The exciting news of our day
today was that my Dad was coming to Broome to visit. We did a little bit of school work this
morning before heading to the airport after lunch to pick him up. Amazingly, Broome airport is only small and
you DON’T have to pay for parking – it’s not very often you don’t pay a fortune
to park at an airport! After picking him
up, we ducked back to the caravan to offload his bags before heading back into
town and having a bit of a walk around Chinatown. We passed the Streeters Jetty, many
monuments, lots of shops (mostly jewellery / pearl shops) and Sun Cinema for a
look inside. Josh ducked into Coles
again to pick up some groceries as we decided to head to the beach for dinner
and to watch the sunset again. There
were fewer people (and fewer dogs) tonight as it wasn’t the weekend but the
beach was as pretty as usual. Tonight
was the first of 3 consecutive nights of the “Stairway to the Moon” so after
dinner and watching the sunset over Cable Beach, we jumped into the car and
headed to Town Beach to catch the moon rising and the “stairs” appearing,
people were everywhere!
The following day we headed north
along the Dampier Peninsula to Willie Creek Pearl Farm to learn about how these
lovely jewels are formed. It was a very
bumpy and dusty ride along the corrugated road but once we got in there and saw
the crystal clear turquoise water and a bit of green grass, it occurred to me
that paradise was nearby. There is a
helipad at this spot for those that didn’t want to endure the red dusty drive
or for those wanting to see the pearl farm from the air – but we had to save
our money. We walked on in to reception,
which doubled as a pearl jewellery store, and purchased our tickets to the next
tour. Not long after, we headed down the
back of the property to a small shed area where we had our introductory lesson
to pearls. I learnt plenty about the 5
important characteristics when choosing a pearl such as the shape, shine, size,
surface and colour and then about the whole lengthy process of growing these
pearls in their pinctada maxima oyster shells.
At the end of our talk, we had a demonstration of how the pearl is
extracted from its shell. Sami
volunteered to give it a go and squeezed the pearl out of the gonad of the
oyster – hehe. Half way through we had a
bit of afternoon tea before getting taken out on the water to view where the
oyster shells are farmed and some of the surrounding waters – again, very
pretty! Once the tour was over we were
all taken into the jewellery shop and they had a few sample pieces, the most
expensive having a price tag of $39,600… which was placed around Zoe’s
neck. I tried to encourage her to make a
run for it but she is just way to honest!!
Pa bought both the girls a birthday present of a lovely freshwater pearl
bracelet before we left and went for a drive further north. We ended up at James Price Point, one of the
most stunning places I’ve seen thus far on our trip but unfortunately under threat of a gas mine site. It is on the west coast, has lovely white
sand, low rocks entering into the water, extremely clear blue water and lovely
high red cliffs… it’s just stunning!
There were a couple of “free-campers” at the top of the cliff, one in
particular who had been there since Easter.
I can see why he stays… It was
late afternoon when we made the trek back into Broome. Steve, Jo & Madee invited us to join them
at Broome night markets for the viewing of the stairway to the moon again
tonight. Fortunately they saved us a bit
of room to put our chairs – if they hadn’t we would have been behind hundreds
of other people struggling to see anything.
If only we had have taken a good photo, you could all see what the fuss
was about.
Our following day was a bit of a
lazy day doing schoolwork and at one stage Josh and Dad went out for a
bit. This afternoon, I took the girls to
the pool for a while to play whilst I sat and did some reading. We were invited to Venitah and Phil’s house
tonight for a curry night. They must
have had about 14 of us there for dinner and they were the best curries I’d
ever had. They had gone to so much
effort to prepare all the food. They,
along with their other friends were all fantastic company and we had a really
wonderful night – even better seeing as though Josh drove.
Friday rolled around too quickly. I managed a few haircuts this morning on both
Josh and Dad before heading into Broome for a few things and then onto the
Broome horse races – and it was, of course, another fine sunny day. We had planned to meet Steve, Jo and Madee
there for the day and I would say that their overall winning luck was better
than ours. There were plenty of people
here and as per the Hawkesbury races, even had a bit of entertainment happening
on the stage. Last race finished around
5.30pm – we didn’t hang around afterwards for the two-up or blackjack til 9PM (how
good is that). Instead we headed across
the road to the beach for another dinner watching the sun set – something I
don’t think we could ever get bored of.
Steve went off to find some firewood and gee I was thankful for
that. Once the sun goes down, I find it
a bit cool – unlike all the other tourists from down south. We enjoyed a lovely dinner, a few drinks and
another fine sunset…
The weekend approached and we
first went to the Broome markets so that Dad could have a bit of a look
around. Zoe made the purchase of the day
which is a stone flute – a handmade stone that has holes in it which when
played sounds similar to a flute. After
a couple of hours here we headed to the Broome Historical Museum to learn about
the Japanese influence on the town and a bit more about the history in pearl
diving in its early days. The kids were given
a clipboard with a sheet of items that they had to find in the museum… that
kept them amused for a while so that I could actually read some of the
information without being tortured with “can we go yet?” or “how much longer?”. Our next stop was at the Japanese
cemetery. It was lovely even though we
couldn’t understand any of the writing on the headstones. We continued our traipse around town, this
time to Cable Beach to see the high tide – which is so different to the
plentiful sand that you see at low tide.
There was just enough room to get the cars on the beach and no room now
for playing Frisbee, cricket or take the dogs for a walk. We continued on and went to Gantheum
Point. This is a stunning point to view
Cable Beach from a distance. Lots of big
red, layered, rocky cliffs jut out into the water. There was a young group of people taking the
plunge and jumping straight off the edge into the cool water below, which is
not possible to do at low tide. We
missed it, but apparently there are dinosaur footprints here at Gantheum Point
at low tide but you need to pick a very low tide to come and witness these. We walked along the rocks for a while, then
sat and enjoyed the sun and scenery.
There is one lonely property on this point overlooking the water and it
is just stunning – I bet worth a fortune.
There is also a lighthouse here where a couple of big eagles have built
enormous nests and claimed it as their homes.
It was getting late in the afternoon and we were all pretty hungry after
a big morning of exploring so found a great little fish and chip shop near
Coles and sat down for lunch – their gravy was divine. We ducked into Coles to grab a few things for
dinner then headed back to the van to put our feet up. Tonight we had Steve, Jo and Madee over for a
farewell drink. It was a bit
heartbreaking when Madee had to say goodbye to the girls and she was
inconsolable – so, so sweet! I’m sure we
will meet these lovely people again somewhere on the road or back in Victoria.
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