A New Broome

I fear that I must confess to a previous appalling lack of curiosity to and lack of knowledge of Australian War Time history. Did you know that Broome was bombed by the Japanese during the second world war too? I didn’t I am ashamed to say and with all the history I discovered in Carnarvon surrounding the war and this, I wonder what on earth we were taught in school. How is it that Darwin gets all the kudos for its bombs and nowhere else! In my humble opinion it is as strange as it is negligent.

Jenny duly arrived in Broome, and we set out to have an utterly marvellous time AND we certainly did!! We did everything from playing ladies in China town to being bogged up to the axels in sand while visiting a pearl farm! From the instant she landed the time flew as fast as I have ever seen it fly!

I was last in Broome approximately 25 years ago and I can attest to the enormous change this place has undergone during those 25 years. When I was here last time it was small and old – homey and a bit hippy almost. The shopping strip was just that – a single strip, wooden and small. I remember distinctly Paspely pearls in the one on the end. It was either first or last depending on the direction that you approached it. I do remember a shopping centre, but that was some walk from the shopping strip and was strictly utilitarian in its presentation, the wooden shops could not make that claim. I can’t say that the changes have been for the better, or perhaps I am just an old-fashioned gal!

Having said all that Broome has had a monumental facelift! A fellow tourist had mentioned to me that a hurricane might have prompted the facelift, and that seems as good as reason as any, but the population must have exploded too, for Broome is not small any more it is a small to medium city. It is diffuse with no grid system and evolution seeming to be its major design principle so that Siri of Google Maps becomes your best friend as you navigate to different locations. It is no longer rustic; it is swish and urbane.

Needless to say, we were in a caravan park I couldn’t put Jenny through the joys of camping on the side of the road! As it was poor Jenny had to mange the annex and the grandkids beds. We were staying about 30Ks out of Broome. Our park did not have any of the manicured lawns of the Broome parks but lots of red dirt! It didn’t have power but that is what generators are for, but it did have water and it was cheap compared to the astronomical prices in Broome.

So, after a 20-minute drive we were able to explore the delights of this oasis in the Kimberly. We explored the town beach on foot, because I was getting the car serviced, which is gorgeous. The water is the deepest bluey green and simply sparkles in the sun. The sand is white and fine so that it just runs through your toes. We sat in a lovely coffee shop looking over the water and did brunch, as you do! We took a stroll to the pioneer cemetery and wandered Broome’s brand-new peer – it certainly had a pristine feel to it and was filled with amateur fishers. From this peer we could look across the bay to the working port of Broome where we could see a vessel patiently waiting for its cargo of live cattle. It was a grim site for me, but I suppose one of great income for the farmer. It was a jarring juxtaposition seeing the grim reality side by side with the urbane sophistication of Broome.

While we were in Broome there was a magnificent display by the moon. It was full and large, like a giant Christmas bauble hanging low in the sky. It is at town beach that you can go and look at it in its full glory. The light that the moon borrows from the sun reflects on the ripples on the water in the bay and some marketing guru came up with the term ‘Stairway to the Moon’ to explain the extraordinary tableau of the lines of light catching the top edge of the ripple finishing at the moon. Of course, there are markets to go with the phenomenon and the coffee shop goes full tilt at this time too! The crowds love it!

We took a drive to Derby so Jenny could see the glorious landscape, rivers, and a town that while reasonably close to Broome bears no resemblance in landscape, ambiance and good fortune. We learned there about the terrors of blackbirding in the pearl industry and saw the prison boab tree. An ancient specimen, thought to possibly be a thousand years old where the poor enslaved First Nations peoples taken forcibly from their beach side homes were chained to this tree on the arduous journey to Broome.

I also learned at this spot that the Boabs storing the water in their trunks forms a spongy type of consistency to the body of the trunk and the ingenious First Nations would use this as a type of jam, for it is reputed to be quite sweet!

Derby’s pier is utilitarian and obscure and was lined with locals fishing. You could actually tell the locals from the tourists as the locals used a hand line and the tourists a fishing rod! We had a lovely conversation with some First Nations young woman patiently fishing there.

We had a couple of sessions at the glorious Cable Beach – where Jenny swam, but I read a book, it must be awfully hot for me to undergo the inconvenience of bathers, waves, and sand. I must say that sitting on that beautiful beach reading an engrossing book while listening to the gentle thud of the waves was like a little slice of Heaven. Every so often I would look out at that beautiful stretch of ocean sparkling in the sun and watch with no small amount of envy an ostentatious vessel drifting on its anchor. I would imagine the individuals, tanned, and toned languidly sipping champagne and enjoying the peace of that ocean. It really is a swish part of the world and the 25 years since I have been there has seen a proliferation of very fine homes crowding out what was lovely bush land for if memory serves there was just a pub there 25 years ago that welcomed surfers and the other plebs making the pilgrimage to Cable Beach.

We decided we must visit a pearl farm having made the trek to Broome. We set out for the Willie Creek Pearl Farm. It turned out to be quite an adventure as it is not imperiously situated on the Broome foreshore but on an obscure estuary that requires the navigation of a long red dirt road turned to corrugations with the rains and had our teeth jangling, then turning into what looks for all the world like a driveway but is yet another adventure in itself as it is a lengthy drive through thick, soft, slippery sand. Eventually you arrive at a positive oasis in the middle of nowhere. It is a lovely building surrounded by palm trees on the estuary. You can see the pearl farms from the shore and then you can recover from the journey in a lovely, shaded coffee shop. Of course, there is a shop and we browsed longingly at the gorgeous pearls grown right there. I mentioned to Jenny that I had seen one worth $60K and was thinking of sorting through the change in my purse to purchase it! When the fellow behind the desk overheard me and showed us one worth $150K. To my philistine eye I must quietly say I could see no difference between the 2 but he explained that shape, colour, consistency and size are all the determining factors and I absolutely believed him! It was on the way out of there that I got bogged in the sand. By the time I had dug around the wheels, put branches under the wheels, and tried the tow rope on my super-duper jack I was dirty, sticky and had sand sticking to my lippy (a girl must do her best!) which was most uncomfortable and sophisticated feeling had well and truly had ebbed away. A kind man from Kathryn in the NT towed us out eventually and we braved the road out of there. It was an extraordinary, sophisticated, interesting, adventurous place well worth the visit but don’t attempt it if you are not in a 4-wheel drive!

Replacing the area where the old shops used to be is the most un-Chinese Chinatown I have ever been to. It is also much bigger than what was there. There are novelty shops, galleries, and coffee shops galore and not a chop stick in sight just a sign telling you that it is Chinatown. Given the history in Broome and expertise of the Japanese divers in the establishment of the Pearling Industry I had to wonder why it was Chinatown and not Japan Town. (Satisfying my taphophile tendencies we had visited the Japanese Cemetery which like all that I admire in Japanese style is austere and beautiful, but the head stones are unreadable). But Chinatown it is!

Jenny and I had a ball and indeed we did talk ourselves silly as well as exploring Broome and surrounds. We made lovely friends in the caravan park as we were there for such an extended time and it was with great sadness that I took Jenny back to the airport and bid our new acquaintances goodbye. I am now back in the wilderness in one of the remotest parts of our great land on my way to Fitzroy Crossing. I write this blog camped beside on ancient Boab tree – it must b e 10 feet around the thickest part of the trunk and as I ponder, I can look up through the branches of the tree to a clear blue-sky tinting to pink as the sun starts its descent. I love this extraordinary land!