Sleeping in Airports blog

IMGP2229.JPG, originally uploaded by Nathan Barton.

Contributed by python
Getting stuck in Broome during the cyclone season is a perfectly normal event, but in this case not only was there a cyclone, but our plane was stuck on the other side of Australia waiting to be fixed.
Broome airport seems to have been designed by someone who only ever visited there in the dry season. The waiting area (which is also the eating area) is nearly all open to the sky and there’s nowhere else to wait. For fifteen hours we sat in a hole in a square donut huddled against the walls on hard metal chairs trying to minimise the splash effects from the all-day, all-night downpour that left the streets flooded.
Broome is never a good town to wander around after dark, even in a cyclone, so there was little choice. This is not an airport to spend a night, or even a day. Get out of there as fast as you can and remember to take your own food: the one food outlet closes early, opens late and charges like a hungry crocodile.