BROOME TO PORT HEDLAND

We are now on the trip south from Broome toward Perth. Broome is a lovely little town of about 14,000 people but the population rises to about 50,000 over the dry season which is April – November approximately. It is an old town which was formed in 1883 when the largest pearl shell in the world was discovered. In the first decade of the 20th century Broome produced 80% of the world’s Mother of Pearl shell. This was used mainly for buttons. The pearls themselves were only a small part of the business as not all shells held a pearl. At one stage there were 403 pearl boats working out of Broome. The divers on these luggers had a hell of a life. Aboriginals were used first and at one stage pearling masters were going into the communities and abducting these men to work on their ships. Most of the pearling masters were English and lived the old British aristocratic lifestyle in Broome. A law was passed that Aboriginals could not be taken forcibly so Japanese divers were bought in. These men were fearless and although the dangers of drowning, sharks, cyclones and the “bends” were always there, the Japanese worked on the pearl luggers until the 70s, except for the war years, when they were put into internment camps. The divers suits were very heavy and as well as all the warm clothing that had to be worn underneath, the extra weight was over 165kgs. Most of these men would only weigh about 75kg so it was not an easy job! When plastic buttons were developed in the 1950s that sealed the fate of the Mother of Pearl industry but with the advent of the cultured pearl in the 1970s, Broome was back into pearl production. We went on a tour looking at the life of a pearl diver and then visited a cultured pearl farm. It was all so interesting and it is now obvious to me why pearls are so expensive. There are dozens of shops selling cultured pearls in Broome. I have enclosed a photo of me holding a pearl worth $100,000!
As this is the “dry season”, rain was the last thing on our minds, but with climate change anything is possible and in the first 10 days of July, Broome had had its wettest July ever. Water was everywhere with roads flooded and caravan parks under water. Unlike at home, the water just wouldn’t drain away. Friends, Carole & Laurie, who were in the same caravan park as us, were in the middle of a lake with their annexe under water. It made it very difficult getting in and out for “happy hour” but it’s amazing what one can do in an emergency!
Broome is famous for its sunsets and camel rides on the beach. We had to be there for 8 days before we saw a sunset owing to the cloud, but it was worth waiting for. Jim & I also had a camel ride on the beach. It was lots of fun as long as you held on very tightly as the camel stands up and sits down. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
We went to the local outdoor cinema in Broome. The theatre is very old and all the seats are deckchairs where you can lie back under the stars and watch the movie. We saw “A Bran Nue Dae” which starred Ernie Dingo, who some of you may have seen on travel documentaries. It was a great “feel good” movie.
We had booked to take the tent and travel up to Cape Leveque on the Dampier Peninsular for 2 nights, but that plan had to be abandoned as the road was closed owing to the bad weather. We were really disappointed as we had booked that trip way back in February and worked our time in Broome around the dates. We can’t control the weather though.
Our next stop after Broome was Barn Hill Station about 120kms south of Broome on the coast. We had heard only good reports about this unique place and they weren’t wrong. We had to drive 10kms. along a red dirt road with the van on the back to reach the caravan park. The camp is on a working cattle station and we often had Brahman cattle wander through the park looking for greener pastures. It is really a place to be seen to be believed. It sports a bowling green, which is always busy, a reception area and a little shop that sold limited groceries and the most amazing lamingtons and sausage rolls. There are no marked sites as such, you just squeeze them in where and if you can. The ablution blocks are something else. Some were unisex and some not but most of them had no roofs and were made of corrugated iron. The doors were most ingenious as none of them fitted at all well with large gaps leaving nothing to the imagination. The water for the showers was heated by either lighting a wood fire in a chimney or by black polythene hoses utilising the heat of the sun. A very basic solar plan. One night we were there over 200 vans were in the park. Some of the sites had beautiful sea views for which they had to pay extra but the beach was magic. Just blue skies and azure seas as far as one could see and lovely warm water to swim in. I don’t care how basic the camp was; it was worth every bit of it. They had entertainment on a couple of nights a week; roast dinners and BBQs. We loved it so much we stayed there twice as long as we planned.
It was then on to Eighty Mile Beach which is self-explanatory really. Another 10 km. trek on a dirt road but the approach to this camp showed us the damage done by a cyclone in December last. 285km an hour wind gusts hit this camp and palm trees and other vegetation are still lying where they were thrown. I have posted a photo to show the bare trees. Luckily no-one was at the park when the cyclone struck as it is closed during the wet season so no-one was killed. It’s shocking to see the damage that was done. It is now business as usual again and the camp was full the whole time we were there. It is a very popular fishing spot but no swimming is allowed as there are stingrays; sharks; and stingers everywhere. The beach is covered in shells and we have collected quite a number of beautiful shells to hopefully take home.
We are now in Port Hedland which is the main port for iron ore from the Pilbara region. Even though it is mainly a mining town, it is a very interesting town and I look forward to telling you all about it in my next blog.
Travelling in the same direction as we are around Australia are hundreds of others doing the same thing and lots of time you meet up with the same people again and again. It’s good to catch up and swap notes and often make life long friends. We have done this again this year and my Contact List is getting bigger.
Lots of caravanners have names for their vans or different titles on the back. We have seen some very clever ones like “Runaway Grandparents”; “This is the kid’s inheritance” and the funniest (I think anyway) “Adventure in Dementia” Love it.

RIGHT ACROSS THE TOP

What an amazing few weeks we have had since my last blog. We have driven over 2500 kms. from Katherine in the centre of Australia right across the top, with side trips to Wyndham and Derby, to Broome which is at the top of the west coast of Australia. Our travels have taken us through the Kimberley area of North Western Australia, with some of the most amazing scenery we have ever seen. More of that later as I am getting a bit ahead of myself.
We left Katherine on a beautiful cloudless day with blue skies as far as the eye could see. We drove through the Gregory National Park with its colourful escarpments to Victoria River Roadhouse, an idyllic spot on the Victoria River. We had considered stopping there but as it was only 10.30am, we decided to carry on to Timber Creek. Wrong move! Timber Creek consists of 2 caravan parks, a roadhouse, fuel station and not much else. We chose the wrong caravan park as we only discovered the other one later. Our park was beside the hotel, which was one the worst outback hotels we have seen. It is now owned and administered jointly with an aborigine group who seem to be able to drink at any time of the day or night, buy as much alcohol as their car will hold, then drive home with the police reluctant to step in. A big van called the “Black Maria”, owned by the elders of the community, calls at the hotel late at night to pick up those who can’t stand up or don’t own a car. It is so pitiful and sad to see so many of these people slowly killing themselves. The children are taken to the pub as well. They obviously don’t need to go to school and they are parked out the front with a big bag of fries. We were told later that this was not a common occurrence and there must have some form of family celebration that day. To add to the dramas of the day when I turned on my power adaptor to charge up my laptop, it promptly blew the overload switch in the van and all the lights. I think it was either a power surge or a change in the voltage from the power in the caravan park. I don’t know how it didn’t fry my hard drive, but thankfully it didn’t. You can understand why I wasn’t totally enamoured with Timber Creek. I then had to order a replacement power adaptor and get it when I got to Broome in about 3 weeks time! No computer till then.
The next day we moved onto a free camp under an escarpment in Gregory National Park. It was a lovely spot and we shared it with about 25 other vans. Campfires and sitting under the stars, what more could anyone ask for?
We then crossed over into Western Australia where the border is policed with quarantine officers. Fresh fruit, vegetables, honey and certain types of wood cannot be bought in WA so these officials go through your car and caravan with a fine tooth comb checking everything out. We also had to put our clocks back 1 ½ hours as we crossed the border. That’s a big change and made for quite a long day.
Our first stop in WA was Kununurra, a town that was built in the 1960s for the Ord River Irrigation scheme. It has grown to a very busy tourist centre with a population of about 6000 and has market gardens, sandalwood trees and mangoes. The Ord River was dammed in 1971 to form a storage reservoir supplying water to Lake Argyle, the biggest man made lake in Australia. When formed it flooded Argyle Station, a one million acre cattle station owned by the Durack family. The family home, which was built in 1884, has been completely rebuilt, stone by stone, near Lake Argyle and is now a museum. Lake Argyle is a beautiful spot, especially when viewed from the numerous lookouts that have been built around it. We were told that the water in the lake would fill Sydney Harbour between 19 to 22 times. It is a huge complex. While in Kununurra we visited Hoochery Distillery, an old country and western type saloon bar, which makes rum. The rum liqueurs were very moorish! We also visited Zebra Rock Gallery where we met Ron Valentine and his wife. Ron worked with Jim in the police at Porirua. Small world again. Across the road from our caravan park was the Mirima National Park where we spent an afternoon walking and climbing over rock formations. We then went on a sunset BBQ cruise on the Ord River. It was a lovely evening and we saw hundreds of fruit bats flying off into the sunset. As I said there are lots of mango farms in the area and the fruit bats are a real problem.
Our next stop was Wyndham, which wasn’t quite like the way the glossy brochures painted it. This town is the most northerly town in WA . It ha the most amazing lookout where you can see 5 rivers merging into one and a great little museum but not much else. The town is dying and there are few shops and amenities left in it.
The Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park was our next destination. This park has been on our “to do” list since our friends, Rachel and Jim, told us about it after their visit to it in 2006. It was the reason we bought a caravan and 4WD instead of a motorhome as you need a 4WD to travel the dreadful road conditions and caravans are not allowed. We did see a Holden ute attempt it but he only made it as far as the first river crossing! We took our tent with us and stored our van for 2 nights. It takes between 2 and 3 hours to drive the 53 kms. into the park, depending on the weather and road conditions, but boy it was worth it. This national park only became popular in 1988 after a TV documentary, and now has World Heritage listing. It was magic with all the tiger-striped, beehive-shaped rock domes. The colour changes depending on the direction of the sun. We walked in there for 2 days but only in the mornings, as by lunch time the temperature was in the mid 30s and far too hot. There are 2 camping areas in the park with only toilets and bore water. We had to take in all our food, water and equipment with us. We cooked on either our camp cooker or around the campfire where we shared damper, marshmallows and even a birthday cake! It was great and has to be the highlight of our Aussie trips so far.
Fitzroy Crossing was our next stop. The van park here was lovely with green grass and lots of water. Thank you Peter and Marilyn with your suggestion on this one! Our first shower after 4 days was just the best ever. Three loads of very dirty, dusty washing later and we were all set to start again. We went for a cruise up the Geikie Gorge on the Fitzroy River which was lovely. Once again the setting sun shining on the rock formations made it a special place. To illustrate that some great things are being achieved by Aboriginal communities we visited an artist’s co-operative called Mangkaja Arts Resource Centre where about 12 women were working on their paintings. This centre has been created to encourage the younger people to learn about their culture and history. One lady was working on the most beautiful painting. It was about the size of a large coffee table and the lady in charge said it would probably sell for about $5000. Very impressive.
It was then on to Derby, a town of about 5000 whose claim to fame is that it has the highest tidal range in Australia, the highest being over 11 metres. We watched the tide turn from low and it’s amazing how quickly the huge harbour fills up. Derby is also the gateway to the Horizontal Waterfalls in the Buccaneer Archipelago; Winjama Gorge and the Gibb River Road, which is a shorter route to Wyndham, but it is a dirt road for most of the way and not recommended for normal caravans. We visited the Boab Prison Tree while in Derby. These trees are huge trees with a bulbous shaped trunk and are only found between Broome and The Victoria River Basin in the Northern Territory. The one in Derby was supposed to have been used by police in the early 1900s to keep Aboriginal prisoners in overnight while they were being moved to and from Derby. Not a very nice experience I am sure. I have included it in my photos.
We had a very interesting experience while we were in Derby. We were sitting outside having a drink with friends, as you do on the road, when we were approached by an older Aboriginal woman and a man about 30. The man had 3 or 4 paintings with him and was trying to sell them. We were very impressed by his artistic ability and as the price was considerably lower than other pieces we had seen, we bought one. Jim noticed a stamp on the back suggesting it had come from a local prison. The artist told us he had been to prison a few times and had just come out after doing 10 months. We didn’t ask why he had been in there but taking people at face value, he seemed a likeable chap. The lady was his grandmother and they both told us the meaning of the painting and a lot of their family history. It was a most interesting evening and as our friends bought a painting too, quite a successful one for the artist.
Jim & I went to the Derby Bush Races last Saturday. It was a lot of fun. There was Fashion in the Field prizes for the best dressed woman, man and child so there was some quite fancy outfits there. Most race-goers would have been visitors though and shorts, t-shirts and Akubras were the order of the day. We really enjoyed the experience.
We are now in Broome. My computer is once more doing its normal thing and it is raining heavily, which is not normal. We have had temperatures as high as 35C over the past few weeks so it is a shock to have it drop to 19C! We are staying here for a week so I will be able to tell you all about it in my next blog.