We were already greeted by a giant emu who seemed to be holding our campsite for us. He/she was not afraid of us one bit but I can’t say the same the other way around.