Broome is a small spread out town but it has a lovely bus service driven by sweet older men who use microphones to tell you where you are and when to get off.

David and I visited the history museum so we now know that Broome developed around the pearling industry. European pearl masters arrived in the late 1800's and, typically for the time, forced aborigines to free dive for pearls against their will. In fact 'blackbirding' was common - where aborigines were kidnapped and sold to the highest bidder. Eventually the practice was outlawed and the only people willing to do this dangerous and poorly paid job were the asians. Despite the introduction of diving suits and anti compression tanks the death rate for pearl divers was very high at 1 in 5 - as the large Japanese cemetary will vouch.

Whilst in Broome I decided to go on a sunset camel ride. David wasn't too bothered so Evelyn and I shared a camel. We met our camel, a male called Malaka, who was sitting down patiently waiting for us to mount. E got on first then just as I approached he stood up. The next 5 minutes were spent trying to get Malaka to sit down. A young lad started off with the softly softly approach but Malaka was having none of it so eventually the big boss was called over who gave him a smack on the neck and shouted at him - within seconds he was down - it was amazing! Apparently he sulked for the rest of our ride but I have to say I can't recognise the difference between a sulking camel and a non sulking camel so it didn't really effect me. OK so a camel ride is a bit touristy but I've done it now and I've learnt some interesting camel information to boot. They were imported along with their Indian and Pakistani owners to act as carthorses as the pioneers moved north building telegraph stations, roads and railroads. They were preferable to horses as they could go for 4 days with no water but in the 1920's they were no longer required so 20,000 were released into the wild against the wishes of the Aus government and now Australia has a camel problem as they are increasing five fold year on year. It is estimated that just to keep the population static 60,000 camels would have to be killed annually!

On our last night in Broome David and I decided to go to Sun Cinema the oldest outdoor cinema in Australia. We saw a Woody Allen film called Vicky Christina Barcelona (a really good film!) whilst sitting on deckchairs and eating popcorn bought from a man who, from the conversation we had with him, appeared to be the absolute authority on salty popcorn.