07 Broome

Broome has a wet season (summer) population about 16,000 but in the tourist season it swells to 3 times that size. It is famous for many tourist things, particularly Cable Beach and for the pearl industry.

The tidal range is about 8 metres so a lot of beach is dry at low tide and lots of 4wd vehicles drive onto the beach, especially when low tide and sunset coincide.

This sunset gives a sort of stairway appearance.

You can go on camel rides along Cable Beach, they look great at sunset. We didn't have a ride, just enjoyed the view.

Just thought it was time to put the old man's photo in there. This is Town Beach, a lovely shady spot where we went for a picnic lunch. It was very hot in Broome.

Broome has a very mixed population, especially lots of Asians, whose families came here for the pearl industry before WW2. Shady Lane was a great spot in Chinatown.

The Pearl Shells off the Broome coast are the largest in the world. These are harvested by scuba divers and a seed is carefully placed inside. Then they are placed back in the water and carefully checked for about 2 years.

 We took a trip to a Pearl Farm, where the Pearl shells are put in frames and placed in the fast flowing tidal water.

This shell was opened in front of us, this is a medium size cultured pearl.

And we were shown the top of the range in the shop on the Pearl Farm, Lee was selected to model this string worth $80,000. Pearls are valued by shape, colour, lustre, size and lack of imperfections.
This string was flawless. But she did have to give it back.

Broome was the edge of the Kimberleys, next we headed to the mining areas, the Pilbera.