Endless washing, fishcakes, markets, camels and a staircase to the moon

We had long been looking forward to arriving in Broome. Some people rave about the place whereas others say it's too busy and touristy. But to us it seemed that we had finally arrived in the part of the country we were most keen to visit. And of course, we were also pretty excited at the impending arrival of Jane, Sasha and Nina. Little Sash, who has spent many happy days at Eltham with his grandparents reading him endless numbers of books, had somehow become convinced that Jane and Sasha were going to bring with them their entire impressive children's book collection and he chatted on about various books they were going to read to him when they arrived.

In the meantime, we took the car in for a service and washed pretty much everything we owned - linen, sleeping bags, clothes towels etc which involved endless treks between the trailer, the laundry and the washing line. The women in the laundry chatted to Kate and looked incredulously at Bill (a male invading their space...). In the evening we watched Ice Age 4 at the Broome outdoor picture theatre - Kate and Bill thought it was a dreadful movie but the kids loved it and the picture theatre was pretty special. It was exciting when planes coming into land at Broome Airport roared over our heads as we watched the movie - we ducked stupidly every time a plane zoomed over.

Broome was busy and in our usual style we hadn't booked a spot in the caravan park - and so we ended up in a dusty end of the Broome Caravan park with little scenery and the construction of a toilet block close by. Fortunately our neighbours were a friendly family who had just come through the Kimberly and had a lot of excellent tips and advice - they even wrote us a bunch of useful notes to take with us.

We were right on time to enjoy one of Broome's biggest attractions - the staircase to the moon. The staircase is a natural and rare phenomenon when the moon reflects in the mudflats of Roebuck bay and makes an image of a stairway. It is a special thing - but probably not special enough to justify the 5-person deep rows of tourists all along the beach jostling and arguing and setting up tripods. Kate and Sash managed to crawl beneath walls of legs and find a decent viewing spot underneath a tripod. But along with the moon comes a lovely little market - the moon market- set up along the beach and selling fish cakes, smoothies, crafts and souvenirs. We were happy to meet up with our friends Bruce and Katherine and their kids Josh, Emily, Ollie and Abby (from Cape Range and then Karijini) and wander the markets with them. Zara chose a hair ornament from a stall and was thrilled when the lady plaited her hair and then attached the little swinging kangaroo and beads at the end of the plait.

The next morning, we really embraced the tourist requirements of Broome by going on a camel ride along cable beach. The beach was lovely in the early morning and the kids loved the bumpy camel ride. Seeing as we were doing the tourist thing, we drove out to the Malcolm Douglas crocodile farm in the afternoon and sidled past the crocodile skin belts and purses on sale to enjoy the croc feeding. We got to hold baby crocs with their little jaws tied shut which was kinda fun although a bit weird. It was definitely exciting to see the crocs jumping out of the water as they got fed but there was little sense of conservation about the place - much more about entertaining the tourist with thrilling crocodile encounters than caring for these incredible reptiles. The guide was a crocodile tough-guy who goaded the crocs into leaping from the water - but he certainly knew a lot about them and gave a pretty interesting commentary. Also, the park had lots of other birds and animals and so it was fun to wander around after the croc feeding.