In the morning, we went down the street and walked around some of the shops for a little bit. We saw the worlds largest Pearl!! We then went back to the caravan park and hitched up the van. Then we went back into town to go to the museum. Some of the things we learnt were rather fascinating and intriguing! There were lots of shells in the museum.

THE PEARLING INDUSTRY
It is a widely known fact that Broome’s biggest industry or moneymaker is the pearling industry. There is literally a pearl shop on every corner! In the Broome CBD alone, there would be about ten pearl shops! The Pearling industry also brought a lot of people from overseas, especially from Asia, making Broome one of the most culturally diverse cities in Australia.

One of the oldest and most popular item in the museum, The Pearl Diver.

The grading of pearls.

This is a mother of pearl shell postcard.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY
There is a festival called the Shinju Matsiru which started in 1970 and takes place annually. The festival celebrates Broome’s multicultural society. They have a dragon called Sammy that comes out for the festival.

This 5 gallon soy sauce jar is just one of the many examples of the Asian influence and population back around the eighteen hundreds. The soya beans were imported from China, and made into soy sauce at a factory in Broome that fulfilled the needs of the large Japanese population.

An old sign for the Main Street of Broome!

HISTORY OF BROOME
In 1907 there were 4000 people living in Broome. The pearling industry supplied 2000 of those people with jobs. There were 1700 Japanese and Malay people. The rest were from various countries including China. However, the European population was very small. The were also a few Native Australians.

This display shows William Dampier landing in Cygnett Bay in 1688.

CYCLONES
There have been 22 cyclones in Broome since 1910. The cyclone season goes from November to April. They have a day in November when everyone has to clean up their property, ready for a cyclone. The most destructive cyclone was in 1910, when winds reached about 175km/h, forty people lost their lives.

This is a map of some of Broome’s destructive cyclones.

We had our last supper in Broome at the Matsos Brewery. It was a very nice lunch. After lunch we headed out of Broome towards Derby. We got to Derby in the evening, set up the van, and had dinner.
Tara