Broome, WA

Thursday 24 May to Friday 1 June 2012

We arrived in Broome just before lunch and booked into Tarangau Caravan Park, managed by Bevan & Lorraine Reid from Temora. It was starting to look like a back to Temora week at the park as there were several other couples from Temora there. We had a great night at a sausage sizzle fundraiser for the RFDS at the park BBQ area. One of the park regulars sang and told a few jokes and anyone who could perform was welcome to join in.

On Friday we had a look around the town, lots of pearl shops and many houses built with corrugated iron. Some of these houses are valued at 1 million dollars or more. They are no doubt very nice inside but all look much the same from the outside, with varying shades of grey corrugated iron on the roofs and walls.

Shops in Broome, WA

The old town area is very plain in appearance and obviously designed to withstand the cyclones that hit this area. Broome has a port area with a long jetty where large ships dock to load cattle for the live export market in Asia and the middle east. Broome also has very high tides so the jetties are very long and high. We also took a tour around town on a red double decker bus from which we could see some of the most interesting parts of Broome.
Broome still has an operating open air movie theatre complete with deck chairs.


Cable Beach at sunset, Broome, WA

Cable Beach, Broome, Wa

A visit to the museum proved to be very interesting. We spent a couple of hours there one afternoon and at closing time we hadn't seen it all so they said we were welcome to come back free of charge within the next week to finish the tour. This museum is particularly interesting because of the many different areas that it covers, from the aboriginal history, the pearling industry including the aboriginal and asian workforce, the cyclones, World War II bombings and the cattle industry.

Other interesting sites in the Broome area are Dampier's Chest, the story says William Dampier, the explorer, buried treasure in the area but it has never been found, and the Chinese and Japanese cemeteries. As usual, the chinese ran the market gardens and many of the shops in the town and the japanese and other asians were particularly skilled in the pearling industry.





Cable Beach, possibly Broome's most famous attraction is interesting, with the camel rides and photo opportunities at sunset being the main tourist attraction.