Kimberly Cruise 2024

 We have a 6 hour guided tour booked for this afternoon, so this morning, we just went for a walk down to the seafront to see what else is around. Only a few hundred meters away, was Town Beach, with the imposing Town Jetty. Old Town Jetty (the tidal difference here gets to 10 m) It looks like a lot of money has been spent here over the past few years, modernising the park area. Town Beach A monument in the form of a sculpture has been erected looking toward the jetty, to commemorate the Japanese attack on Broome in WW11. Broome was never bombed, but was a base for a number of Catalina flying boats that were being used to rescue people ( mainly Dutch) from Timor and Indonesia. The Japanese launched a strafing attack to try and destroy the aircraft on the water and the monument tells the stories of those involved. There were 9 Japanese Zeros involved in the attack, symbolised by these 9 figurines. On each of the aluminium figures, there is a personal story about the attack. Also wit...

 Silver Cloud docked in Broome at around 7 am, with disembarkation starting at 8 am. We were among the first off as we had private transport arrangements to our hotel in Broome for the next 3 nights, so we’re not dependant on the conga line of buses waiting at the dock. Two tugs were tethered to us going into port seemingly helping with cross currents  We were at the Oaks Hotel Broome by 9 am, and of course, rooms were not ready for us, so we had to check in, store our luggage and bide our time for the next few hours. It soon became clear that many of the people vacating their rooms, are passengers for the next sailing of Silver Cloud back to Darwin. The Oaks Broome Hotel After sitting around and talking to others who were waiting to either check in or to go to the ship, we eventually ventured outside for a walk to get our bearings. Then waterfront is only 1 block away, and town, apparently about 4 km. We received a few tips on local restaurants when talking to a couple that w...