I could get to like it here. We’d have to fix the Kamp Kommandant, but apart from that it was really quite a lovely day. When the sign says that camp kitchen hours are 6 till 8, they mean it. Right on cue at 8pm in he comes, complains that the one sink for 500 campsites is blocked again, and proceeds to throw everyone out, mid cook or mid-eat regardless. We’d been there since before six, and with queuing for one of the two burners or the sink, we were only just finishing washing up.
Grump out of the way, now for the good stuff.
We were meant to be at the car service by 8am, but since the parts hadn’t arrived (well, one bump stopper was in) we were well on our way to chinatown pretty much before anything was open. If you can imagine a place with the beauty, natural assets, boutiques, galleries and restaurant culture of Noosa, but with much more space, you can get a park, and no gaudy development, then you are getting close to Broome. Imagine Noosa main beach, but still with sand dunes, and sand lets face it, where you can’t see the development behind the dunes, and that is a bit like Cable Beach, except that Cable Beach is wide and flat and continues for 22km apparently.
Anyway, that was a long-winded way of saying that Broome keeps resort hours, commonly stuff doesn’t open till 10am, especially the fancier establishments, so until 9 we had to make do with the scenery, and until 10 the souvenir shops, although even they had a reasonably classy feel. The really classy galleries shut at 4pm too, so you can imagine they are doing quite nicely thank-you.
Pearling is at the heart of Broome’s sometimes hesitant development, interrupted as it was by two world wars. A good history was given in a series of articles displayed on boards in an historic shopping arcade, still with the name of its Chinese founder. Hopefully we didn’t leave too much cash in the pearl and souvenir shops and galleries, but they did alright.
At the end of chinatown is a museum of two pearling luggers, which emphasised the roles of the divers in the pearling operation. There was a presentation which gave more detail, but we chose not to pay the money required.
Paspaley Pearls is the modern face of Broome pearling, operating these days to provide about three-quarters of the cultured pearls of the area, the“South Sea Pearls” . We were lucky to escape their rather lavish establishment with nothing more than a catalogue. While they describe the pearling industry as high cost and high risk, half of their retail outlets are in Dubai, and we saw one of their pearling boats in dry-dock in Darwin and we thought it was a cruise liner, so I guess they are now having their investment pay out.
We tried for some time to get a look at Roebuck Bay, but being so flat and surrounded by mangroves, it was an effort. Eventually we found an artificial groyne down by the town caravan park which gave us a rather spectacular view, contrasting the water with the red “pindan” soil, which is basically crushed rust!
Down to the port for a look around. That displayed the new Broome economy – live beef export with no fewer than nine trailers of double-deck beef-on-the-hoof going down the wharf while we were there. The large tanks also explain the relatively cheap price of fuel here. We ignored the $28 a serve fish and chips…
From the port we headed up the west coast via Redells Beach back towards Cable Beach, stopping at Guntheaume Point, a lighthouse station with spectacular views back towards Cable Beach. An Osprey demonstrated its domination at the top of the food chain, and its safety in the lighthouse structure, by ignoring me while it tore its fish apart just metres above me.
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