A couple of weeks ago, the 3am alarm sounded on my mobile and I swiftly leapt out of bed to pack the remaining items in my luggage for the latest trip to Australia. The early morning taxi arrived, followed by boarding the flight to Heathrow. A snag came at Heathrow when the plane on the tarmac that we were all waiting to catch had a technical issue, I think a leaky bearing, resulting in a 5 hour delay. At the time, I’ll admit there was a bit of frustration for the delay, but given the shutdown of Heathrow due to a fire at a nearby substation a couple of days later, I now feel extremely lucky that this 5 hour delay was dealt to me.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to do a bit of sketching, I grabbed lunch courtesy of the airline compensatory voucher and headed to a window overlooking the runway. The smaller than normal size vehicles that operate at the airport have always interested me, the airport folk going about their duties, looking tiny against the backdrop of mammoth size planes. These are a couple of my quick sketches that helped bide the time.

Finally the plane to Singapore took off and we were on an our merry way. By the time we arrived at Singapore Changi Airport, my connecting flight to Western Australia had long since departed, so armed with another airline compensatory voucher, I wolfed down some Boston cheesecake at an airport cafe, read my book for a bit and figured out how next to occupy myself in the hours until the flight boarded. One of these distractions, which I have mentioned before, is the Butterfly Garden. Rain was streaming against the airport windows and into the butterfly disclosure, however, the butterflies still seemed to be in full swing, flittering amongst leaves and in some cases, hanging stock still. A couple of black and white butterflies caught my eye, which, thanks to the butterfly poster outside the garden, I identified as Common Mormon (Papilio polytes) butterflies.

*Common Morman Butterfly, Ink Pen Sketch on Paper*

As much as I would have loved to have sketched in the butterfly garden, the rain dripped through and other transit travellers crowded around to see the butterflies, so I snapped a few shots and nestled into a sofa chair to charge my phone and enjoy the space to sketch at a more leisurely place. Part way through my sketch, a fellow traveller, who was on his way to India, stood up to leave and said my drawing was beautiful. A little bit of praise is always nice (I’m not gonna lie :-)).

After leaving Singapore, I arrived in Perth at midnight, where I stayed for a few days and caught up with folk which was lovely.

The plane to Broome followed. A wee holiday in Broome had been on my agenda for the past few months. The only other trip I have made to more northerly parts of Australia was to Townsville in Queensland about a year ago. Australia is a big old place and while I am endeavouring to visit more of it, there is still a lot more to see!

Most people on the plane were wearing shorts, t-shirts and thongs (flip flops), in anticipation of the hot and humid tropical weather. They were not wrong, Broome is hot! We disembarked and to my delight, I sighted my friend at the baggage claim area. So wonderful to finally visit after all these years. In the afternoon we caught up and planned the next few days.

The following day I lathered on the sunscreen and my friend gave me a lift to Chinatown (centre of Broome town).

After an iced chocolate, I visited the Broome Gallery which predominantly shows the work of James Down. Bold paintings with vibrant and beautiful colours, bright pinks, blues and oranges lined the gallery walls. Who could fail to light up when surrounded by all those colours? A pink and blue seascape painted by James Down particularly captured my attention. The foamy crest of the waves painted in a textured manner with white oil paint.

Broome has been known for its pearling industry since the late 1880s and there are a number of pearl showrooms in Chinatown, some of which have interesting exhibitions as to how South Sea pearls are cultivated. In one of these pearl stores, before me there nestled in satin a massive round pearl, with a price tag including, let’s say, a number of zeros. Wowee! I wondered what you would do with such a big pearl and it reminded me of a parable Jesus tells about a merchant selling all that he had to purchase a pearl of great price. As I perused the pearl stores, I also discovered that pearls go exceptionally well with diamonds. One of the staff at the pearl stores told me that ‘Diamonds are a Pearls best friend’ and I believe its true! The sparkles of the diamonds seem to enhance the lustre of the white South Sea pearls. As well as white pearls set with diamonds, there were purple Tahitian pearls, gold Asian pearls and beautiful sculpted frogs inlaid with pearl shell (which I loved). I also drooled over some beautiful pearls set in a gold netting inspired by the pearling nets.

**Chi Mayi Kitchen**

At lunchtime, I mooched outside of Chi Mayi Kitchen where I devoured a delicious vegetarian tofu, halloumi, mushroom and avocado wrap, washed down with a Pineapple Sunset (pineapple and mango with coconut water). Planes were flying low overhead. The weather was 32 degrees celsius, with a humidity of 67 percent (usually around 90 percent ouch). I heard from the locals I spoke to that this was a cool change for Broome.

A couple of Ta-ta lizards (called this because when their hand is resting it looks like they are waving goodbye) moved with alacrity across the ground and weaved under the tables. After a brief sprint they would turn their heads to look at me with their black eyes, their long tails stretched out behind them. I liked the pale yellow of their lizard stripes. The colour reminded me of the Naples yellow oil paint we used at a Saturday part-time art class I did a long time ago at Leith School of Art. Naples yellow was almost on the same level as my obsession with the colour Buff Titanium during the first year of my painting degree. I couldn’t get enough of it. Unfortunately I didn’t have any Naples yellow handy with me in Broome, so I opted for a lemon yellow instead in my sketch below of one of the Chi Mayi Ta-ta lizards. By the way, the scientific name for Ta-ta lizards is Lophognathus gilberti, also known as Gilbert's dragon.

*Broome Ta-ta lizard, Ink Pen Sketch on Paper*

The people at the stores in Chinatown were friendly and good to chat to. It’s still the wet season so there are not too many tourists, who I hear flock here during the dry season. No wonder with all the sights to see, including abundant numbers of humpback whales (so sad I missed those).

While walking around Chinatown, a few of the famous lines of Dorothea Mackellar's poem "My Country", kept turning around in my mind,

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror —
The wide brown land for me!

**Green Tree Frogs**
In the evening, we had dinner at my friend's folks house, which was lovely. Their place had the most gorgeous view of the ocean and the sun setting. After dinner we walked out to the deck and and I got to see a few of the tree frogs that frequented their gutters. This one had boldly planted itself on the metal sheeting beneath the gutter.

During the night I woke to a brief thunderstorm and rain. Apparently a cyclone was brewing but not directly over Broome. The morning started out overcast, but the sun soon turned on full force after the Broome Whale Watching bus picked me up for the snubfin dolphin tour. The sun shining was fab given that the tour was to spot sea creatures! The folks running the tour were super friendly and knowledgeable. From what I gather we got a pretty good run, sighting juvenile green turtles, dugong, snubfin dolphins and bottlenose dolphins. One of the snubfin dolphins also jumped out of the water (a rare sight) which the tour guides got a snap of and hopefully in due course will be posted on their social media/website. Most of the footage I managed to record was of the snub fin dolphins gliding in the water. I am proud to say that I went for a dip in the boom net on the back of the boat as it sailed along. Morning tea on the boat with a Matsos Ginger Beer went down very nicely afterwards.

Earlier in the tour I had asked the guide about these tiny crabs I had filmed at Entrance Point the day before (video above). These are called sand bubbler crabs and apparently they feed on plankton from the sand, and discard the processed sand as little balls heaped up onto the shore. These discarded sand balls make amazing patterns on the sand. At first I only noticed the patterns, not the tiny crabs, but once I sighted one crab, suddenly I could see all the other little ones close by popping out of their holes and being just as busy.

*Red Sun Camels camel ride, Cable Beach Broome*

Late in the afternoon, my friend, her daughter and I set out for our Red Sun Camels camel ride on Cable Beach. The fierce sun glared at me from the sky and I could feel myself starting to burn up. You know when it's so hot that the beach sand burns your feet, that kind of heat. If I am honest, I didn't know how I would survive the camel ride in the glaring sun and heat. Thankfully, not long after I'd hopped on Ted the camel’s back, the sun dipped behind the clouds and we got some respite. After the initial fears of falling off (you should know I have always sucked at horse riding) I found my rhythm and enjoyed the saunter on the beach. Ted had super curly hair which was fun. We skirted around all the four wheel drives and people took photos of us as we walked by. Thankfully the sky cleared a bit at the tail end of the ride and the sun set orange over the sea. Here is a little video of my camel ride.

Feeling a bit done in by the sun, the next day I took it easy and lounged around the house for a little while. We took a trip to Zookeepers cafe where they had the most amazing soft and tasty cinnabons with cream cheese icing on the side. I would venture to say, this cinnamon bun is the best I’ve ever had.

**Peppa**

In the evening, my friend's daughter asked me if I could sketch Peppa, their super cute tiny doggie, who is a mix of Chihuahua, Daschund, Terrier and looks like a cute miniature fox. So I started sketching Peppa with my Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens (which I have since misplaced…somewhere…frustrating...) before we headed to the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park the next day. Here is the final drawing framed. I love the expression in Peppa’s eye which I think captures her personality perfectly.

Oh my gosh, the croc farm. Those immensely deadly predators, the salties, were daunting to look at. Just seeing them with their mouths wide open, lying still as statues. And when they moved, their fast paced lumbering was frightening (especially if had I been on their side of the fence). No wonder that few people survive an encounter with a crocodile. I did however survive an encounter with a baby croc, who was soft and squishy and who made a small roar when I held it the wrong way. Here is a video of one of the grown salties at feeding time. A downpour of rain hit half way through the tour, so I didn’t take that many more snaps (ha ha, just realised that’s a crocodile pun).

Anyway, all is well that ends well and I can say that I survived the crocs, sharks, sea snakes and the tree frogs (who came up the sewer pipes to hang out in the toilet (eek!)). Thanks to my lovely pal, and her daughter and family for having me visit. I had a blast!

Broome, Western Australia

Dilly-Dallying in Edinburgh (Winter), Scotland