Stats Overview
Km's Travelled: 1250
Km's Hiked: none...again. Just walks on the beach this week!
No. of Camps: 3
The Adventures
We have had a much more exciting week this week exploring Broome and its surrounds. There is certainly a lot to see and experience and we have been enjoying the highlife being back in a "tourist centre"...although our bank balance begs to differ!
One of the big attractions for coming to Broome was to learn about pearls and the history of pearling in the area. One of the most spectacular displays of pearl shells we saw was located in the Catholic church at Beagle Bay just north of Broome. The whole altar and other parts of the church has been decorated with mother-of-pearl along with other types of shells which makes it one of the most unique and beautiful churches we have ever seen! To learn more about pearls, we ended up going on a couple of different tours - one to a cultured pearl farm and another one where we learnt about the history of pearling in Broome. It was interesting to discover that the original industry in Broome was the retrieval of the oyster shell for its mother-of-pearl rather than the pearl itself. The pearl shell was then exported and predominately used to manufacture buttons. Prior to WWI Broome actually supplied 80% of the mother-of-pearl for the worlds button supply! We also discovered that scientists are currently doing a lot of research into using mother-of-pearl for bone grafting treatments - all the grey nomads on our tour were very interested in that information! Now days the industry in Broome is focussed on growing pearl to use in jewellery, which we learnt about on our visit to the pearl farm. Aside from the nucleus, which is implanted into the oyster by technicians, the growth and quality of the pearl is up to each individual oyster. It was definitely fascinating stuff we learnt, although the highlight for me was visiting the showrooms with all the pearl jewellery. I don't think I have ever seen Will look so stressed as when we were given free range to check out all their products!
We were also lucky enough to time our visit to Broome with the "staircase to the moon" phenomena, which occurs when a full moon rises over the exposed mudflats at Town Beach on very low tides. As you will see below, we don't have a great picture to share with you, but watching the moon rise was a very special experience and worth the hype we had heard about it! We also spent some time on low tides exploring the beaches to find a few of the dinosaur footprints that litter the coastline around Broome. One of our other favourite experiences in Broome, was going to Coconut Wells which has a lagoon behind the sand dunes that only fills up on very high tides (9m+). We had heard that you can go out to the entrance of the lagoon and then float all the way back in on the incoming tide. However, when we arrived, there was only a little trickle of water to be seen, so we were pretty convinced we had been duped. However, we could see all these people taking their floaties and walking out towards the sea, so we decided to wait a little longer before leaving and were glad we did, because about 10 minutes later the water began rushing in and filling the lagoon! It filled so quickly that we ended up having to wade out through the water to get to the start to float back in. So it suddenly made sense why everyone was heading out while there was no water in the lagoon! When they say Broome's tides move quickly, they really do!
After 10 wonderful days spent around Broome, the parts for the caravan finally arrived which means we can finally hit the road again. Our travels through the Kimberley have definitely been our slowest to date, however, we are secretly relieved that we have been stuck where it is nice and warm! We are a bit sad but also excited to start exploring the next region of WA - the Pilbara.
Kodak Moments
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| Some of the dinosaur footprints. - Broome |
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| More dinosaur footprints - Broome |
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| The oysters are suspended in racks on a line and the turning tides rotate the oysters so that the pearl can form as round and even as possible. - Willie Creek Pearl Farm |
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| The holes are where the buttons were retrieved from the mother-of-pearl inside the oyster shell. - Broome |
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| I got to hold a pearl valued at $60,000! - Broome |
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| This pearl is valued at around $125,000...no one was allowed to touch it! - Willie Creek Pearl Farm |
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| This is an example of the diving suits that were originally worn by the pearl divers (they also wore about 50kgs of lead to help sink them to the ocean floor!!) and the breathing apparatus in the boat that had to be continually pumped to supply the divers with oxygen. - Broome |
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| This beautiful altar is covered in mother-of-pearl shells as are all the windows etc - Beagle Bay |
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| Another example of the use of shells to decorate the church. Even the flower petals are made from shell! - Beagle Bay |
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| Treated ourselves to a picnic while watching the sunset - Cable Beach |
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| Finally got to see the Barbie movie, and doing that in the world's oldest picture gardens was the icing on the cake! - Broome |
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| This is Coconut Wells about 1.5 hours before high tide...as you can see we were pretty underwhelmed when we arrived! - Coconut Wells |
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| This is the same area as the above photo, taken less than an hour later, after we had walked most of the way out and floated back in on the tide. - Coconut Wells |
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| Our attempt to get a photo of the "staircase to the moon" - Town Beach |
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