I peered out the window of our villa, eyeing the wallaby who was delicately nibbling the lawn, ear cocked for the sound of approaching tourists.
‘Husband’ I stage-whispered ‘Does that wallaby have a joey in its pouch or does it have really big…..bits?’
The wallaby stopped its environmentally friendly mowing of the grass and sat up straight.
‘Oh!’ I exclaimed ‘It just has REALLY big bits!’
And so began our holiday in Broome.
Broome is a town in the far north of Western Australia, famous for it’s pearls. I always hear about how wonderful and cultural and historical it is but all I hear is ‘blah, blah’ while thinking ‘Ooh – Cable Beach Club Resort’ which is an icon in this part of the world.
When we arrived it was stinking hot. As soon as we got off the plane (the runway on which it just landed, being adjacent to the local Target and Woolworths supermarket) our sunglasses fogged up and we were enveloped in a film of moisture. The Cable Beach Club desk seemed to be made up of suffering poms (Australian slang for English people) who red-faced and sweating, collected our things and whisked us to the resort in a private car. And fuck, didn’t we feel posh? Robert, our butler (who was more like a private concierge rather than a creepy dude hovering in the shadows with too polished shoes) drove us in an electric buggy to our villa, as we tried not to gawk. Broome is the land of lattice. and it was proudly displayed throughout the resort. Red and green lattice, dark polished wood and corrugated iron buildings nestled amongst winding paths, tropical foliage, water features and oriental statues.
Robert had taken the liberty to book us into the ‘fine dining’ restaurant at the resort at 8, so we had an hour or so to kill. We didn’t need to be told twice. We popped the champagne in the complimentary mini-bar (refilled once every day for FREE) and hopped into our own private plunge pool. In the blue glow of the pool light we listened to the cries of the tropical birds and felt the bubbles fizz on our tongue and wind their way around our body.
Aaaaaand, end scene . You don’t need to hear anymore about THAT part of the story.
We ate at a restaurant that was octagonal, dark timbered and decorated with fancy wooden bird-cages and lit with tall, wax dripping candelabras. While romantic, the lighting made the menu very hard ot read. While I enjoyed my chicken breast I was disappointed with the dessert considering I am Grumpy, Queen of the Dessert. I don’t like my dessert too fancy. It needs to be a number of things, though not necessarily all together: chocolatey, ice-creamy, lemony (perhaps I shall expand that to citrusy), meringuey or moussey. Everything on the menu was weird-ass fancy and didn’t fit Grumpy dessert criteria. I chose a ‘trifle’ which was all lah-di-dah and moulded and had rhubarb and some sort of crumble and an unremembered fruit in a jelly (yeuch – not even red but clear!) Fickle or not, I judge a place on it’s dessert.
After dinner we wended our way through the resort, only getting geographically embarrassed once, reaching the comfort of our chilled villa, sticky, sated and sleepy.
As we fell into our dreams I told Beloved with a grin ‘Gee, you sure bring me to some shit-holes!’
