We started our drive along the dirt road. We drove for two hours on a very rough dirt road then came to a big over knee deep river crossing. We stopped and contemplated what we should do. We could try and go through and risk getting bogged or wait until another car came and went through to see how hard it is or go back all the way to Derby to get to the highway and go that way which would take a couple of days. We decided to wait a while for a car to come. We waited for half an hour and were just about to head back to Derby when we heard a car! We watched it go through, it was just a car with no caravan. They were Aboriginals and they went strait through right to one side on a angle so we think they must have done it lots of times before. We decided we couldn’t go through the crossing that way so we got in the car again just about to go back when we spotted a car and caravan coming along the road! We stopped and watched. They stopped and waded in to check just like we did. They had a 4 wheel drive but not an off road caravan. They went through with no problems so they told us to go ahead and drive through. They waited for us just in case we got stuck. We drove through and made it! Thank goodness we didn’t have to go back and take two extra days getting to Fitzroy Crossing. We arrived at our camp and went in to town to do some shopping then came back and had a swim in the pool. It was nice and refreshing.

Tess

First up we went for a 7km walk through Windjana Gorge. It was a lovely walk, and a good time of day to do it, as it was not too hot yet. We saw lots of freshwater crocodiles, and even a small colony of bats!

Then we went back to the van, had some lunch, then headed off to Tunnel Creek. Tunnel Creek is a tunnel like cave with a creek running through it. It was a very nice walk through the tunnel. We had to take torches, as it was very dark. There were parts where we had to walk through water. That was all good, until we saw a crocodile… But luckily we did not cross paths with any more crocs after that one!

Tunnel Creek was the sight of a major battle between some Bunuba Aboriginals and the police in 1895. The Bunuba people were angry about the pioneer settlers taking over their land for sheep and cattle farming, and the mistreatment of the Aboriginal people. The Bunuba Tribe leader, Jandamurra, was shot and believed to have been killed at Tunnel Creek. But he wasn’t, he fought on for two more years.

After that, we just had a relaxing afternoon back at the caravan! We had a camp fire, that was lots of fun. We made damper, and cooked our roast chicken on the camp fire! We had a lovely evening.
Tara

We had a relaxed and slow getaway. We had roughly 2-3 hours of driving to get to the Windjana Gorge about 50km off the Gibb River road. We got there and it was stinking hot (37deg) but we can’t complain! We were hoping there would be a swimming place in the gorge but unless we wanted to swim with about 20 fresh water crocodiles there wasn’t! We had a short walk in the gorge then came back, had dinner and sat around the campfire. We met some Canadians who live in Nova Scotia were the highest tides in the world are! We had a nice chat with them.

Tess

After a quick breakfast, we made our way to the front entrance of the caravan park. There, we jumped on a bus that drove us to the Derby airport. At the Derby airport, we boarded a seaplane!

This is a photo Mum took of a seaplane landing on the water.

This is the view of the Derby mud flats from the plane.

The seaplane took us over the Horizontal Falls!
We landed on the water next to a big pontoon. On the pontoon they had two shark proof cages. While they fed the sharks we were able to swim in the cages, next to the sharks. The sharks were tawny nurse sharks. We also got to feed and even pat one of the sharks. When the sharks sense the food, they snap in a very violent, vigorous action. We were able to pat this particular shark because it was somewhat tamer than the other sharks. How they worked this out, I guess we’ll never know. I really enjoyed interacting with the sharks, even though at first, I was not so sure.

Patting the sharks!

We then hopped onto a power boat. The boat took us to the Horizontal Falls. We actually sped right through the falls! The boat was going very fast, and it was lots of fun! Then we went back to the pontoon where we had some very nice fish for lunch. After lunch we went back onto the boat and back to Horizontal Falls. This time the falls were much more rapid and quite a bit faster this time because the tide was higher. Twice a day the tide rises and falls by eleven metres resulting in huge quantities of water moving in and out of the bays through the small opening which is the horizontal falls.

When we got back from the tour, we went to have a look at the Boab Prison Tree. The tree was quite spectacular, and very big! It got it’s name because a long time ago, when people used to capture aboriginals to have as slaves or pearl divers, they would often stop over night at the tree. Nowadays there is a fence around the tree because the tree is also of great importance to Aboriginal beliefs.

This is the Boab Prison Tree.

We walked down to the wharf again tonight for the sunset. We had a very exciting and thrilling day today, and we were all quite tired by the end of it!

Tara

We had a lazy morning doing a bit of homework. After lunch we went for a walk and went inside a big hollowed out Boab tree.
We had a walk down the street then walked for 40 minutes to see the sunset on the mud flats but got there 5 minutes late. We came back had dinner and were just about to have our dessert when a drunk Aboriginal came up and started talking to us. He sat down on the ground and fell over. He was friendly but eventually asked for a beer. We weren’t going to give him any but we offered some left over pasta. The caravan park owner must have been told about it and he came and told him to leave.
Over all we had a nice relaxing day.
Tess

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

We had a very big nice breakfast with just about one of everything! ( Warning: Vegetarians should not read past this point!) There was bacon, Spanish chorizo, lupchong Chinese sausage,Italian chevapacci sausage , Greek saganaki cheese and good old Aussie eggs but no bread because the crows ate it all the day before while we were at the beach. The crows also ate a whole packet of beer nuts, bhaji mix, beef jerky, sugar, dry biscuits and got the lid off a tub of butter and ate the whole thing. We had another go on the boat. It was pretty much the same as yesterday including the number of crabs we caught ( zero) . We are not sure Mud crabs even exist! Today Mum even had a go on the donut, we think Doug tried extra hard to throw her off but failed. We went back to camp, packed up the started on our 100 kilometre off red sandy corrugated dirt road home. On the way we stopped at Beagle Bay to look at a church.It had an alter made mostly of Mother of pearl. The church had many other Mother off pearl decorations. We got back and went to the Kebab shop for an early tea before going off to see the Stairway to the Moon. It was quite amazing. We then saw an Acrobat show that was the same people that we saw practising at Monkey Mia. They were a lot better then we expected when we saw them practising. We had a lovely day!

Shelly and Doug

Tess

After breakfast, we went on Mum’s friend’s boat. It was quite fun, we tried to catch some mud crabs, but had no luck. We had to go into the mangroves to set the net traps, it was very difficult to manoeuvre the boat in and around the mangroves, and we crashed into the trees a lot!. We didn’t catch any fish either, unfortunately! When we got back, Mum’s friends attached a blow up donut thing to the back of their boat, and we had a fast, fun and exciting ride in it, bumping over the boats wake! We didn’t have mud crab for dinner, but luckily Shelly had a back up plan of steaks for dinner! We had a nice evening sitting around the camp fire!

Shelly and Doug’s boat.

This is the donut.

At Cape Leveque, they have the second highest tides in the world, the highest is in Canada. But, having said that, this is the tide at one of its lowest points.

The sun setting over Middle Lagoon.
Tara

We packed the tent and headed off to Middle Lagoon to go camping for the weekend. We left early as Mum wanted to get some bread from Lombadina which is an Aboriginal community. We heard that if you get there at 10am the bread will have just come out and will be hot. We got there at 10.30 and got the last two loafs of bread. While we were there we saw a ten year old Aboriginal boy driving a car around! We had a look in the church there, it was very nice.

We next went to Cape Leveque where we had a look at the beach then had a lovely lunch.

We when to Ardyaloon which is an Aboriginal community at One Arm Point. There is a Hatchery for trochus snails that produce a beautiful shell. Dad bought on of the shells.There were lot of big tubs with fish in them as we’ll as the shells.
Before Long Arm Point we had a look at a pearl shop, they had a old divers costume there.

We arrived at Middle Lagoon and when we were finding our site we got bogged in some deep red sand, we dug around the wheels to get some sand away then Dad,Tara and I pushed while Mum drove. We got it out with not too much trouble.
Tess

In the late morning, we went on the Willie Creek Pearl Farm Tour. They picked us up from the caravan park in a little bus and drove us to the Pearl Farm. The road was very bumpy, and went for a long time, they called it the Kimberly massage! Because we went to the black pearl farm in Monkey Mia, we didn’t really learn much at Willie Creek. We had some fish for lunch at the pearl farm, which was very nice! On the tour, we went on a boat, but we didn’t see any crocodiles or other wildlife. After the tour, we went and had a look at the Japanese and Chinese cemeteries. That was quite interesting. We went to Cable Beach for the sunset again tonight, that was lots of fun. We went to a Thai restaurant for dinner, that was very delicious!

Willie Creek.

The live oysters are kept in wire netted frames.

Japanese Cemetery.

A paper crane at the Japanese cemetery.

Birds and the sunset at Cable Beach!
Tara