Tuesday 5th August

We arrived in Broome yesterday and booked in at the Broome Caravan Park at about 9.30am.

Broome has an interesting past and it is well worth reading about. Here is a little of what I have learned. I am always amazed to hear how big a part the Chinese played in the building of Australia to what it is today.

In the late 1880s the small settlement of Broome located on Roebuck Bay in the north of the Colony of Western Australia consisted of two stores and a few scattered houses. It had no road or rail connection to the south of the Colony and depended on limited sea transport for its supplies and communication.

In 1888 one visitor to the settlement described it as: 'The only water was a native well…The Mangrove swamps were full of mosquitoes, and high up on the sandhills a few struggling camps were pitched.'

Two years later everything had changed. The submarine telegraph cable, which had been connected to Darwin, was rerouted through Broome because of volcanic activity in the Arafura Sea and in February 1889, was landed on what is today known as Cable Beach.

Suddenly the town was much more than a collection of tents. The firm of Streeters set up a store trading in pearls and mother of pearl shell and built the famous Roebuck Hotel. The store still stands in Short Street near Streeters Jetty and the Roebuck Hotel is around the corner in Dampier Terrace. The town grew rapidly driven by the search for pearls and the search for pearl divers was unceasing. Without the benefit of modern underwater equipment the divers were forced to dive only to resurface when they ran out of breath. The pearlers had no compunction about kidnapping local Aborigines (black-birding) and forcing them into virtual slavery as divers.

By 1887 the Broome Pearling Fleet had changed from skin-diving to apparatus-diving with the distinctive canvas suits, copper helmets and boots, and rubber air hoses. The town thrived on the hugely profitable, and extremely dangerous pearl-shell industry, using Asian labour that was cheap to hire and easy to replace.

Cyclones, the Pacific war, sharks and the dreaded bends have left many bones in the local graveyard, and more on the bottom of the sea. There was an appalling death rate among the early divers where ignorance of the hazards of deep and prolonged diving resulted in a painful death or at best, incapacitation, through what became known as decompression sickness or the "bends". There are tales of divers brought to the surface bereft of life, squashed out of recognition.

Despite Broome’s chequered past or more likely because of it, Broome now boasts a multicultural population which have all blended to create a captivatingly welcoming and colourful personality that is the heart and soul of Broome.

Cultured pearls from Broome are now the best in the world.

There are many shops in Broome that sell pearl jewellery but pearls are not my favourite precious stone so Ross has no worries about me asking for pearls. However some of the shops do sell Argyle diamond jewellery. I already have one ring from our last visit more than ten years ago but after this trip I don't like my chances of adding to it.

After settling in we went into town for a look. Broome's Town centre is very spread out and there are many more shops since we were here last about eleven years ago. We parked the car and walked for what seemed like miles, through an area called Chinatown, in and out of shops, up and down lane-ways out into streets that seemed familiar, but turned out to be another street, so when it came time to go back to the car we were pretty well disoriented. So we retraced our steps. In and out of shops, up and down lane-ways, backwards and forwards working our way back to what we knew was the first shop we had walked into and there across the road was the jeep waiting patiently. We were pretty glad to see it I can tell you, because the temp was 31c, it was 2.o’clock and we had been walking for quite some time. We then went to the Visitors' Centre which one of the shop assistants had assured us previously was just over the road and on the corner. We had walked and walked around, over the road, looked around the corner and walked some more, but couldn’t find it. When we were in the car we drove around a big green park and saw the Visitors Centre in the middle of the park. It may have been just over the road to the locals, but to us it might just as well have been miles away.

One of the most amazing natural features of the Kimberley region is the tidal waterfalls located deep within Talbot Bay in the Buccaneer Archipelago, but unlike any other waterfall, the water passes horizontally. Although they are called waterfalls, this natural phenomenon actually consists of intense tidal currents hurtling through two narrow coastal gorges. Massive tidal movements create a waterfall effect as water banks up against one side of the narrow cliff passage, to be repeated again on the turning tide.

The twin gaps are part of the McLarty Ranges, which have two ridges running parallel approximately 300 metres apart. The first and most seaward gap is about 20 metres wide and the second, most spectacular gap is about 10 metres wide. It is possible to drive boats through the two gaps to the bay behind. The tides in this area have a 10 metre variation which occurs over six and a half hours from low tide to high tide and vice versa. The effect of the waterfalls is created by the tide building up in front of the gaps faster than it can flow through them and there can be a four metre high waterfall between the bays.

The waterfall phenomena has been described by David Attenborough as "one of the greatest natural wonders of the world". Needless to say to us it was a must do, so we booked this tour for Friday.

Thursday 8th August

We drove all over Broome today. First we went to Roebuck Bay where the movie Bran Nue Dae was made and visited the Roebuck Hotel where the front of the hotel was used for two dance scenes in the movie. Then we had a look at the new housing estates. All the homes looked very suburban with a bit of a tropical feel about the designs and the gardens. The rest of the time we spent at Cable Beach, looking at all the people in the water and on the sand. Ross wanted to drive on the sand, so I gave in, but my bravery was short lived when I saw a chap trying to dig his car as he was bogged, so due to my request we turned around and drove back off the beach.

Friday 8th August was such an exciting day! We were up at 4.00am and after making sure we had everything, we walked up to the caravan park entrance to be picked up and taken to the airport where we boarded a seaplane (11 of us) for a one hour flight along the Dampier Peninsula to Talbot Bay. I guess you all know that flying is not one of my favourite past times, but I had no such fear today I was too excited. The flight was so calm and the scenery so spectacular. We viewed the Horizontal Falls from the air as the pilot flew the plane as low as he could so we could get a good view and photographs.

We landed on the calm, mirror like waters of Talbot Bay and taxied to a large houseboat and several pontoons set up in the middle of this beautiful expanse of water surrounded by cliffs and mountains. We had a cup of tea or coffee and boarded a jet boat (600 horse power Jetstream, touted to be the fastest boat in the Kimberley) to take a look at the Horizontal Falls. Indescribable, but I will try. Exciting, spectacular, exhilarating, fast, gets the blood pumping, I can’t think of anymore superlatives to describe the experience. The driver took us through the larger of the falls, but only showed us the narrower of the falls as it was too high and dangerous to take the boat in so after some exciting times we went back where breakfast of bacon and eggs, rolls, juice, cereal etc was ready. After breakfast we went downstairs to the shark cage where some people bit the bullet and climbed in (after changing into bathers of course) Ross and I were not one of them. We watched the Tawny Nurse Sharks being fed as well as a huge groper who lives around the boat but is wary of the sharks. After that we boarded the jet boat again as the other narrower Horizontal Falls would have calmed down a bit. Well they were right and we made several passes through. I must admit that when I saw the whirlpools and rapids that the conflicting tides make and realized that the boat was going to go through them and then literally climb up the water and through to the other side, my courage took a bit of a dive, but I soon recovered and enjoyed every minute of each pass and was very sorry when it was all over. After a bit of a tour of an area called Cyclone Creek which was gentle cruising we went back for a cool drink a rest and then boarded the sea plane again to cross the Buccaneer Archipelago and its thousand islands to land at Cape Leveque.

Big Foot the large 4wd drive bus was waiting to take us to the Hatchery at One Arm Point, then to a beautiful lunch of Barramundi at Kooljamin Cape Leveque about 20minutes away. After lunch at Kooljamin we were driven down to a picturesque beach with sand like talcum powder where we took photos and had a paddle.

The last stop before the drive home of approx 190 km, on a wide but corrugated sandy road, was at Beagle Bay to see The Sacred Heart Church that German priests and nuns built in the war years and that the Aboriginal people helped decorate and still worship in today. A team of local women helped the church authorities decorate the church with mosaics made from Mother of Pearl, volutes ( A spiral scroll-like ornament) and olive shells (shells which are glossy, oval and cylindrical in shape), collected from local beaches. This church sits beside the impressive local Aboriginal settlement.

We then set off for Broome on a long bumpy ride (nick-named the Broome Massage) to be dropped off at our caravan park at about 5.00pm. After a feed of Spaghetti Bolognaise prepared the day before we fell in to bed, very contented after a great day we watched the cricket.

Tomorrow we leave the coast road and travel east, so for this year our coastal adventures are over, but we still have Geike Gorge, the Bungle Bungles and Lake Argyle to come in the next couple of weeks before we reach Katherine in the Northern Territory.