Broome

After a good breakfast at the B&B and on another sunny and hot day, I walked to Old Broome and Chinatown past shops connected with the pearl-fishing industry and along a jetty surrounded by mangroves. I had expected a much more compact old town.
I bought emergency rations for the car journey at Coles, and wasted money buying unnecessary connections from my iPad and phone to the rental car's Bluetooth.
After lunch, I went to a dentist because a tooth had become sensitive. She cleaned plaque off the gums and took an X-ray which confirmed that an abscess wasn't forming. The visit cost A$350 which I reclaimed from my dental insurance.
In mid-afternoon, a French employee at the B&B drove me to the airport to collect my rental car from Europcar. I'd booked a Kia Sportage but the manager upgraded me to a relatively new Nissan X-Trail which was a 4-door saloon which could seat seven if the two seats in the boot were unfolded.
The car was much more complicated than my Ford Focus, there being no keys for the ignition or the petrol cap. The car had Continuously Variable Transmission which I think meant that it could be driven as a manual although the default was to drive it as an automatic.
The manager told me not to touch many of the controls; things would happen automatically such as the headlights coming on when the wiper- blades were on and it was getting dark outside.
One difference with British cars was that the wiper-blade and indicator controls were on the opposite side of the steering wheel which led to me turning on the wiper-blades inadvertently a number of times.
I paid A$200 additional insurance as cover for chassis damage for driving on an unsealed graded road to and from Pardoo Station on the following days.
I gingerly drove the car to the B&B, and then went to a garage to buy a jerry can and funnel, and then walked back to Old Broome for dinner, seeing the famous sunset from a distance.Read more