Darwin, Broome, and the Kimberley

Welcome back long-neglected blog readers.

Our original one year in Australia was just not long enough, so we’ve lengthened our stay.  Here we are in April of year two, and it feels as if it’s flying by.

No, we haven’t been eaten by crocs, bitten by snakes, stung by jellyfish, attacked by spiders, barbed by stingrays, dismantled by sharks, or any of the other deadly attributes of this wondrous land.

What has impacted us the most has been the laid-back beach lifestyle, the friendly people, new and unique food (except Vegemite – no way), and the endless opportunity for travel.  And it’s the latter that brings me back to blog, both for you the readers, and to begin again documenting these irreplaceable two years of our lives lest we forget all that we have done and seen.

Lately, as we talk, we remember all that we have done, and the places we’ve been.  From Yeppoon south to Agnes Water, Noosa, Maryborough, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Surfer’s Paradise we’ve driven a good bit (with more to go).  We’ve been further south to Sydney (twice), Manley, the Blue Mountains, Melbourne, and the Great Ocean Road.  Of islands we’ve been to North Keppel, Great Keppel, Heron (twice), Lady Musgrave, Phillip, and the bigger island of Tasmania.  We’ve been inland to Blackwater, Emerald, Rubyvale, and Sapphire.  Our next big trip will be the northern coast of Queensland, with several more islands on the list.  What a bit of travel!

And so, it is our most recent exploration of magical Australia that brings me back to the blog.

We’ll title this Darwin, Broome, and the Kimberley, and having only returned yesterday, it is still quite fresh in our memories.  This might end up a little long, especially with pictures of all we did, but it is my sincere hope to do justice to all we saw, and the indelible places we visited. 

So we left the lovely Capricorn Coast on 31 March and landed in Darwin later that day.  We had done our research, including talking to friends who have lived there, so we knew to expect a few things:  1. It’s HOT and humid  2. No swimming in the ocean.  I’ll explain more later.

Darwin, so named by the captain of the HMS Beagle after the famed Charles Darwin who had previously sailed on the ship, is the capital of the Northern Territory of Australia, and I love how the area is called the Top End.  It sits on the Timor Sea and enjoys some of the most iconic parts of Australian wilderness. 

We are pretty cautious when it comes to travel, so we hired a car (so as not to rely on bus/taxi/feet) and headed right to our accommodation, which was a  3 bedroom holiday unit in the Waterfront area, and I would highly recommend that area.  It was pretty, safe, easy walking distance to restaurants, cafes, shops, and in the center is a huge saltwater pond kept free from jellyfish and sharks by nets.  With lifeguards during the day and a separate wave pool, it was great swimming, cooling down from the tropical heat.

The saltwater pond outside our hotel

Our hotel at night in the background

In the interest of not boring you to death, I’ve abandoned the chronological, day by day approach for a simple descriptive list of our adventures.  Here we go…

We took a bus tour to Litchfield National Park.  Along with Kakadu, it’s one of the two big National Parks in the area.  The trip featured some views of unique animals like the introduced water buffalo, the water monitor (or goanna), giant termite mounds, some freshwater fish, osprey, and even the rainbow bee-eater.

We hiked, swam in freshwater springs or “holes” with waterfalls, and had a great day.

Water monitor, about four feet long with tail

 

Giant termite mounds

Another stop along that trip was a boat ride along the Adelaide river where our guides helped us get up close and personal with the wild saltwater (or estuarian) crocodiles in the river.  Pieces of meat were hung over the side and we sat completely amazed as the crocodiles jumped out of the river, some nearly their entire body length, yes up to 10 feet (not including tail), to get a bit of breakfast.  Think about how tall a basketball goal is, and that’s how high out of the water these things were jumping, propelled simply by the force of their powerful tail.  No words other than “wow” can describe it.  When you see the photos, just try to appreciate how enormous these beasts are.  Truly dinosaurs are alive.

Not an uncommon size for a big male (the croc that is)

 

We toured the local crocodile rescue park where we got to watch some of the feeding, and the kids even got to feed the little ones. 

One evening was spent on a sunset boat ride through the port area, with a stop for local caught fish and chips.  We all loved that!

 

The free Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory was a great day.  I loved the aboriginal art and Grace always enjoys fashion-related art.  Well, most any art.  I’m sure her brain sees art pieces better than any of ours.  We also got to learn a bit about Darwin’s military history.   What a revelation to us to learn that Darwin was bombed by the Japanese in 1942.  Later, in Broome, we learned a lot more about Japanese bombings of Australia during WWII.

 

Another day was spent at the Territory Wildlife Park.  Except for the accident when Maggie’s Fitbit dropped into the Billabong water (home to freshwater crocs and snapping turtles, so NO I didn't go in after it), it really was a good day.  The park was well layed out, featured tons of local animals in what really felt like their natural habitat, and the guides were very knowledgeable and passionate about the animals.  Actually, we found that in many of the places in Australia we’ve been, the local tour guides seem to have a true love of their area.  We’ve met experts on sea cucumbers, dingos, camels, rock formations, stingrays, sharks, history, plants, agriculture, hiking, cityscapes, and so much more all through this great country, and it seems that universally the enjoyment and depth of knowledge by the local guides has been quite impressive. 

Freshwater crocodile

The billabong, now home to a fitbit

Dingos

Feeding the fish, sharks, rays, and turtles

That about rounds out Darwin.  And to answer the question of why nobody swims at the beaches, as if the crocodiles didn’t discourage you (which they should, because they’re EVERYWHERE), they also have a very high concentration of box jellyfish, irukandje jellyfish, and if you made it past all that, we even watched a fisherman reel in a shark just off the jetty.  So, no swimming at the beach!

If you ask the kids what they enjoyed, you’d hear about all of the above, but they’d also mention the ice cream shop by our hotel, the wave pool, the Mexican food restaurant, and sitting on our hotel balcony.  Thanks Darwin for a great trip!

On to Broome.  We flew from Darwin on a small jet that stopped at Kununurra on the way to Broome, Western Australia.  Probably the most isolated town we’ll visit in Australia, Broome is a dusty arid coastal town that sits in the northern part of Western Australia, at the southern end of the great area known as the Kimberley region.  On the Indian Ocean to the west and the Timor Sea to the north, I cannot impress upon you how beautifully isolated this area is.  The Kimberley region is roughly 2/3 the size of Texas, but the population is around 34,000.  And in this huge area, there are only 3 towns with populations greater than 2,000.  What a sparse, spectacular landscape!

 

The town of Broome boasts a permanent dusting of orange-red.  Known as Pilbara, this iron-rich dirt stains all of the roads, sidewalks, tires, shoes, Will’s shirt, and just about everything else.  Our first impression of Broome was not so good.  It’s small, it’s dusty, it’s full of backpackers.  But by our trip’s end, this little town with it’s warmly colored lower level, grew on all of us.  We met and heard stories of many people who were just passing through, but fell in love with this magical place and had to stay.  I can see why.

At the tail end of the wet season, the heavily touristed dry season hadn’t quite begun to flower, so while numbers were low in town, not all tours/options were open.  That’s okay, we saw just about all we could fit in while we were there, and did not leave disappointed.

With a family of five we need a little space, so were happy to find a bungalow on Cable Beach.  Now, when I say on Cable Beach, I really mean near Cable Beach.  Nothing is really on the beach, or even has a good view of the beach.  It’s pretty flat, and much of the land is either under the care of the State/National Parks, or the traditional owners (Yawuru people).  Probably as it should be.  No matter, we could easily walk to the beach, but, you guessed it, we hired a car.  Which was good, because Broome was the singularly hottest place we’ve been in Australia!  During the day, temperatures soared to 40-42 (that’s up to 106 F), with humidity to match.  So we learned the Broome way, which is get up, get going in the morning, spend the afternoon in the pool or the air conditioning, and go out again around sunset.  Still, being a backpacker community, it was amazing to see how many people were out walking or riding bikes to get around.  You surely wouldn’t find that in Texas in August.

There are a few things you should know about Broome.  First, it’s economy was founded on the pearl trade.  Initially, the mother-of-pearl was used from the giant oysters, mostly for making buttons, furniture inlays, etc.  Plastic came along and wiped that out.  The next boom was the advent of cultured, or farmed, pearls.  The area is the largest producer of cultured south sea pearls in the world.  How do I know this?  We toured a pearl farm, of course.

We boarded a bus that took us out to Willie Creek Pearl Farm.  We learned all about the oyster, about how to clean and care for it, and about how they are farmed.  We watched as our guide showed us the anatomy of an oyster, and even found a keshi pearl in the one she opened.  (That was a lucky find, as keshi pearls are not seeded, they happen naturally) We saw how the oysters are seeded, and learned all about pearls and their value.  Next, we loaded onto a boat to visit the oysters in the mouth of the creek.  We watched as the panels of oysters are lifted, cleaned, and returned to the water.

Finally, as you might expect, we got to look at their showroom of pearls.  Grace got to try on some pearls, and Tricia brought home a pretty little pearl necklace.  What a great day!

Oyster surgery

Oyster anatomy

Implanted marbay pearl casts.  I know, sounds cool!

 

Oysters in their cages.  Not free-range oysters, I guess.

That's $8000 of pearl necklace.  Looks great!

Tricia's pearl.  Beautiful!

We joined Brett from Kimberley Wild Adventures as he gave us a tour of the town in what may be the coolest bus we’ve ever been in.  As you might expect, he was a wealth of local knowledge, and seemed to love all things Broome.  We saw where the original pearling luggers would land and offload the shells, the original jetty, China town (which is most of town, really), the Japanese cemetery where many of the early pearl divers were buried after the unfortunately dangerous business took their lives.  Most of the early pearling workers and pearl divers were imported from Japan.  Placed in internment camps during WWII, deported after, many later returned to continue working in the pearling industry.

Continuing the tour we saw Matsos Microbrewery and tasted some of the beers.  Tricia liked the ginger beer, mango beer, and, yes, the chili beer.  I liked the Sessions Ale.  Kids – Fanta and Red lemonade (previously known to us as a Shirley Temple).  We made it back a couple of times during the week.  Not much beats a cold beer in the Broome heat.

We visited the Sun Cinema, and later came back to catch a movie there.  More to follow.

Another just amazing part of Broome’s story is that it boasts the largest number of dinosaur footprints in Australia.  At Gantheaume Point we saw casts of those footprints, the still-functioning lighthouse, and some really amazing rock formations.  We came back there later in the week and even saw two giant manta rays circling in the water.

Manta rays.  Maybe 5 feet wide each?

The tour day ended with a drive along the beach and drinks / nibbles while we watched the sunset.  One thing pretty impressive about Broome is that so many people come out at sunset time.  Where we were, cars were parked all along the beach in what felt like a big block party, all out talking or playing in the cooler part of the day.  But when the sun began to set, all eyes were on the show.  How amazing to watch the beautiful sun dipping down into the Indian ocean, the clouds painting the sky.  Yes, Broome is magical.

As I said, we went back to Sun Pictures to catch the show.  Claiming to be the oldest running open air cinema in the world, we had learned about how it opened in 1916.  It lived through the heyday of Hollywood, often the most popular early movies being the westerns.  Originally the tradition was that seating was in sections – aborigines up front in the worst seats (funny that we chose those seats for our movie), Japanese next, then the white Europeans in the back sitting in cane chairs under the fans.  We learned that in times past, before the new levee was built, very high tides would often flood the grassy floor of the theater several inches deep, often while the movie was playing.  Not for us.  For our movie, we saw the new Disney Zootopia.  Great movie, we all laughed.  Occasionally on the screen we saw lizards run across as they caught bugs, and I saw a couple of bats fly through.  The funniest thing about the open air cinema is that it is directly in the flight path of the local airport, so we couldn’t hear a couple of times as planes or helicopters roared over.

 

A must do in Broome is the sunset camel tour.  We chose Broome Camel Safaris.  Why camels?  Part of Australia’s history is that many of the goods used to establish very remote towns, cattle stations, and sheep stations, were carried on the backs of camels.  Before roads and trains, what better way to move goods across a hot dry landscape?  And many of the camels were subsequently turned loose.  Australia now has the largest population of feral camels in the world.  Broome Camel Safaris has “rescued” many of these camels, often when they're found on properties during cattle musters, and trained them.  Again, our cameleers were highly informed, passionate, and clearly loved these camels.  They said the owner sometimes even sleeps in the crook of the neck of some camels.

We boarded and as they lifted up, we had a stunning view of the beach.  Each had their own personality, and Grace really identified with her grumpy camel Jabul.  As we walked along, we learned more about camels, Will asking endless questions of our guide.  The camel behind Tricia and Maggie was best friends with their camel, and spent most of the treck with his face right by Maggie's foot.  She was terrified at first, but soon learned to like it.  A good distance down the beach, we turned around and walked back, again treated with a beautiful sunset.  At the end, after disembarking, we each got to feed our camel a carrot, and the ladies got a pair of real pearl earrings.  So much fun.

Will and I are beneath the sun, Grace riding solo, Maggie and Tricia behind them.

For our time in Broome, we found some really good food.  Pizza, great hamburgers at The Good Cartel, breakfast by the water at Town Beach Café, and Matsos had something for us all, including a vegetarian grazing plate that Grace loved.

The best snacks, or “nibbles”, were on our sunset Hovercraft tour.  That’s right, hovercraft.  We boarded just before low tide, and learned all about these unique vehicles as we toured Roebuck bay and the area around.  Along the way, we stopped to view some of the famous dinosaur tracks.  Thought to be 130 million years old, early cretaceous, and of sauropods, the largest of the land dinosaurs.  Large and round, once you see one, they start to become visible everywhere. 

Continuing on, we ended at the flying boat wrecks, visible only at very low tide.  Again in 1942, there were several large planes carrying refugees from Holland to Australia.  They had stopped for the night in Broome, anchored out to sea, while their pilots rested for the next leg of the journey.  The Japanese launched a group of zeros with long-range fuel tanks.  They jettisoned these fuel tanks and came in to attack American bombers stationed at the Broome airfield.  While flying in, they also targeted these flying boats, or sea planes, and sunk them all, leading to the loss of life of many civilians, either from the explosions, drowning, or shark attacks as they tried to swim for shore.  The hovercraft stopped on the flats near these wrecks at low tide, and we sat out watching the sunset, photographing the planes, and enjoying nice champagne and snacks.  The kids played in the sand finding many small starfish and sand dollars.  Beautiful sunset and a really unique experience.

Loaded and ready to go

Looking at dinosaur tracks

Maggie's feet in a dino track

Engine from a Catalina flying boat

 

So I might end this blog here, because I have been quite verbose, and the next section was my personal favorite.  I’ll add pictures to the above, publish, and start working on the highlight of the trip – horizontal falls.

For now, thanks for reading.  I hope you’ve enjoyed our adventures.

-Peter