BROOME

30^th July, 2012

We’re heading north from Marble Bar and huge iron ore road trains seem to be the order of the day until we reach the junction with Highway 1.

Road Trains every which way ..

As we turn towards Broome the mining road trains all seem to be headed towards Port Hedland.  That is just fine by us.  Now all we have to contend with are the normal road trains transporting things other than ore.  It’s about 600 kms to Broome from Port Hedland with no towns inbetween – just a couple of roadhouses where we can fill up with fuel.

Our rig is dwarfed by this road train as Wok fills up Mitzi with fuel

Our first night’s stop is at Cape Keraudren overlooking the estuary.

Our campsite at Cape Keraudren

A friendly local pays us a visit as we set up camp.

A friendly local checks us out

We are up early the next morning and make good time.  About 55 kms outside of Broome we pull into a roadside rest area to spend the night.  Broome has about half a dozen caravan parks but at this time of the year sites are hard to come by with caravanners converging on this popular tourist spot.  We are going into Broome early in the morning and see what we can get as Mitzi is booked in for her 30,000 km service with the localMitsubishi dealer on Friday.  And boy is she really looking forward to that!   We arrive in Broome at 8am and as we suspected all the caravan parks are booked out but there are three local organisations that open up their grounds as temporary caravan parks and we manage to find an unpowered site in the PCYC (Police & Citizens Youth Club) grounds.  They have showers, toilets and a dump site and there is access to a water tap where we can fill up our tanks.  We are even able to give Mitzi her first decent wash since leaving York and underneath all that red dust was a nice silver grey.  Then it is off to explore Broome and it’s no wonder there is hardly any room at the inn.  We have managed to coincide our visit to Broome with the arrival of the Moscow Circus which has set up in the oval near the Information Centre.  

The circus is in town ...

There is a big horse racing carnival on at the weekend and with a full moon also occurring over the weekend the tourists are here in droves to see the natural phenomenon of the ‘Staircase to the Moon’.  Broome was originally founded in the 1880’s as a pearling port and Japanese, Chinese, Malay, Indonesians and Europeans were lured here with the promise of finding their fortunes.  In its heyday up to 400 pearling luggers lined the shores.  Needless to say many pearl divers lost their lives in their quest for the pearls and pearl shell and cyclones also took their toll on the fleet.  Both World Wars also had an impact on the pearling trade with hundreds of tonnes of shell left in the warehouses to ruin in World War I and after the Japanese destroyed sixteen flying boats anchored in Roebuck Bay in 1942 where many lives were lost the government ordered the destruction of the pearling luggers fearing a Japanese invasion was imminent.  Now there are many pearl farms in the unpolluted waters near Broome and there is certainly no scarcity of pearl retail outlets in the shopping precinct in and around Chinatown.

Main intersection in Broome

As we take a look around we come across the world’s oldest operating picture gardens.

Sun Pictures in Broome

Built in 1916 this historical building has withstood the ravages of war, cyclones and king tides.

No problem watching the movie - unless it rains!

The latest movies are screened and the deck chairs look pretty comfortable.  You may need to bring some extra cushioning though!

Wok tries out a deck chair

There are several memorials in Chinatown dedicated to the people who contributed to the development of the town.

Bronze statues in Chinatown

The owners of the pearling fleets were European, the shopkeepers mostly Chinese and the divers mainly Japanese and Aboriginal, the deckhands and labourers Asiatic.  A unique blending of people from around the world.  Along the shore of Roebuck Bay lie two of Broome’s last remaining wooden pearling luggers

Pearl lugger on display at the museum

and a board display tells us of the perils faced by the divers and deckhands.  The mangroves that lined Roebuck Bay were harvested for their timber and without this natural barrier the town suffered badly during cyclones and king tides.  The mangroves have now grown back but we don’t think we would like to be around when a cyclone comes ashore.  Our next stop is a visit to the Japanese cemetery

Japanese Cemetery

and the Chinese cemetery where many of these early immigrants are buried.

Entrance to Chinese Cemetery

Then it is off to see Cable Beach where a multitude of tourist accommodation exists. 

Cable Beach

It’s easy to see why the tourists flock to this beach with its 22 kms of white sand.  And for those wanting to splash out one can rent a slice of beach complete with beach umbrella and lounge.  At sunset one can also take a camel ride along the beach.  The advertising blurb says it is the perfect way to enjoy a romantic sunset.  This we seriously doubt!  We have taken a camel trek in Egypt and there is no way you can convince us that one would be concentrating on anything other than one’s sore posterior.  We leave the pure white sand and azure waters of Cable Beach and make for the port area.  Along the way we spot this beautiful bougainvillea

Pink and White bougainvillea

and boab tree.

Boab Tree at Cable Beach

At the port there is a fairly decent jetty

Deep Water Jetty at Broome

and some really neat rock outcrops.

Rocky outcrop near the jetty

We head back to camp for a late lunch and give Mitzi a really good interior cleanup.  One can’t have those Mitsubishi service guys thinking that she isn’t being looked after now can one!  Now Mitzi is sparkling inside and out.  So what do we do?  We take her out onto a dirt road to Gantheaume Point.

Rocks at Gantheaume Point

We walk along the track past the lighthouse and clamber down the rocks to Anastasia’s Pool.  This round pool was hacked out of the rock by a former lighthouse keeper so that his arthritic wife could bathe.

Robyn tries out Anastasia's pool - minus the water

The pool was well above the high tide mark so we wondered if it ever got filled with water?  But this is not the reason we have come to Gantheaume Point.  At very low tides one can climb down the cliff face to the rocks below and see 130 million year old dinosaur footprints.  And as luck would have it we have timed our visit to Broome with two days of very low tides – so here we are scrambling down the cliff and endangering life and limb on extremely slippery rocks to see some dead dinosaur footprints.  Ooops!  Wok takes a tumble … but he is a trooper and is up again in a flash with no major damage.  After what seems like an eternity we finally make it to where some people are standing around taking photographs.  A dead giveaway that there is something worthwhile photographing.  Yep!  This is them!  Two sets of dinosaur footprints …

We found them - Dinosaur footprints!

This one is from a Theropod

A Theropod footprint

and this one is from a Megalosauropus Broomensis

A Megalosauropus Broomensis footprint

We scouted around looking for more footprints which were supposed to be visible and found some likely looking prospects but to be honest they could have just been natural indentations in the rock.  We figured that we really had better get a wriggle on as the tide was starting to come back in and the sun was getting low on the horizon.  So along with the many other intrepid rock walkers we cautiously made our way back up the cliff face over the slippery rocks. 

Making our way up to the top of the cliff

Think we had better mention that again –  VERY SLIPPERY rocks.  And no!  Wok didn’t take a tumble again but we did see many others that did!  We rested for a while at the top of the cliff to watch the sun set

Watching the sun set at Gantheaume Point

before heading back to camp for a nice relaxing evening watching the Olympics.  The next day we are off to see some real live dinosaurs at the Malcolm Douglas Wilderness Park.

Now that's what we call an entrance foyer!

There are lots of crocodiles in lovely slime green covered ponds and Robyn gets to hold a baby croc

Robyn with a baby croc - note the tape holding its jaws shut

before we latch onto the croc feeding tour.

They not only have crocs here - this is an alligator!

The crocs in the main pond certainly seemed keen on having a bit of fish for dinner

My what great big teeth you have!

and Zooey liked his piece of fish but seemed to be wanting a change of diet.

Just look at the size of this croc sizing up the keeper for dinner  ...

We were pretty impressed with the ‘salties’ and will not be taking any quick swims in the rivers and oceans while we are up here in the north.  That night we watched the full moon rise over the exposed mud flats creating the optical illusion of stairs reaching to the moon.

Staircase to the Moon

We couldn’t think of a better way to finish our stay in Broome.