Turn back the universe and give me yesterday

Day 167 - Broome

Another day in our new Broome paradise dawns and we hear the delightful chuckles from Zali & Lachie in the camp trailer behind us! Kids laughing, the best sound in the world.

Being creatures of habit, we get up, get showered and then Dar sticks the kettle on for his morning cup of coffee! Getting a little too predictable? Well the day has to start somewhere!

As today is Saturday, the Courthouse Markets are on. Dar is of course overjoyed at the prospect of walking around more stalls looking at pretty things! It turns out to be quite a nice morning for just wandering around and there are some interesting stalls to keep us entertained. One really catches my eye with its flowing sarongs all beautifully and artistically painted by a local Aboriginal lady, Sally Bin Demin. Her husband is the ‘sales rep’ today and in his younger days he worked as a pearl diver. Wow, that’s legendary stuff around here. His wife has already written her autobiography, “Once in Broome” and he will shortly be publishing his. How exciting to meet a ‘real’ pearl diver.

Nige remarks that it’s unusual for a market to be without a didg player and as if by magic one strikes up at that exact moment! He’s very good and seems a little familiar. We check out his details and Belinda gets excited when she spots he’s selling copies of the DVD ‘Sharkwater’ which is raising awareness about shark finning. At just $1 we grab a couple to check out later. The tag line is ‘The truth will surface’ and it’s a sort of documentary featuring the Greenpeace associated Sea Shepherd crew. There’s also a ‘Stop Shark Finning’ petition for us to sign and our stomachs turn as we read the literature describing how the live sharks have their fins cut off and are then thrown back into the sea to drown and die. Shark finning provides the fins for use in Shark Fin soup which in some far Eastern cultures is traditionally highly regarded and a way of honouring special guests or marking special occasions. Shark populations in some areas have declined by up to 80% as a result of this revolting, wasteful and inhuman practise. We signed the petition and hope that some good comes of it.

There are still lots that haven’t done around Broome, including the Historical Museum so that’s the next stop this morning once we’ve finished a visit to a local produce stall where we taste several chutneys and jams for free! Yum!

Our journey to the museum is temporarily diverted when we spot a sign for an Op Shop (second hand shop), bit of a surprise because we were given the impression from the visitor centre staff that there weren’t any in Broome so followed the sign to see where it led! Generally found to be full of ‘bargains’ if you catch them on a good day, we’re looking for a guitar, a gas ring and a pair of board shorts but instead come out with a 12 volt fridge for $10, a book with walks around Perth and a double doona cover for when we’re in the tent! We should have thought of checking out Op Shops when we kitted out the caravan originally!

When we got to the museum the Elliott’s were waiting for us outside so we explained the reason for our delay and were quickly forgiven, they’re big fans of Op Shops too! Housed in a building erected in the 1890’s, the museum is jam packed with interesting items from yester-year. Broome has a long history in the pearling industry and the headline displays feature a full diver’s suit complete with ‘bell’ style helmet and the mechanisms used for lowering them down into the ocean. It was such a dangerous line of work and many divers lost their lives because of the depths they needed to go to and the regularity. Getting the bends was a common occurrence. There are some fine examples of pearls and mother of peal here some of which are worth a lot of money. Later we found some details of the wages paid to the divers but it was worked on a scale system so a bit difficult to figure out but the basics seemed to suggest £13 per dive and then it was dependant on the quantity of shells brought to the surface. For an overall haul of 11 tonnes a diver would receive £51 per tonne. That must have been a lot of money back in those days. Strange also that it was shown in £’s not $’s.

The museum tries to capture the overall history of Broome through the ages and local hero Robin Millar is documented within one of the many folders here. Known as the Sugar Bird Lady, she was a young flying nurse who dedicated her time to helping vaccinate the remote areas in Western Australia and flew some 68’000kms. She was given her nickname because of the sugar cubes soaked with the pink Sabin anti poliomyelitis vaccine she would deposit from the plane. She sadly passed away from cancer at the age of 34 but is remembered with a fitting tribute at Jandakot airport near Perth so we’ll try to check that out when we’re down that way.

Sadly we’re not allowed to take photos within the museum so we can’t show you the beautiful room dedicated to one of the founders which featured the music sheet with today’s blog title, nor can we share with you the fabulous array of precious pearls or the full size pearl divers suit but it was all very impressive.

We dragged ourselves out of the museum after an easy couple of hours and said goodbye to the nice volunteer lady behind the counter with her snoring dog alongside!

Back at camp we headed straight for the pool to check it out for the first time in our visit here. It’s pretty big, not too crowded and has a waterfall you can swim under and then sit inside looking out! Great fun for the little and ‘bigger’ kids!

Another day, another sunset but the Cable Beach sunsets are pretty special so we grabbed the bikes and set off in search of the beach via a different route. We didn’t get it quite right and ended up on a road to nowhere but managed to find the Broome Animal Sanctuary and a rather interesting looking house sign for ‘Smokey, Alison, Nienke, Melanie & Jaye, two mongrel dogs & diverse creatures & plants’! Beautiful! In our search for the beach we found a sandy track which with some effort would have led us over the sand dunes and down onto a secluded part of the 22km long Cable Beach! I think the words Darryl used were ‘Bugger that, lets go back to the road’ but only once we’d pushed the bikes up to the top of the first sand dune!

Sunset was well worth the effort and we got another look at the camels which Broome is now so famous for.

A quick check on the internet has us laughing with a message from our good friends Tony and Paula back in Liverpool. They’re putting Darryl’s svelte figure down to his new found love of Spam! Thanks for the laugh Tony!!

We’re loving it here, and feel lucky that we’ve missed all the hustle and bustle in the height of the season. Broome is treating us to its off season laid back and relaxed feel. It’s like we’re finally fitting in.

Love to everyone

Dar and Sar

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