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Published: June 29th 2011
Thursday 23rd was a relatively quiet day for us. We had no major plans except for a bit more shopping. We decided to do this at the shops in Chinatown where there is a large Coles store. We had been talking about doing a tour to a pearl farm at Willie Creek and their booking office was also in Chinatown – one of the shops we had visited on Tuesday. We discussed the various options and decided to go for a 4 hour tour on Friday morning starting at 9:00am. It’s possible to do a “self drive” trip but as it involves another substantial journey along gravel roads, we agreed to pay the extra to be driven there which included being picked up from our caravan park. With that arranged, we meandered back to the caravan for an early lunch and then whiled away the afternoon on the beach, in the sea or watching the camel treks. Towards sunset we wandered along the beach following the camel trails for a kilometre or so and “shared” a rock with another couple to watch the sunset. They were originally from Austria and had lived in Sydney for 40 years. But they had not
lost their strong accents so often we didn’t fully understand them and, with our strong West Country “drawl”, they struggled to understand us!! But we had a delightful, often funny half hour or so with them, much of which was spent talking about their money worries – not the lack of it but what they might spend it on!!! Their motorhome cost $150,000 but they didn’t sound entirely happy with it. We sensed that they only bought it because they could and they seemed to be holiday makers rather than fully dedicated campers - but they were amusing company. The evening passed by quietly enough as we made preparations for our early Friday morning pick-up for our trip to the pearl farm. We put the alarm on to make sure we were ready in plenty of time.
Our pick up was at the park reception at 9:05 and, virtually spot on time, the small coach arrived with about 8 people already on it. The coach had started in Chinatown and picked people up on the way. After our pick up we went to a couple more parks and hotels until, eventually, there were 18 of us heading out of
town. It’s about 40 kilometers to Willie Creek and most of it is on a gravel road – not a brilliant one but it wasn’t our vehicle so we didn’t care. Out “in the bush” we passed a protest camp which had received much publicity of late with a lot of TV coverage. They were protesting against the establishment of a huge gas processing complex which was to be built another 50 kilometers or so away from Broome further through the bush but on the coast. The protest appeared to be of Aboriginal origin but had attracted a large number of young and old “green” campaigners who would do almost anything to stop the development. Some of them had chained themselves to machinery preventing its movement while others just blocked the road with vehicles, waved banners and generally made a nuisance of themselves to try to halt or at least delay progress. They were clearly passionate about the cause but most of the Broome locals looked upon the development as bringing investment and employment to the area. The protest camp was quite large with a number of caravans, tents, trucks etc but they had no interest in interfering with our
Brumbies have lived in the area for 25 years
since horses from the former station were set freeprogress so we all gave them a cheery wave as we sailed on by.
The pearl farm is situated in a most idyllic setting, right next to the aforementioned Willie Creek with its lovely white sand and turquoise water. The complex was fascinating with pearl showrooms, demonstration areas, dining facilities and even a helicopter landing pad. It would be like finding a branch of Harrods in the middle of the New Forest. The driver and tour guide, Tony, had given us an excellent insight into what to expect including details of plants and wildlife spotted on the way and the background of the many “brumbies” (wild horses) we could see from the coach. The tour started with a full demonstration of the pearling process which, these days, has very much an artificial touch to it. Specially selected oysters are artificially impregnated with an irritant which the oyster then naturally covers with a protective coating – nacre – which eventually, but only after several stages of treatment and several years, produces what they hope would be a perfect pearl. The process used to involve leaving the oysters on the sea bed to develop naturally but now they are collected and
then ‘rested’ in special tanks for a few months before the pearl seeding takes places. The highly skilled technicians, still mainly Japanese, who carry out the seeding process earn huge salaries for just a few months work each year. After that they are suspended (the oysters not the divers!) in special netting which makes them far more accessible, especially for the cleaning of the shell which has to be done every two weeks for them to be at their best. There is an environmentally established limit on the number of oysters that can be processed in this area but since the limit is “280 thousand” there’s obviously a lot of money in it.
After the very good demonstration, we were treated to some refreshments which included a special recipe “damper” which was delicious. Then we were taken by boat for a tour of the creek (which, strictly speaking, is a tidal inlet) where we were shown how the oysters were actually submerged and recovered, together with a demonstration of the cleaning process. The processes we witnessed in the creek were for tourist demonstrations purposes only as the main processes take place some way off shore in the ocean. Time
was marching on but we were then allowed to browse around the displays where more demonstrations and explanations were given with some very expensive sets of pearls. Of course, this is where they make their real money from the tours as almost everyone wanted to buy a memento of their visit. Graham persuaded me to buy a beautiful Panda crafted out of “Mother of Pearl” and clutching a small pearl between its paws. I won’t say how much it was but it wasn’t cheap. I love it and it will be a treasured memento of our time in Broome and also our visit to Adelaide Zoo where we saw two Giant Pandas. Several people bought really expensive items whilst others paid for helicopter flights to get an aerial view of Willie Creek. The flights only lasted a few minutes and were enormously expensive but at least I have something tangible to bring away as a true reminder of our visit. Soon it was time to make our return journey during which Tony found other things to point out and explain. It was a very good trip and was well worth the fees we paid. As a reward for filling in
a couple of questionnaires we were both entitled to a free baseball cap which we must remember to collect from the Willie Creek booking office when we’re next in Chinatown.
We were dropped off back at the caravan park where we had a bit of lunch before finding our way to the beach for the habitual ice cream, swim and walk. It’s a habit we will never tire of although, of course, our stay in Broome will come to an end shortly.
Saturday would be our last full day in Broome and we had a few things in mind to finish off the week. We didn’t make a very early start but eventually decided we would make our way to Chinatown where we could collect our free ”Willie Creek” baseball caps, do some shopping and have a late breakfast or early lunch. We also wanted to check the details for the evening cinema shows as we had it in mind to spend another evening at the movies. On the way to Chinatown we spotted some market stalls – a considerable number of them – so we stopped to investigate. It was an excellent collection of craft stalls and
Some mishapen pearls
still nice but not so valuable the like and plenty of buskers providing entertainment. It was very busy but was a worthwhile diversion to our morning plans. We eventually made it to Chinatown and checked the cinema details. We didn’t fancy the early show but made a note of the later show – Pirates of the Caribbean – with an 8:30 start. We collected our caps and very nice they are too. By this time it was midday so we found our favourite café in Shady Lane and had lunch. After doing the shopping we went back to the caravan to prepare for and fulfil our final afternoon ritual of the week – an ice cream, a swim and a walk with the camels – and afterwards went back to shower and get ready for our night at the movies. We had a simple evening meal before making our way to the cinema for 8:00pm. We were met with disappointment – a big sign saying “Due to Technical Difficulties We Are Unable To Stage Tonight’s Performance”. There were quite a few disappointed punters and no doubt more would arrive before the scheduled 8:30 start. But it gave us the opportunity for a fairly early night ahead
of what would be a challenging 250 kilometre journey in the morning. It’s fair to say that our experiences at Broome must rank it as one of our favourite places to visit – it was a brilliant week.
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Darryl and Sarah
Wallaby Wanderers
Perfect Panda
Love the Panda Mum, that's a very special little chap. Glad you got to see Willie Creek and I'm especially pleased to hear about the protest camp! Good on them, if it's still going when we get back then we might have to join in!! x x x