Mango Beer (20/4/14)

This hostel is one of the only ones so far that offers a free breakfast so I was up in time to make sure I didn't miss it. You get two slices of bread, Marmite or peanut butter to top it with, once you'd toasted it yourself, and a bowl of cereal from which you had a choice of five. It's not going to win any awards but was definitely better than nothing and filled a hole. I saw Neil there but he didn't hang around for long as he wanted to get to a bicycle shop, for when they opened, to rent a bike for the day. I'd found out there was a resident tour organiser at the hostel and he would be in some time this morning but his arrival time was a little sketchy as he'd been to a beach party last night. So I spent the morning trying to get myself booked onto a sunset camel ride along the beach, which is the very touristy thing to do in Broome. Unfortunately everyone that I knew about was booked up for the next week so I pinned my hopes on the tour operator here knowing some other companies. While I was waiting for him to arrive I walked to the visitor centre to see what information they had. A few things can be seen at the right time of year or month here in Broome. The first is called the stairway to the moon which is where the moon rises over the ocean and the reflection in the sea and the beach looks like stairs up to it. The other is at low tide when it's possible to see dinosaur footprints in the rocks. Unfortunately I wasn't going to be in town for either of these events so settled on hoping I'd see a really good sunset instead. Once I'd walked back to the hostel I didn't have to wait long before the tour bloke arrived and once he'd finished with his first customer I got a chance to quiz him on other bits to do. He didn't know any other camel ride operators but suggested something else instead. A sea kayaking trip to a beach, where we'd stop for drinks and snacks, before heading back to shore and hopefully spotting some turtles along the way. It was cheaper than the camel ride and kayaking in the sea was something I hadn't done before. So I booked it. I would be picked up at 3.30pm from the hostel and dropped back after. As it was now about lunchtime this gave me some of the afternoon to walk to a brewery down the road, called Matso's, that apparently made mango beer. This I had to try. So after a quick bite to eat at the hostel I made my way there. The walk in the blazing sunshine didn't take long but by the time I got there I was definitely in the mood for a beer. It was quite busy when I arrived due to the lunchtime rush but I opted to stand by the bar so wouldn't need a table. I looked through their menu but couldn't decide which beer to try and so naturally chose them all in the form of a tasting tray. It may work out more expensive but it's the best way to choose a favourite. I asked for the taster tray when I got served, my mouth feeling incredibly dry from the walk, but was told they'd run out of taster glasses and so it wasn't available at present. Damn it. I decided to try a lychee beer for the time being as I knew the mango beer was part of the tasters and hoped they'd have some more glasses by the time I'd finished that. I asked the guy serving to let me know when he had enough glasses for the tasters, which he oddly seemed a little irked by, but he said OK all the same. The lychee beer arrived and I took my first gulp. If ever there was a beer that could provide all the satisfaction required in that first swig, when thirsty, then this was it. It was perfect. I had to restrain from necking the whole lot in one, especially because of how much it cost. Instead I drank it slowly and enjoyed every mouthful. Just before I finished it a wooden board, with large holes in, got put in front of me on the bar. It was followed by the question "So what are you having?". I looked up to see the barman who served me earlier pulling out six taster glasses. I got the impression he was a pretty dry humoured, mono syllabic kind of guy and I saw this as a challenge to get him to try and have a normal conversation. So in return I asked him which ones he would recommend. He chose to list all the ones they had, venturing off the mono syllabic path briefly to point out his favourite, before returning to his normal-self shortly after. We settled on sticking to the standard taster tray options and I gave up on him wondering why on earth he'd chosen a job that required talking to others. Maybe he'd had a tough day, who knows. I took my tray outside, found a rock to sit on in the shade under a tree and gave all of them a taste before deciding which order to drink them in. They were all good in their own way but my favourite two were the mango beer, and the insanely intense flavoured ginger beer. But by the time I'd finished I still think my favourite overall was the lychee beer, that one was awesome. I left the brewery, definitely feeling the effects of all the beer, and walked back to the hostel wondering if it's possible to be charged for being 'drunk in charge' of a canoe. I made it with a small amount of time to get changed and get some bits together for the afternoons canoeing. I got picked up a little after half 3 and got on the bus and said hello to everyone else on there. They were all in couples so I wondered how they'd organise the kayak I'd be in as they were all two man ones. But after a couple more pick ups an odd number got on elsewhere and I figured I'd be put with one of them. We arrived at the beach and unloaded the kayaks from the trailer. As I was getting my bits off the bus I'm guessing someone asked who they'd be with as I heard a woman's voice say "But is Michael any good at kayaking?". I walked up behind her and said "Yeah he's not bad, he's done it before" whilst grinning. Her name was Ann-marie. And we soon got chatting whilst putting on our life jackets and grabbing an oar. Actually once in the water she soon started behaving like a typical woman and moaning. It was jokingly, but as we bickered the others laughed saying we were already just like a married couple. She found it very funny to keep splashing me making me regret putting sun cream on my face as my eyes started stinging. So I got my own back by pretending to paddle and making her do all the work. She didn't notice for ages lol. On the way out we all looked for turtles which would have been easy to spot as the sea was like a millpond but we couldn't see any unfortunately. We were amazed by the rocks here though that aren't viewable from the beach. The colours were stunning against the brilliant blue sky. We kayaked past where we were going to stop and were told there was a beach there but the tide was currently covering it up so we continued a bit further to try and see some turtles round the corner while the tide went out. Still unsuccessful we returned to the beach which was now starting to appear. One by one we rowed in to the shallows so the instructors could grab our kayak while we got out and eventually everyone was on the beach. In that short space of time though the beach had doubled in size from the speed of the tide. We relaxed for a while and had some ice cold drinks with crackers and dip and enjoyed the scenery and the company. After about 20 minutes of chatting we got back in the canoes to row back round the rocks towards the beach to catch the sunset. On the way back a few people reckon they say turtles heads pop out the surface of the water but every time I looked there was nothing to be seen. Even Ann-marie reckoned she saw one. It's amazing how calm the sea was though. Once round the final corner the beach came into view and I was amazed to see how many cars had driven down onto the sand to watch the sunset. It was much busier than when we'd left. But this made the kayaking even better for me. We had front row seats and they had to fight for a view. Plus we would be in pretty much all their photos. The sun set while we were still in the kayaks which was a great sight but we raced back to shore for the finale. We got out our kayaks, dragged them up the beach to a point where the trailer could get to, dropped all our gear and turned and watched as the sky just burst into flames. The reflection in the sand doubled the beauty of it. I've seen a lot of sunsets and heard a lot of places claim they had the best sunsets but this was by far the best one I'd ever seen, in all the places I've visited anyway. It just got better and better and better the more time progressed. Once the trailer arrived we helped load the canoes but I couldn't help but be distracted by the clouds that were ablaze with orange light. What an awesome spectacle it was. Too soon though it was time to go as the instructors still had to drop everyone off. Ann-marie was at one of the first drops so I quickly got her e-mail address as she'd had some photos taken on her camera of us that I wanted copies of. Everyone of course overheard this and gave it the high school playground reaction of whooooOOOOOooooo followed by the instructor saying "maybe we should start a matchmaking service" to the other instructor. "Ha bloody ha everyone" I replied laughing. I finally got dropped at my hostel with a "good luck with Ann-marie" comment thrown in for good measure and I waved goodbye as they left. It had been a really good evenings entertainment and I'm actually glad I got to do that instead of the camel ride. I walked into the hostel just in time for happy hour and so threw my belongings into my room and went back to grab a beer. I found Neil again so we spent the next hour chatting about what we'd been up to during the day and it turns out mine had been much better. He'd gone to the bike shop for the second day running to find them closed again and so tried to walk the route he'd originally planned to cycle. He ended up getting a cab back! After a couple of beers I made some dinner for myself in the kitchen before grabbing a shower and heading back to the bar to plan my next days itinerary. Neil appeared after a while so we had a few more drinks but then called it a night as we were both knackered from our day's outings. I was soon in bed checking out my videos of the kayaking and my photo's of the sunset making sure they were half decent. It had been a truly spectacular day.