Staircase to the Moon

Mon 11 May… After yesterday today has to be a something or nothing day, it’s Monday so it must be washing day. There is also some blog to write up and some photos to sort out, so we spend most of the morning oddjobbing before going into town and visiting the internet café. We thought we would treat ourselves to lunch at a café we had seen in a nice shady part of china town. It soon became clear it would have been quicker if we had gone to China for our lunch! We sometimes get very frustrate by the Aussie lack of urgency, they may call it laid back, but to wait 45 mins for 2 coffees, a burger and a piece of microwavable quiche borders on incompetence. Another couple waited an hour for 2 coffees. Unfortunately this is a fairly common occurrence. Anyway after our afternoon lunch and an hour in the internet café we were left with enough time for a swim in the sea and a short lie down in the late afternoon sun.
There is an odd phenomenon that occurs here in Broome every so often which basically is the full moon rising over the horizon, and briefly showing reflections on the sand bars when the tide is at it’s lowest. The reflection resembles a ladder which looks to be the width of the moon and is called the Staircase to the Moon. It only happens when the moon and the tide are compatible. It is a full moon now and we went to watch. It is an amazing sight though we don’t think we have any decent photos. Although our little camera is really good, this sort of picture needs professional work, so we’ll send a postcard! Broome is on a peninsula, and you can watch a beautiful sunset and then a 10 min drive away and then watch the moon come up maybe touristy but a bit special. We watched it at the Mangrove Hotel, on their decking. There was a singer and guitarist for a while but as the moon rose a bloke played the didgeridoo. Very atmospheric. Then we drove back to base in the dark. Scary, as we haven’t driven after dark since we arrived in Australia.