So the luckiest day number of all has struck us exactly the opposite way a dart sticks into a dart board; slowly, and without so much as a whoosh. Its day 13!
Early start today as we have some ground to cover, and we also want to get to cable beach and enjoy the scenery! White sand, blue sea, red skin and a whole lot of camels. That’s right, camels!
We drove westward with a certain excitement, the same excitement that can be found in a young child as they are promised a trip to the zoo. Age does not define us, age only allows us to do more silly things, faster and harder with more money. The plans for this afternoon displayed our inner child more than anything else; we were to ride camels on the beach at sunset!
We trekked westward towards Broome and peeled off to cable beach where we found the caravan park we had previously made reservations in. We set up camp and before long we went out in the car down to cable beach just to see what it was like. The sand was white, the water was a pristine ocean blue. It was a postcard beach in real life!
Not too much later we all met down on the sand with quite a few camels. The group was known as “Red Sun” camel tours and they were friendly and knowledgeable about the camels we were riding on today.
I went on a camel with my auntie as there were five of us, and my mum and dad got onto a camel themselves, and my uncle got to ride the very last camel on the camel train by himself. So much camel!
The beast I rode on, as I later found out, was the smallest of the bunch. He was 17 years old and he was the smallest and lightest even though the male camels are supposed to be 100-200kg bigger than the females. My companion was named Chris, he was a spritely camel that liked to wander just out of line. This worked well for me as I was videotaping the ride I got a nice view of the train in front of me; thanks Chris!
I learnt from one of the tour operators that a camel could drink 10 to 20 litres of water every day. If left for 10 days, they could drink up to 200 litres! That’s a lot of water, but what got me was the rate at which they could consume said water. He said that a camel could guzzle that 200 litres in 10 minutes! Though his analogy of the drinking rate was more humorous: “I like to put it in terms that any Australian can understand. That’s a whole carton in about 25 seconds. So here’s a stubby: gone, gone, gone, gone…” – Red Sun tour operator.
It was a great day today, and here’s some pictures to look at, enjoy!
Thanks for reading,
Trav.
