A Bit of “Home from Home” in Broome…!!

After a very restful night, followed by a hearty breakfast, I sat out on the patio of the Human residence, sipping coffee and shooting the breeze with Coenie and Rene…

They described what living in Broome was like, and the various sights I should take in whilst I was there… There was apparently a healthy population of South Africans in the area, and we made plans to hook up with them over the next few days… After Rene had left for work (she is part of the Town Planning team which manages developments in the Shire of Broome…) taking their two daughters, Siobhan and Nicole to school on her way, Coenie and I chatted about life back in South Africa, and the circumstances which had forced so many South Africans like themselves, to emigrate to Australia and many other parts of the world…

The spacious home of Coenie and Rene Human, my Broome HQ in the far north of Western Australia...

I had not bothered to keep up with the current political situation back in South Africa, and was saddened to hear that Julius “Wanker” Malema was still making waves with his comments that were set to make the country I called home, just another “basket case of Africa”…!! Seems as though the lessons of what has taken place in Zimbabwe have not managed to penetrate his thick skull as yet…!!

While Coenie went off to run some errands, I decided to explore Broome to see what made the town a popular haunt for tourists and local Australian holiday makers as well…

Parked near Town Beach, overlooking the mangroves and the exquisite turquoise blue seas of Broome...

Broome was founded on the back of the pearl fishing industry, established here in 1880...

Broome has a population of just 15 000 people, but this can swell to over 45 000 in the tourist season…!! It has been a centre for the pearling industry since the late 19th Century, where predominantly Japanese pearl divers plied their trade, harvesting oysters and of course, the pearls associated with them… Almost a thousand Japanese divers, who died during the course of what was once a dangerous way to make a living, are buried in the cemetery at Broome…

Although the Japanese were always accepted as part and parcel of life in Broome, relations between them and the locals became somewhat strained, when Broome became only the second Australian town after Darwin, to be attacked by the Japanese fleet during World War ll…!!

I noticed that my arrival in town coincided with the annual Pearl Festival, and various events had been planned to celebrate the town and the history built up around its pearl industry…I rode to the towns information centre, to learn more about Broome and the current events taking place there, and while I was browsing through the vast amounts of literature on display, I bumped into Andy Dunn, the KTM rider who I had accompanied into Kununurra a few days before…!!

Andy's KTM shows the results of riding the Gibb River road... The Big Fella thanked me afterward for not putting him through the same ordeal...!!

He had ridden the Gibb River road and on entering Broome, had seen the Big Fella parked at the info centre… We stood chatting about his ride, which he had taken two days to make, and discussed the possibility of riding up to Cape Leveque together the following day… But before he could do that, he needed to replace his back tyre, which was in a rather sorry state…!!

There's a heck of a lot of stuff you cannot do on Broome's beaches...!! In fact, Australia is all about making up rules for people to obey... The restrictions are endless and exasperating...!! Far too much "control" for most people's liking...!!

Promising to stay in touch to see how things panned out, I pointed him in the direction of a bike shop I had passed earlier and then made my way back to Coenies house to see what he had planned for the remainder of the day…

Andy and I never did get to ride together again, as he left the following day to ride across the desert to Alice Springs with a group of other riders… I will however be looking him up when I visit Philip Island near Melbourne, where he lives and works…

Later that afternoon, Coenie and I took a drive around town, and ended up taking a short walk on Broome’s famous Cable Beach… It is here were the undersea communication cables linking Australia to Asia and Europe enter the water and cross the Indian Ocean…

The tide was receding when we arrived, and I was amazed to discover that the difference between high and low tide here could be as much as eleven metres…!! At low tide, the beach extended over two kilometres out to sea…!! It was possible to walk out following the ebbing tide, and see a number of aircraft wrecks dating back to when the Japanese bombed Broome in 1942…!!

Broome is probably best known for it’s pristine beaches, and at low tide, families in SUV’s and even two wheel drive sedans ride onto the hard-packed beaches to enjoy picnics and sun downers…

To the north of Cable beach, camel-back safaris take visitors on a long walk down the wide beach, and return to the parking area at sundown… About 60 camels, belonging to three separate companies, milled around on the edge of a rocky area that lies between the swimming beach and the edge of town…

As the sun went down, we watched their handlers tie them together in a long line, and then walk them off the beach to wherever they were stabled…

Arabia in Australia...!!

The wide, wide beaches of Broome...

Later that evening, we went out to a local restaurant and enjoyed huge racks of BBQ’ed ribs, the house speciality… Our waiter was a backpacker from Estonia, and we had a hard time getting him to understand our drinks order…!! This was not the first time that I had seen foreigners who spoke little or no English, working in positions where they needed to interact with either locals or tourists…!! In a convenience store close to the centre of town, I encountered a Chinese gentleman at the check-out counter who seemed to have only just mastered “Hello” and “Goodbye”…!!

Preparing to work our way through huge plates of ribs...!! My hosts Rene and Coenie Human treated me to a night out on the town...

I had hoped that being in Australia meant that I no longer had to repeat myself a dozen times to get the things I ordered, but that now seemed a forlorn hope…!!

The Dragon Boat Races took place on the final day of the Pearl Festival...

Even though it was nearing the end of the tourist season, the restaurant was packed to capacity, and the lawns fronting the beaches were filled with groups of people watching the sunset and enjoying the balmy evening… It had been a scorcher of a day, but Coenie advised that the current temperatures were still “pleasant”…!!

Coenie and I check out the beach scene in Broome...

“Come December, it gets so hot and humid here that I often come home from work two or three times a day to change my clothing and have a cold shower…!!” he had said…

Broome has two distinct seasons, a dry season and a wet season, and during the wet, there is often the danger of  cyclones to add to the mix…!!

Houses here are built with this in mind, and cyclone shelters are available to those whose houses have not been built to withstand the high winds and torrential downpours that are associated with a typical cyclone…

The following day, we went down to Cable Beach to see how the Dragon Boat races were getting on… The public beaches were crowded with locals and tourists alike, ensuring that the end of the Pearl Festival went off with a bang…!!

The heat at midday was considerable, and I could imagine how they locals battled when the temperatures peaked at 40 degrees Celsius and more, later in the year…!! The hairs in my nostrils had curled up in discomfort, and I found it easier to breathe through my mouth as we wandered around on the lawns above the beach, watching the teams of oarsman race out to a buoy anchored in the bay…

One of the four boats used in the annual Dragon Boat Races at Broome...

Once they reached this point, they turned and made their way back to the beach, where the first one to plough ashore was declared the winner…

Coenie had arranged with a few other South African families, to have an evening “braai” out on Cable Beach, and that afternoon, we packed up his SUV and headed out just as the sun was setting… Once we had reversed into the position the family usually used to have their beach picnics, we set up table and chairs, and waited for the other families to arrive…

Beach wedding on Cable Beach... Great setting for a special occasion...!!

Close to where we were camped, a beach wedding was taking place… Yes, yet another wedding that I had stumbled upon during my journey…!! It was a small intimate affair, just a dozen chairs and a few tables where guests sat while the ceremony took place…Small bouquets of flowers were arranged in the sand leading up to the red carpet which the happy couple had earlier walked down…

I was struck by the simplicity of it all, stood smiling as I saw the joy on all the faces of the participants, and silently wished the happy couple the very of luck, before I turned away to rejoin my friends… They were inspecting the vehicle in which the bride and groom had arrived on the beach in…

Not your regular "run of the mill" bridal vehicle...!! It certainly captured the attention of all...!!

Directly behind them, the sun began settling into the Indian Ocean, creating a blaze of oranges and reds, that turned to pink as it the fiery ball finally disappeared altogether…

I continue to be enthralled by sunsets such as this one...

As the ceremony was winding down, I walked across the rocks to get a better view of the sunset, and saw colonies of small crabs darting about to feed on the exposed rocks left by the departing tide… They squabbled and fought over the choicest pieces of whatever it was they were feeding on, ignoring my presence completely…

A large fireworks display brought the annual Pearl Festival to a close on Sunday evening...

We stayed on the beach until well after dark, wolfing down salads and “counterfeit boerewors” and rounded our meal off with a large hunk of freshly baked bread… I thoroughly enjoyed the banter around the blazing fire we had built…

Talk of the ongoing Rugby World Cup dominated the conversation of course, as I was sure it was doing at thousands of other BBQ’s back home that Saturday evening, or afternoon as it was back in South Africa…

A heavy dew-fall settled over us as we sat out under the stars, chatting about “home” and the backgrounds we had come from… The temperature dropped, causing us all to shrug into windbreakers and jackets, and huddle closer to the fire…

Listening to my new found friend’s talk of South Africa, made me miss the family and friends I had left behind what seemed like a very long time ago…

I stared out into the night, looking at the spot where the sun had gone down, letting my mind’s eye flash across the ocean before me, to the island of Madagascar, and the country I called home beyond that, 10 000 km away…

I remember closing my eyes for a moment, listening to the Afrikaans that was being spoken around me… It was easy to imagine that I was on a beach somewhere on the South African coast…!!

The beach around us began emptying of other 4 x 4’s and the families that had also enjoyed their late evening picnics… Talk had by then turned to my planned ride south of where we sat… I was told that the next segment of my journey would be the most boring I had encountered so far…

“It’s a never-ending picture of the same thing… Scrub, sand, dry river beds, the occasional tree, and very little else…!!” someone said…

“It goes on and on without anything of interest to see…!!” said another…

Perth lay over 2600 km away, if I followed the coastal road… There were a few points of interest on the coast itself, which I considered visiting, but with just a few days before the Big Fella was due to be serviced, I decided to plan for a three day ride to get there, with one days rest in between…

On my last night in Broome, together with the Human family, we went down to Town Beach where a fireworks display was due to take place… We wandered among the many small food stands, eating chicken satay, and watched as the sky was lit up by exploding rockets…

My hosts Coenie and Rene urged me to stay on in Broome, extending their wonderful hospitality for as long as I needed it, but I had to decline their generous offer… My time in Australia was limited, and the long road to Perth was calling…

©GBWT 2011