BROOME
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8 May 2010. Cable Beach..... a beautiful broad, white sandy beach .... the tides here can vary by up to 9 metres....
Click any photograph to enlarge.
Wolfgang's car opposite the road which comes down onto the beach..... in the background is one of the resorts with a public restaurant at the front..... To the left is a nude beach where you can drive and the camels take their daily rides..... and to the right is an ordinary beach with lifesavers and safety flags. (All swimming was banned last week when a crocodile was spotted swimming parallel to the beach).
A wedding marquee on the lawn in front of the above resort... the wedding party had their photos taken on a camel train..... the bride had some trouble mounting the camel in her elaborate wedding dress!!
Look
ing south towards the entry point to the beach in pic above..........
It's a hard life!!
Wolfgang walking north...... the beach continues for about 15 or 20 kms.....
Shells & Coral we found on the Beach one early morning
Shells are 60mm & 75mm long
Wolfgang taking pics in the early evening......
Broome is famous for its camel rides along the beach at sunrise and sunset. There are several camel trains each with 10-13 camels. Here they are waiting patiently for the tourists to arrive.... Each train has different coloured livery..... here it's black with a yellow trim, while others have blue or red trappings.
The camels coming past on the evening of a rainy day. A TV crew was filming in the van at the front and we saw it on the news the next evening....
Another spectacular sunset........
BROOME TOWN CENTRE
A roundabout in the town centre.........
Here is a row of shops in Johnny Chi Lane..... because of the Japanese and Chinese Pearlers, the Asian architectural influence is found around Broome in old shops and new public buildings...... even bus shelters and phone boxes show this Asian influence......
Monuments to the founders of Broome and the pioneers of the pearling industry.......
Sun Pictures is Broome's indoor/outdoor movie theatre.... it's supposed to be the world's longest running outdoor theatre. In the 1930's the seating was segregated with aboriginals and Asians in separate seating areas and whites in the middle with comfortable cane chairs....
Cable House was built in 1889 and was the staff residence and office where telegrams were transmitted all over the world. In the following picture you will note that the Boab tree on the left has not grown much at all in the past 100 years.....
Cable House is unique in that it was prefabricated in England, including all the ironwork railings and steps. The teak wooden floors were shipped from Singapore. In 1921 the WA Government bought Cable House from the telegraphic company and designated its use as a Court House, which it still is today. Lush gardens now surround this building where an outdoor market is conducted each weekend.
Original ironwork steps and railings........
Lovely old church with french doors all around......
A street sign..........
The children's water garden... a free park with lots of water fun!!
Around in the bay is a quite different Riddell Beach..... the beach is not as wide as Cable Beach but it's backed by rich red cliffs and sandstone rocks.... it's usually much more private here....
The creeper, Beach Morning Glory, has been planted along the coast to stabilise dunes.....
The flowers of Beach Morning Glory......
TOWN BEACH
Town Beach is in Roebuck Bay (named after the ship of a 1600's English buccaneer, William Dampier, who explored this area). In this lovely spot is a small pioneer cemetery including this monument to a young pearl diver who died here in 1993. Just offshore, about where the white boats are seen, are the wrecks of flying boats.... these were amphibious planes from the British, US and Australian air force as well as Qantas and were transporting Dutch refugees fleeing from the Japanese invasion of Java in World War II. At 9:30 am on 3 March 1942 Japanese aircraft flew down the coast and into the bay and attacked the sea planes floating here... 18 U.S. and 5 U.K. air force personnel were killed as well as 61 confirmed Dutch (mostly women and children). 22 allied planes were destroyed. Broome suffered three more Japanese raids and later in the month one man was killed when they bombed the Broome airfield.
The tide has gone out and the moon is just peeping up over the horizon...... hundreds of people gather to watch the phenomenon known as the "Staircase to the Moon". This happens when the full moon rises, the tide goes out and the moon shines over the rippled mud flats to give a stepped or staircase effect "to the moon".......
GANTHEAUME POINT
The southern end of Cable Beach follows a small bay and ends at rocky Gantheaume Point with a lighthouse....
The lighthouse keeper's house..... on the platform of the tower, just below the light, was a huge nest with a very loud family of baby Kestrels
Mum and Dad were both there keeping watch and feeding their noisy brood....
We walked on past to the point..... there were a lot of visitors wanting to see the dinosaur footprints which are embedded in the rocks near the shore .....
Tourists looking at the dinosaur footprints..... there are actually footprints of two different kinds of dinosaurs in this place....
A close up of one of the prints.....
Anastasia's Pool.... this pool was made by one of the lighthouse keepers for his wife who suffered from severe arthritis..... he would carry her over the rocks so she could bath in the warm water....
Further out in Roebuck Bay are mangroves and mud flats.......
These mud flats are extremely rich in marine life and attract thousands of migratory birds from as far away as Siberia........
Oyster Catchers are common.........
We found several Rainbow Bee-Eaters right on the edge of the beach........
WILDERNESS WILDLIFE PARK
Wolfgang survives the jaws of a crocodile!!!!
Malcolm Douglas, a former crocodile hunter turned wildlife conservationist, established this park which mostly showcases crocodiles but also runs breeding programs for endangered Australian animals, such as Bilbys.
Crikey! It's alive!!
A black dingo, part of the natural colour range.....
This Barking Owl was not in a cage but was sitting in a tree attracted by the Barking Owls in the cage below......
