Broome - camels on Cable and more..

A couple of hundred km down the road from Derby and we arrived in Broome, our home for the next week. The town itself reminded Brad of Byron Bay, similar vibe, although instead of surf shops, there were pearl stores as pearling was one of the main industries in the early days. The industry was important not for the pearl itself as natural pearls were hard to come by, but for the shell which were used for buttons. Once plastic was invented, pearl buttons became more or less obsolete.

So, in Broome we did the iconic camel ride on Cable Beach. Didn't do the sunset one because it was booked out, but the late afternoon ride was fine. Fairly sedate, it was a pleasant experience.

We visited the museum, which apart from the pearl industry, told stories of when it was bombed during the war (a few weeks after Darwin was bombed). I didn't know this part of history (but of course Brad did). The Japanese bombed a number of Catalina flying boats that were carrying Dutch refugees from Dutch East Indies. There is a memorial on the foreshore near the town beach jetty to these refugees.

There is also an area south of Cable Beach where there are dinosaur footprints although they can only be seen at very low tide. Couldn't find them but there is a cast of the prints, and the surrounding rock formations with the colour of the water and contrasting sand was interesting to look at.

The main reason for going to Broome was to do a tour to the horizontal falls. As it was a big day, I'll include it in a separate footprint.Read more