Broome - Cable Beach

An early walk into town before breakfast and the heat of the day started our morning. We visited the Broome museum which had a lot of good down to earth historical facts. Pearls were the major industry here and there were a few stories about forced labour of the local indigenous guys to dive. It was interesting to understand the pearl shell was almost as valuable as the actual pearls as it was used for buttons, handles, and hair combs until plastic was invented.

There was a video about the ladies who worked in the telephone exchange. It was a really interesting slice of Broome life through the 70s and 80's. One story tickled my fancy, they were often asked to be baby sitters, the parents would call the exchange saying the children were asleep and they were heading to the so and so's. The phone was left connected to the exchange and could they check for crying every so often and call them if needed. Not sure how that would go down now?

In the restored sail making building was some now and then photographs. Looking at the main street in 1978 you would swear it was the wild west. No footpaths and numerous tin shacks for shops. It has had quite a facelift since then.

Cable Beach was named after the second undersea Cable installed in 1889 to link Australia with the rest of the world. It was run to Java and only took 10 days to lay. What was fascinating was that there was a local telephone service quite early in Broome but to talk to the rest of Australia needed to be via Morse code until 1959. This town was truly a very isolated area for a long time. Even in the 1970s not many people ventured here.

WW2 also saw Broome attacked by Japanese warplanes. Over 80 people were killed and all planes destroyed during the only attack. Most killed were civilians as at the time there were a lot of Dutch refugees that had fled Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) ahead of the occupation. They landed in Broome and were waiting for their planes to continue south the following day.

After lunch it was time to feel the sea and sand of Cable Beach. The water was refreshing and clean with some good breakers that dumped us both a few times. There were lifeguards on duty too so a lot of eyes looking out for us.

After a grocery shop and a shopping mall discovery we headed home to relax. The sun and sea does tire us.
After dinner we walked down to the nearby town beach where the night market is on and also this week is the Shinju Matsuri festival. This celebrates culture, history and the beauty of Broome. There was a lot of people and food stalls with live music.

Tomorrow is a very early start as we get picked up for a flight and 4wd tour to Horizontal falls.Leer más