Day 46. A visit to the Pearl Luggers Museum in the old town. The presentation on the history of pearling and the very dangerous job of the early pearl divers fascinating. From the 1850's the lugger masters used 'blackbirding' for collecting pearl shell, then from 1880 to 1973 Japanese divers dressed in extremely heavy dive suits with Malay tenders for collecting mother of pearl and natural pearls. Huge fortunes were made from pearling, mainly by the lugger maste...

Day 45. We rose early to catch our mini-bus to Broome Airport as our Horizontal Falls Seaplanes Adventure departed at 6.00am. Ben was our young pilot and we took off for the 250km trip north towards the red and yellow escarpments of the West Kimberley to land on the calm waters of Talbot Bay right next to the Horizontal Waterfall. We then boarded a 900hp fast boat 'Jet Stream' for a cruise into very protected Cyclone Creek and then into the fast flowing tidal Ho...

Day 44. Today we are visiting the Willie Creek Pearl Farm. We drove 30km up the Cape Leveque Road including a section of red bull dust road and across the sandy white mudflats to the farm. A very informative presentation on how pearls are cultured and harvested, then a short boat ride on blue azure waters of the estuary to see the racks of pearls attached to longlines. A large male crocodile cruising the water. A large lustrous South Seas pearl will take 2 years...

Day 43. We arrived into the Broome Caravan Park on midday, a lovely shady van park just 5km outside the town centre. Firstly, a drive into town to the information centre, nearby a lovely shopping centre with alleys and shady verandahs, very tastefully constructed using low rise and in the old corrugated iron style with lots of palm trees. Chinatown for afternoon tea, then a long round trip to famous Cable Beach for a drive onto the beach and relax under the shad...