Broome

 

Arrived in Broome on 24th July and stayed for 3 days. Unfortunately Irene my travelling companion has now to return to Adelaide so I will continue this journey on my own.  

Broome is a small town that had it’s heyday at the beginning of the last century supplying 80% of the worlds mother of pearl. This industry peaked in 1913 when there were 403 registered pearling vessels operating from Broome. The development of the plastic button in the 1950’s sealed the fate for mother of pearl, there was a change of direction toward the cultured pearl industry and more recently the cattle exports from the port and the tourist trade.

Cable beach is a big tourist attraction, it’s name is derived from the fact that it was the point where the underwater communication cable linking Australia to Indonesia came ashore.

The signs don’t instil a lot of confidence in swimming.

 

When I was staying at Barn Hill I met a couple who said when you get to Cable Beach if you look one way it is full of 4 wheel drives and the other way is beach umbrellas, they were right.

Cable beach is a beautiful beach but I have seen better beaches on this trip but combined with the rest of Broome it all adds up to a fine tourist resort.

 

 

The camp site that I stayed in for 3 days was at Roebuck Bay which is part of old Broome. This bay has one of the highest tidal ranges in Australia and is the site of the famous stairway to the moon pictures. This occurs at certain times of the year when the full moon rises over Roebuck Bay at very low tide shining on the mud flats giving the illusion of a stairway.

I was not there during full moon so missed this phenomena but I did see a sunrise at the same place.

 

Roebuck Bay.

 

A boab tree in a small park on the way from the campsite to town.

 

Every town has an old gaol, this one was built in 1894 and is now an art gallery showing art from the local indigenous population.  

 

A couple of pictures, most galleries forbid photographs but I did not see a sign in this one.

 

 

The main area of the town is known as Chinatown which is a bit of a misnomer given that people from many Asian cultures lived there during the peak of the mother of pearl industry.

When the pearl luggers first started they used aboriginal slaves as divers but this stopped and a lot of Japanese came to Broome to earn money diving. This was a very dangerous business and one in five divers died of drowning shark attacks or the bends.

The town is made up of a considerable number of the usual tourist gift shops, cafes and also many shops selling pearl jewellery.

A pearl lugger behind one of these shops.

 

One of the many shopping arcades.

 

 

 

The museum was very interesting, it obviously covered a lot about the pearling industry but many other things as well. At Gantheaume Point visible at very low tide are some dinosaur footprints, The water was too high to see these but one had been cut out of the sandstone and is on display in the museum. The museum did not allow photographs.

The Japanese cemetery contains the graves of 900 Japanese divers who died on the pearling luggers their headstones are hewn out of large sandstone rocks.

Below is the modern port and jetty. Broome is one of the major ports used for the very controversial live export of cattle to Indonesia.