Broome – Dampier Peninsula
25 – 28 August
It is 606km from Port Hedland up to Broome, so we settled down for a long drive, we wanted to get as far down the road as we could so set our sights on a 24hr rest stop ~400km along the way. After leaving Port Headland the road is pretty featureless as it skirts the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, it was a long drive and as we are now heading east sunset was creeping up on us. For the first time on the trip we drove through dusk and it was dark by the time we pulled in at the overnight stop.
Up in good time we drove the remaining 200kms to Broome and arrived late morning. Driving into Broome it felt tropical, lush green grass, palm trees and houses with large overhanging eves (minus guttering as this is one of the first things to go with cyclones). After setting up at Roebuck Caravan Park (one of the cheaper of the 7 caravan parks in town, yip holiday maker central) with nice views over Town Beach we walked into town.
Broome has a really interesting history and spent a good hour in the small volunteer run museum. Broome started life as a pearling settlement where the abundant mother of pearl shells were gathered. Divers in big diving suits with a hand pumped air supply would spend hours underwater collecting the shells. Due to the extended hours underwater a lot died from the Bends as the commercial pressure meant they didn’t spend enough time decompressing. Numerous cultures worked on the pearling luggers including Japanese, Malay, and Filipinos which together with the local aboriginal culture made Broome a very diverse town.
Another interesting part of Broome’s history was during World War II. A lot of the Dutch based in the current Indonesia evacuated to Broome as the Japanese advanced using seaplanes. On 3rd March 1942 the Japanese launched a bombing attack on Broome sinking the 16 flying boats parked in Roebuck Bay and some other aircraft at the airport. They think that more than 80 people were killed in the attack most being the evacuee women and children but are unsure on exact numbers. You can still see the wrecks of the seaplanes during low low tides, but whilst we were in Broome we didn’t have the extremes of the tide cycle so couldn’t see them. Following the attack Broome was evacuated for the rest of the war.
Broome is famous for Cable Beach a 22 km long white beach that stretches along the coast. Facing west it is a great place to watch the sunset. We parked up and still not used to the Australian custom of driving on a beach whenever they can, we instead enjoyed our stroll, dodging the numerous camel trains on their sunset tour. It really was a beautiful sunset. That evening there was a small market at Town Beach just around the corner from our caravan park. It was really nice to pick up some yummy Asian stall food, relax on the grass listening to live music and enjoying the warmth in the evening
Last year I had received a voucher from work which we decided to use on a Kayak tour along the coastline at Gantheaume Point. With the turquoise water, red and white rocks it was wonderful to be out on the water dipping your feet over when things got a bit warm. Within the 3 hours that we were out on the water you could see the big difference in tide that they get, with rock arches you could almost paddle through on the way out being submerged under 1m of water on the way back in. Around Gantheaume Point there are dinosaur footprints that you can see at low low tides. Whilst we couldn’t see these, there was a neat fern fossil at the small beach we stopped and had a swim at. We even had a turtle swim by the front of our kayak – nice to get out on the water.
After all that hard work paddling, it was time to hit up Matso’s Brewery. We decided to try a range of their beers including ginger beer and lychee beer, but were both pleasantly surprised at how much we enjoyed their mango beer – maybe it perfectly suited the climate. We have been wondering as we travelled north where we would hit our sweet spot between too cold and wet, and too hot and humid; thinking that this could be Broome.
For the evening we headed to another of Broome’s institutions – the Sun Pictures outdoor cinema, which has been showing movies for 100years. It was BYO food, so we picked up a dinner of pizza on the way and being amongst the first through the door got ourselves front row seats. The movie for the night was ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ and we had a great night laughing away, especially at some of the kiwi-isms in the movie.
We decided to head north from Broome up the Dampier Peninsula for a couple of days to check out another piece of this vast country. The first ~90kms is along a dusty vibrantly red ‘Pindan’ roadway which in places was at 7 lanes wide, corrugated and then had narrower sandy patches. We stopped in at Beagle Bay Community to visit the pearl shell church of St XXXXX. Built during World War I as part of the Pallottine mission, the church is decorated with local pearl shells and is beautifully unique. We stayed the night at Gumbanan camp close to One Arm Point, and enjoyed putting our firepit to use again. I had my first go at trying Damper in the campoven using the recipe from Bullara Station and it turned out a treat, good crunchy crust and moist on the inside, mmmm.
The next morning we headed out to One Arm Point stopping off at the Trochus Shell Hatchery / aquarium, and relaxing in the shade at Middle Beach where we decided not to go swimming as a saltie had been hanging around just up the coast a couple of days earlier. King Sound empties out past One Arm Point and you could really see the tidal currents sweeping past the headland. We weren’t even there during the largest tidal swings and it was still impressive. During spring tides the water can whip past the point in excess of 20 knots!
The well-known spot up Dampier Peninsula is Cape Leveque and Kooliaman Resort. Our budget didn’t extend to staying there, but we still drove in to have a look. The contrast between the red pindan above the white beaches and the blues of the sea and sky really was beautiful. We treated ourselves to a couple of iced coffees in the shade as it was really starting to heat up, before going and eating our cold left over sausages in the car park – back to reality.
Back down the dirt road to Quondong Point on the west coast for the night. From our spot up on the dunes we could see the fish jumping out of the water, but no luck when we through the lines in. It was nice to watch our last west coast sunset down at the water’s edge. As dusk settled in we noticed more and more hermit crabs around our campsite, which given we were a good 20m up steep sand dunes, we were quite surprised about. Apparently land hermit crabs are quite common, but the sheer numbers of crabs wandering around and rustling in the bushes was a bit unsettling – another time I’ve been thankful for our elevated rooftop tent.
The next morning we headed back to Broome to restock with a torrential downpour as we came into town. This was rather unseasonable for this part of the world and gave a glimpse of what wet season must be like. Then it was on to Derby before hitting the Gibb River Road.
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