Soon after leaving Halls Creek the landscape changes into large plains, rather than the hilly country of the East Kimberly. There aren't many towns along the way, other than Fitzroy Crossing. From Fitzroy Crossing you could take a scenic drive to Derby via the Tunnel Creek National Park, but I didn't think I had the time, so I went straight ahead on highway number 1. Nonetheless, once the highway hit the Derby to Broome road at a T intersection I turned right towards Derby, rather than heading straight for Broome. It was only 40 km away, so I thought it would be worth having a look. The town itself was nothing spectacular, so I kept going through it until I hit the end of the road. This was at the Derby wharf. Derby has the largest tides in Australia with a change of 10+ metres between low and high tide. It was close to high tide when I was there, so there weren't many mud flats to be seen. I had a very good cappuccino at the Wharf Cafe, which was very pleasant, despite the almost 40 degree temperature, because it gets a nice cooling sea breeze.
On the way out of Derby I stopped at their version of a Prison Boab. It is probably more famous than the one along King River Road in Wyndham, but it is also right next to the highway, so you don't have to go out of your way to see it. I liked the shape of the Derby Boab, but I still prefer the one in Wyndham, because of its remoteness and because there is written evidence that it was used as a lock-up, which there isn't for the one in Derby (according to my research on the Web).
On my first morning in Broome I got up at the crack of dawn because low tide was at 5.30 in the morning and low tide is the only time when you can see the dinosaur footprints at Gantheaume Point. I got there just at low tide and made my way down the rocks to try and find them. There is neither a marked path down the rocks, nor any signs of where to find the imprints. Luckily there were some other people there, so we could cover a larger area in our search. We found two types, one was a set of smaller prints of a more bird like foot, the other was larger, with claws.
I found the surrounds of Gantheaume Point much more fascinating than the footprints. The Western Australian coastline is very different to the east coast of Australia. It reminds me of the following lines from the song 'A horse with no name':
After nine days I let the horse run free
Cause the desert had turned into sea...
It literally goes straight from desert to sea here, there are none of the lush green hinterlands that you have all up the east coast, and Gantheaume Point has beautiful red rocks that shone in the rising sun against the deep blue sea.
Just a couple of kilometres north from the point starts Cable Beach, which is another claim to fame for Broome. It is a perfect sandy beach, interrupted only by one band of rock, so you have 'south of the rocks' and 'north of the rocks'. North of the rocks you are allowed to drive your car on the beach and you are allowed bathe in the nude. I did neither of those, but I walked barefoot on the white sand for over 2 hours.. Because I usually don't walk barefoot this must have used some different muscles, and I had quite sore legs that night. There are also camel rides available on the beach. It runs for many kilometres up north until you reach Willie Creek at the northern end.
After my walk I drove out to Broome Port to have a look at the wharf, which is very long, because Broome also has large tides, second only to Derby. There were a few guys fishing along the walkway on the wharf and just as I approached one of them got a bite. It was quite a battle for him and the fish was so large that he had to use some special contraption to lift it from the water up onto the wharf. The fishing line would not have held the weight. He used a thing with three metal claws, attached to a long rope. The claws tightened around the fishes head as he lowered them down and he could lift it up, like a crane. I had a bit of a chat to him and to some of the other guys further along the wharf. All of them were in Broome for construction work and used fishing as a means to pass their time off on a Sunday. I guess if someone asks "what did you do on Sunday?" it is more acceptable to say "fishing" than "sat at home drinking beer", even though for some of them the beer consumption seemed to be equally as important as the fish.
On my way back into town I stopped off at the Historical Society Museum. This is a little gem on the outskirts of Broome. Entry fee is $5 and you can easily spend an hour or two looking at the exhibits. It covers many aspects of the history of Broome, from the early days of pearling to the second world war with the Japanese raid on Roebuck Bay, and the development of communications.
After the museum visit I parked at the tourist information and walked a heritage trail through the old town centre, called China Town. It has many of the old buildings still intact, including an old jetty where the pearl luggers used to unload their harvest. The pearl industry was (and still is) dominated by Chinese and Japanese, hence there is a large Asian influence in the north west of Australia, evident in some of the architecture and by the Asian cemeteries in the various towns.
One of the buildings that stood out to me was the Sun Pictures Cinema. It is almost 100 years old and is an outdoor screen. When I took a picture of it in the afternoon I noticed that there was a 6.30 PM session, so I decided to attend it, directly after taking sunset pictures at cable beach, which is a must for every Broome visitor. The sunset was nice, because the sun sets into the sea here on the west coast, and I took numerous pictures. Then I headed off to the cinema. Once you enter it, it is basically a large shed with a tin roof, with the north facing wall missing. About 20 meters in front of the shed is an outdoor movie screen. The seating is deck chairs. There were only about 10 other people, so I selected the last row of deck chairs still under the roof. This gave me the best of both worlds, the nice cooling air generated by the ceiling fans and the view of the starry sky above the screen. The movie was called "The Equalizer" and not very good, but the experience of Sun Pictures was worth it.
Broome was founded in the late nineteenth century as part of the growing pearl industry. Well, it wasn't really pearls that were at the heart of the industry, but the mother of pearl, which was used to make buttons. The area around Broome had Pinctada Maxima oysters, which grow much larger than other oysters and are therefore more economical to harvest and process. At the turn of the 20th Century Broome supplied about 85% of the mother of pearl in the world. With the invention of plastic the mother of pearl market collapsed, so these days it is the actual pearls that provide the income. Broome has several pearl farms in its surrounds, so on my second day I took the 40 km drive out to Willie Creek Pearl Farm, who do tours for tourists. The drive in itself was interesting because it started out on very sandy red roads, which very suddenly turned into white limestone once you get out on the flood plains. On the flood plains I encountered two horses, which I assumed were wild because there weren't any fences anywhere along the way.
The most interesting part of the tour was the lecture on the anatomy of the oyster, how it is used to farm oysters and how the pearls are graded for value. Afterwards we got some drinks and home made damper before we took to Willie Creek in a boat to look at some oysters in the water. The oysters that they showed us were basically in retirement and only there for the tours. The commercial oyster farm is further out at sea and the location kept secret to prevent theft. We learned that each oyster is valued at 10,000 dollars over its lifetime; it can be seeded to produce pearls four times. Each oyster is manually implanted a seed cut from a Mississippi Shell, an then placed in a cage that holds 10 oysters. Then they are put into tanks for a couple of months before transferred into the ocean, where they need to be turned and cleaned every 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the season. The whole process and maintenance is very labour intensive, and provides the holiday money for lots of backpackers. Naturally the tour ended in the pearl shop, where we were shown some examples ranging from $800 to $30,000. It was easy for me to resist temptation because I prefer black pearls, which are not grown in Australia.
After the drive back into town I had some bank business to do to complete the purchase of my new home in Thredbo, and then I took on the hard task of visiting Matso's. I know that some of the Canberra audience of this blog are into boutique beers, and Matso's is a boutique brewery in Broome, and just by chance was straight across the road from where I stayed. You can take brewery tours, which include a tasting of the various brews in little glasses, but I took it on myself to taste the beers in their natural environment to be able to report to you as factual as possible.
Matso's is one of the old buildings in Broome and has a lovely veranda all around it. They also serve food, which looked very good, but was not in my budget. BTW. happy hour is from 4.30 to 5.30 when the beers are only $6 instead of $8, so a good time for an afternoon tasting. My preferred beer was the Pale Ale, followed by the Smoky Bishop. I also tasted the Session Ale, which I found a bit too bitter and the Mango Beer, which I found too sweet.
On that note I finish the post from Broome and you will next hear from me from Karratha, about 850 km south-west from here.
On the way out of Derby I stopped at their version of a Prison Boab. It is probably more famous than the one along King River Road in Wyndham, but it is also right next to the highway, so you don't have to go out of your way to see it. I liked the shape of the Derby Boab, but I still prefer the one in Wyndham, because of its remoteness and because there is written evidence that it was used as a lock-up, which there isn't for the one in Derby (according to my research on the Web).
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| Very pleasant veranda at the Derby Wharf Cafe |
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| Derby Prison Boab |
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| Dinosaur Footrpints |
After nine days I let the horse run free
Cause the desert had turned into sea...
It literally goes straight from desert to sea here, there are none of the lush green hinterlands that you have all up the east coast, and Gantheaume Point has beautiful red rocks that shone in the rising sun against the deep blue sea.
 |
| Where the desert turns into see |
Just a couple of kilometres north from the point starts Cable Beach, which is another claim to fame for Broome. It is a perfect sandy beach, interrupted only by one band of rock, so you have 'south of the rocks' and 'north of the rocks'. North of the rocks you are allowed to drive your car on the beach and you are allowed bathe in the nude. I did neither of those, but I walked barefoot on the white sand for over 2 hours.. Because I usually don't walk barefoot this must have used some different muscles, and I had quite sore legs that night. There are also camel rides available on the beach. It runs for many kilometres up north until you reach Willie Creek at the northern end.
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| The white sand of Cable Beach |
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| A serious fish caught from the wharf |
On my way back into town I stopped off at the Historical Society Museum. This is a little gem on the outskirts of Broome. Entry fee is $5 and you can easily spend an hour or two looking at the exhibits. It covers many aspects of the history of Broome, from the early days of pearling to the second world war with the Japanese raid on Roebuck Bay, and the development of communications.
After the museum visit I parked at the tourist information and walked a heritage trail through the old town centre, called China Town. It has many of the old buildings still intact, including an old jetty where the pearl luggers used to unload their harvest. The pearl industry was (and still is) dominated by Chinese and Japanese, hence there is a large Asian influence in the north west of Australia, evident in some of the architecture and by the Asian cemeteries in the various towns.
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| The old jetty |
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| Broome Chinatown |
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| Sun Pictures Front |
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| Deckchair Seating and Outdoor Screen |
Broome was founded in the late nineteenth century as part of the growing pearl industry. Well, it wasn't really pearls that were at the heart of the industry, but the mother of pearl, which was used to make buttons. The area around Broome had Pinctada Maxima oysters, which grow much larger than other oysters and are therefore more economical to harvest and process. At the turn of the 20th Century Broome supplied about 85% of the mother of pearl in the world. With the invention of plastic the mother of pearl market collapsed, so these days it is the actual pearls that provide the income. Broome has several pearl farms in its surrounds, so on my second day I took the 40 km drive out to Willie Creek Pearl Farm, who do tours for tourists. The drive in itself was interesting because it started out on very sandy red roads, which very suddenly turned into white limestone once you get out on the flood plains. On the flood plains I encountered two horses, which I assumed were wild because there weren't any fences anywhere along the way.
 |
| The drive started in red sand... |
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| ...and suddenly turned into white limestone |
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| A wild brumby on the way to Willie Creek |
The most interesting part of the tour was the lecture on the anatomy of the oyster, how it is used to farm oysters and how the pearls are graded for value. Afterwards we got some drinks and home made damper before we took to Willie Creek in a boat to look at some oysters in the water. The oysters that they showed us were basically in retirement and only there for the tours. The commercial oyster farm is further out at sea and the location kept secret to prevent theft. We learned that each oyster is valued at 10,000 dollars over its lifetime; it can be seeded to produce pearls four times. Each oyster is manually implanted a seed cut from a Mississippi Shell, an then placed in a cage that holds 10 oysters. Then they are put into tanks for a couple of months before transferred into the ocean, where they need to be turned and cleaned every 2 to 6 weeks, depending on the season. The whole process and maintenance is very labour intensive, and provides the holiday money for lots of backpackers. Naturally the tour ended in the pearl shop, where we were shown some examples ranging from $800 to $30,000. It was easy for me to resist temptation because I prefer black pearls, which are not grown in Australia.
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| I can now name every part of the anatomy, just ask me... |
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| Oyster cages in Willie Creek |
After the drive back into town I had some bank business to do to complete the purchase of my new home in Thredbo, and then I took on the hard task of visiting Matso's. I know that some of the Canberra audience of this blog are into boutique beers, and Matso's is a boutique brewery in Broome, and just by chance was straight across the road from where I stayed. You can take brewery tours, which include a tasting of the various brews in little glasses, but I took it on myself to taste the beers in their natural environment to be able to report to you as factual as possible.
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| Matso's Bar |
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| Matso's Veranda |
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| Matso's Beer |
On that note I finish the post from Broome and you will next hear from me from Karratha, about 850 km south-west from here.
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