Broome


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Oceania » Australia
August 11th 2016
Published: August 12th 2016
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Hi there

Well a few days have passed and we have been just relaxing a bit in Broome and trying to resurrect either or both of our Iphones and stem the tide of misfortune.

I cannot yet add a few photos of the dead phone period of Karjini national Park and the road to Broome as well as some of Broome.

So - Broome is very lovely , very hot but very lovely. We have done some exploring visiting the beautiful Cable beach and the rock formations and dinosaur footprints at Ganthaume Point. We also had 2 trips to the cinema which in Broome is the 100 year old Sun Picture Gardens. it is a very original indoor/outdoor cinema and the seating is rows of connected deckchairs. It is the oldest picture garden in the world and has an interesting history - although given a period of racial segregation until 1965 some of it is shameful. Nowadays it is a fabulous experience for everyone that likes movies, has a gallon of insect repellent and doesn't mind the odd aircraft flying over.

Brian's IPhone has been repaired, mine has been sort of repaired but I also bought another one at a great price and then persuaded Telstra to unlock it for nothing so I am back on the air too.

Broome also has lots of Boab trees around the place and hopefully we will see some even bigger/older specimens as we move into the Kimberley.

The town of Brome is founded on the pearl business and for the vast majority of the time the product was the oyster shell used for mother of pearl - the natural pearls found were a bonus to the Europeans, Japanese, Chinese and Filipino that were here. The Pinctada maxima oysters here are the largest in the world and the pristine water quality has made this the premier pearl site since the 1880's. Early settlers spotted the shells that were used by the most initiated indigenous men as decoration were much bigger and more lustrous than any known. The pearl business collapsed with the emergence of plastics and the demand for pearl buttons disappeared. The Japanese had perfected the technique for implanting oysters to create seed pearls but it was a closely guarded secret. Somehow an Aussie learned the technique and eventually, after a change in the law, seed pearl production began in Broome. There are still some pearl farms here but the legacy is a very multicultural area (although the Japanese had to be interned during WWII).

The other big thing here are whales and we took a sunset whale watching boat trip to watch humpback whales - just spectacular with animals all around us breeching and rolling and slapping tails. We had left our car parked on the beach and I began to worry that our latest bit of bad luck might be finding the car under 2 metres of water as the tide here is HUGE but it was OK.

So we have one more day and night here and tomorrow we are heading off into the Kimberley for more camping. Today we are doing a trip by seaplane and jetboat to see the horizontal falls which should be brilliant. We are also treating our phones like the Royal family now - they don't travel together.
In the meantime I will add photos when I can but file size issues are a problem.

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12th August 2016

Broome
Broome sounds lovely, especially the cinema place. Keep going, actually the mishaps are very entertaining !!

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