Apart from the crocodile infested mangroves, Broome is a very friendly place. With its beautiful beach, arts, crafts and a good dose of alternative lifestyles, Broome is like the Byron Bay of the West.
The centre is the old China Town, which has been lovingly revamped to blend in with the historical tin shacks of the early pearl divers, merchants and cattle breeders.
The precious south sea pearls are still a draw card for tourists, and there is no lack of jewellery shops supplied by the Willie Creek or Cygnet Bay pearl farms.
Interspersed are art galleries, stylish cloth shops, cafés and restaurants. In between the traditional Chinese features are landscaped areas with local sandstone borders and benches. A beautiful sandstone framed memorial reminds of the 1942 Japanese strikes on this small, insignificant seeming harbour town.
But before fully re-acquainting ourselves with Broome, we were off at 5:30 am on a 1 hour seaplane flight to the “Horizontal Falls”, a natural phenomena described by David Attenborough “as one of the great natural wonders of the world”.
The falls are created by the extremely high tides of 12 metres plus pushing through narrow gaps of the rugged coast. The scenic flight from Broome to Talbot Bay alone was well worth the early start and cost of the tour. To land and take off on a runway of water and “moor” on a floating platform was another great experience! And wow! Getting up close to the falls and seeing the water cascading down through the narrow gaps was absolutely awesome. (See video below)
The boat took us several times with full speed through the wider one of the falls and back down again. It was absolutely exhilarating! At the smaller gap the drop was 3m, too risky for the speed boat to take on. After a hearty breakfast and an opportunity to take a dip in the shark and croc cage, we went for another speed boat ride.
In the meantime the tide had turned and the incoming tide was not yet strong enough to reverse the fall. This time we made it through the small gap without a problem.
We also took a sojourn into Cyclone Bay, a cauldron surrounded by mountains of diagonal ridges, which offer protection to any vessel during cyclone season. Here the high tide spring and autumn marks are quite visible, while during a king tide the water rises to a metre above the top line.
Another breath taking flight over the “Buccaneer Archipelago and its hundreds of islands delivered us safely onto “One Arm Point” on Cape Leveque or more correctly “Kooljaman”, the aboriginal name for the area.
We switched to an off-road bus. The dirt road from the cape gives limited access to aboriginal settlements and the beautiful north- west coastline of the Dampier Peninsula. One of the income sources of the small aboriginal community on the cape is the cultivation and sale of polished torchus pearl shells. In former times they were sold to button manufacturers, but now they are sold as souvenirs.
In the Beagle Bay aboriginal community altar and walls of the Sacred Heart mission church were adorned with pearl shells.
Back in Broome for two more days, we enjoyed dips in the pool, the weekend's Court House Markets and watched the camel rides on Cable Beach at sunset. Cable Beach got its name from Australia's first submarine telegraph cable connecting Broome with Java, and Australia with the world.
On low tide dinosaur foot prints are visible along the beach, although we had a hard time identifying them.
Here's the back foot of a herbivore, I think?! We would have needed our grandson, Jaxon's help, who knows a lot about dinosaurs.
One thing was left to do for us in Broome, and that was to see another movie in the outdoor cinema.
Here, 40 years ago we watched the movie” 2001 Space Odyssey” under the stars. So tonight, on our last night in Broome, we will re-visit the historic “Sun Pictures” cinema.
Below is a short movie Austin took of our experience of the Horizontal Falls: