Sunset Camels On Cable Beach

We can feel ourselves unwinding and slowing the pace at Oaks Cable Beach Lagoon. I fell asleep on the pool lounge whilst Jen sits on the edge of the pool and reads her book. Bliss.

In the afternoon, we walk down to Cable Beach to catch sunset and search for camels. The sun drops quickly from 4.00pm and we spot a train of camels being ridden up the beach and way off in the distance.

Cable Beach is very flat and with the tide out, it’s used as a highway for four wheel drives to enter the beach and park up for sunset. We hike up the beach to get photos of the camel trains as they pass us by and the sunset creates great silhouettes and shadows on the sand.

Sunset Camel rides on Cable Beach are the most popular tourist attraction up here in Broome and as we don’t feel like being tourists, we resist. It’s fun just following them and getting panoramic shots of the camels and their riders.

It’s estimated that more than one million feral camels roam the Australian Outback causing degradation to the land and wildlife.

Between 1870 and 1920, as many as 20,000 camels were imported into Australia from the Arabian Peninsula, India and Afghanistan. Camels were ideally suited to the climate of the Australian interior; they could go weeks without water, and they had the stamina and strength to carry their loads and riders across what were often highly exposed, fiercely hot landscapes.

Laden camels became a fixture of outback life. They carried wool and water, telegraph poles and railway sleepers, tea and tobacco.

By the 1930s, however, the camel industry went belly-up. The arrival of the internal combustion engine, and motorised transport, meant camels became almost redundant as pack-carriers.

Thousands of camels were released into the wild, where, naturally, they thrived. Fast forward nine decades, and their numbers have ballooned and have become a major environmental problem.Read more