Sunday 11 August 2013

23 July – 27 July 2013 – Broome (cont…)



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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