Broomerang

Arrival in Broome was a fantastic experience due to the bright blue skies and holiday feel. Although being on the road is a great experience, it can be a dusty, hot and tiring time and the beaches of Broome seemed a great choice. We both needed some R&R to relieve the tension of being cooped up in the van and the pressures of spending 24hrs a day with each other. Since the Bungle Bungles, it had started to feel as though we’d been going through the motions of visiting national parks and other natural features without really enjoying them. Unfortunately there’s not a great deal to do apart from that in this part of the world!

Broome is the first destination where it’s really felt like being on holiday.

Palm Grove Caravan Park, smack bang on Cable Beach was going to be home for 4 days to allow us to take in the famous sights and sounds although at $38pn powered was a little pricey. Its a popular spot for Australians to visit and many campers were paying for their holiday here next year already! It’s also the kind of place where campers spend many months of the year, normally those from the southern cities and Eastern states during the winter who benefit from the glorious weather.

A friendly face welcomed us at the Wicked centre – our old van from the Red Centre – in for a service too after coming up the middle to Darwin and along to Broome. Stan had his joints massaged to stop bouncing us around and had an all over scrub tightening handles, a good drink, had his shoelaces tied back up and had a big plaster put on his side to stop the flipper window coming off. It’s amazing what you can do with a tube of silicon!

Sad times also found us in Broome early on that threatened our enjoyment of the little town. The strain of being in the van for so long over the last few weeks built up and we decided to have some time apart for a while. This unfortunately meant that Amber’s adventure around WA and South Australia had come to end, flying to Sydney to spend time with her Uncle Joe in Berry, NSW. It was a difficult few days with tears and lots of sadness but will hopefully work out for us both. For the avid reader, you should now hear of two adventures and to avoid confusion have added Amber’s whereabouts on the map!

To get over this sad time, a Cable Beach camel ride was booked. It definitely help lift the mood. Almost before we set off Tim almost managed to get eaten by one feisty camel whose mouth came awfully close to Tim’s leg as the camel took off. $60pp was a little pricey but the sunset ride was definitely worth it. A big thanks to the guys at Broome Camel Safaris who made the adventure one neither of us will forget – Amber’s post on this will follow :)

Broome’s history is a varied one that would take a while to explain but it’s the pearling industry that has made it what it is today. From the early pearl luggers after the shells to the cultured South Sea Pearls available today, every aspect of Broome’s culture has been impacted by the industry. The 1860s started the trend with European companies using local Aboriginal divers to trawl for the pearl shells. Unregulated and being so remote from the early settlements in the South led to an element of lawlessness taking over with no concern for the health and welfare of divers.

Legislation and regulations slowly led to other nations being involved heavily including the Japanese who up until WW2 had a wide involvement. Since the war no Japanese involvement has been allowed. As time progressed and the requirement for pearl buttons decreased, efforts were made to utilise cultured pearls. At first this was strongly opposed but now accounts for the majority of the pearl industry in Broome equalling and exceeding the economic benefits of the early pearling.

A free visit to the Willie Creek Pearl Farm thanks to a friend of our Palm Grove neighbours Jon and Kay, allowed us an insight into this new cultured pearl industry. Pearling tips about how they are created and harvested both on land and on a boat trip and afternoon tea included too :)

 

 

Amber even tried on a necklace worth $60,000!

  

A drive round Broome found the glorious Town Beach with playgrounds, water parks and picnic areas,

the Wharf that transformed Broome into a major economic hub of Australia by having the capacity to import and export goods using deeper draft vessels and

Gantheaume Point, home to 120million year old dinosaur footprints visible at low tide, or via a plaster cast any time :) The point is protected by a lighthouse due to the incredible coastal rock scenery formed by the huge waves of the Indian Ocean, that would be treacherous to passing vessels.

   

Our visit coincided with the closure of the Shinju Matsuri, or festival of the pearl, that celebrates the multicultural involvement with Broome’s pearling industry. Fireworks on Cable Beach closed the festival following 10days of events around the town. A live music stage had been entertaining the crowds all evening whilst market stalls provided the culinary delights from the countries involved. A very exotic steak sandwich was our dinner followed by many cans of XXXX. It was here where the Isle of Wighters, Jon and Kay met a fellow Wighter, Natalie who organised our tour.

The morning before Amber’s flight saw us flock to Cable Beach to see what all the fuss was about. It truely is one of the world’s greatest beaches stretching for kms and full of squelchy white sand. The water was beautiful and very refreshing for an early morning frolick. It’d be a shame not to be able to stay here for the many months the grey nomads manage to achieve. It was a fitting end to Broome.

    
 

Wicked Red Centre

The middle. The middle is sometimes forgotten as a worthy place to visit in its own right.

We visit service stations en route to places but for some reason always have a funny feeling of excitement when we arrive but never talk about it or in fact make specific arrangements to visit one.  Someone might sit on a fence and be non-committal about a decision but its much more helpful than not saying anything. Why do things always happen in the middle of the night?!



The only exception to the rule is the middle of a jam doughnut (we all love that!) and the middle of Australia. Whilst this trip focussed on visiting places 'down under' and not a culinary adventure, this post is all about Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon, or to some Ayers Rock, The Olgas and Kings Canyon!


The place is associated with many superlatives that even those who haven't been, can relate to. It creates an eerie and strange feeling of deja vu as you begin to talk about the trip that only increases as you get nearer and nearer to being there. You know what you're going to see, just as you know what the film ending for Titantic is going to be, but its scale is beyond belief.

 

 

It's also not until you get there that you're able to comprehend the cultural importance of the land to the Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara people and how they're connected to it; the creation stories that determine how 'The Rock' and The Olgas came to being from their ancestors. Balanced with this ancient belief system are the modern day sciences of geology and capitalism that throws up a lot of issues both for the Aboriginal Traditional Land Owners, visitors and Park Rangers to manage.

To give the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park some perspective, its located approx 500km from Alice Springs and not just down the road, as many predict. This equates to 4-5 hrs continuous drive! It's also accessible by sealed tarmac roads and not bumpy, gravel tracks as many others predict. This give the NP a massive advantage as visitors can choose it as an 'easy' option en route between Adelaide in the South and either Cairns or Darwin in the North.

You can see the distance apart here:

View Larger Map

To make it even easier the town of Yulara (also known as Ayers Rock resort) is right on the doorstop providing all manner of accomodation choices, good toilet and shower facilities, restaurants, bar, supermarket, etc

         
Our mini-adventure around the Red Centre was in a Mitsubishi camper van rented from Wicked Campervans. Wicked are one of a couple of cheap and cheerful backpacker campervan companies that decorate their vans with stylish, garish, rude and funny designs accompanied by either a witty, offensive, rude, funny slogan on the back. Ours wasn't too bad, "3 words a woman wants to hear - I was wrong!"

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There are literally thousands of Wicked Vans dotted around Australia with many more in New Zealand, USA, South Africa (since the WC), Europe and now the UK. There's a good banter amongst drivers with waves and acknowledgements when vans pass each other on the road and also at each location.

 

The internal layout of the van is pretty basic and standard with the rear seats being removed and replaced with 2 compartments for storage, one at each end. The middle section turns upside down and creates an area to have a table. The 'kitchen' area is a basic worktop with 2 open storage cupboards to store a gas bottle & stove and food. An 'esky, or coolbox fits next to that and a water container provides resource for the little sink. Curtains line the inside for additional privacy.



She was a good little runner and we had no problems at all with her. Being slightly higher than a car but just as powerful, the long sealed roads didn't cause any problems and fortunately we didn't need to do any 4WD roads. Petrol prices varied to $1.90 in the most remote areas that works out only just higher than what is being paid in the UK.

The van was ours for 8 days so an itinerary was created to take in the big sights of Ulura, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon as per the standard adventure tour groups schedule albeit at our own pace. It cost us approx $1,000 for the week including hire, accomodation, food and fuel which although seems expensive is comparable to the regular tour of $325each not including food and 5 less days!

 

Driving in the Outback was stunning. The pastel and vivid colours, tones and shadows of the landscape were beautiful that added to the surreal composition of man-made sealed roads, roadhouses and roadtrains. Deep orange and red sand, greens of the shrubs and plants (it was apparently the greenest the Outback has been for 50+ years!!!) and the skies that weren't always uninterrupted blue coupled with the never ending grey roads that looped over each crest over and over again, demonstrated the scale of the environment.



It was one thing that we couldn't have expected, well, based on our past history should have done, but it was grey and cold for the majority of the trip. The fleeces, jeans, extra layers, hats and gloves all made an appearance and pretty much remained on for 5 days. A big thank you to everyone at the RNLI who contributed towards a brilliant sleeping bag - its been a real lifesaver!

The next posts will focus on each location and provide some photos...