The Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park is around 18ks outside of Broome and the road out isn’t as cyclist friendly as those we are used to, very much unlike those in Noosa, so with some cloud building for the first time since we arrived we decided to hire a scooter for the day. The 50cc scooter wasn’t so powerful with the two of us onboard but it did the job even when the road train overtook us on the trip out of town.

Most of us have seen the films produced by Malcolm Douglas, Shelly has even seen him in person many year ago in the Kimberley, sadly he died in a car crash a few years back but his wildlife park is going strong here in Broome his home town. We entered through the large croc head and within seconds I jumped a mile high when I noticed a 4 meter croc just siting in front of me, he was behind a fence but I still jumped!

The main feeding was due to start in an hour but we noticed a group in the park so we caught up to them and joined in the grey parade led by George Negus. It turned out to be a private tour so we headed back for the main tour and before we knew it Shelly had a real croc in her hands, soft and smooth not al all like we expected. The tour guide dude gave us a run down on the park and crocs before he pulled out his bucket of chickens (dead, not live) to start the feeding frenzy.

Australian Salt Water Crocodile

American Alligator

The park had many crocs both fresh and salt water, one of the large pond held 34 or 35 American Alligators, not sure I was comfortable he didnt know how many they had, it was only one but that one was enough to have me looking around for number 35 on my side of the fence. The story old mate told us about the alligators was interesting, they are banned in Australia due to these yanks being able to live in the warm and cold unlike our crocs who love the warm weather like us. He told us about times when alligators had been frozen in storms where they just go to sleep for as long as required before lashing out at anything they can once they wake up pissed off and hungry or when they were washed in with Hurricane Katrina hundreds of ks and had no problem setting up home where ever they liked, these yanks are multiplying fast and becoming a real problem.

They found their way to our fine shores strapped to an americans chest who arrived in Sydney years ago, the 12 alligator ended up living in Taronga Zoo where they were bred under strict conditions, the 34 or 35 in Broome are direct descendants of the original Taronga Zoo alligators.

Press the PLAY button for our crocodile feeding video

The croc park was well worth the scooter ride to see the croc and alligator ponds and then the huge crocs they keep in separate pens, one of the largest was near 5 meters long and looked near 5 meters around his big guts, most of the big boys have found their way here as a result of relocation from populated areas, they had no choice relocate or be shot. They all had a wife some have more than one for breeding but most eat the wife or the eggs if they get grumpy and hungry. Crocodiles can live for 100 years and unlike us grow every year, they don’t grow in length for the full life but in later years grow out just like us.

Press the PLAY button for a Shelly video

Press the PLAY button for a Malcolm Douglas video

CROC!!!

Alligators

Croc

Croc

Crocs

Croc

Alligator

Entry Croc

Old Mate Feeding

Small Croc

Croc

Sizey Croc

Alligators

Birds

Sizey

Birds

Scooter

Small Croc

Croc

Scooter

Croc

Alligators

Feeding Time

Alligators

We drove into Broome under the cover of darkness and possibly the roughest evening for the next 4 months, the wind coming from the south off Roebuck Bay made it difficult to set up and made it noisy as it whistled through the trees marking the shoreline. One highlight on a crap night was a phone call we got from close friends of ours with some unexpected news, news that left feeling very happy, even excited.

After a sleepless night that had us considering moving on from Broome we woke to a much calmer morning that evolved into the best day we have seen since leaving and nothing has changed since, right now Broome is the best climate in Australia.

Broome is 2225ks north of Perth (the short way) with a population of 14,000 people and located in the Kimberly region. Unlike Dampier, Karratha and Port Headland, Broome named after the then governor Sir Frederick Broome is no mining town it’s a tourist town and was established way back in 1883, 200 years after William Dampier cruised by in 1688.

We hit the road on our bikes to do some exploring and buy a TV antenna to make sure we didn’t have a repeat of no footy on ANZAC day, after a stop into the local markets and a super coffee we headed to the shopping district of Broome known as China Town that has taken plenty of its architecture from the Asian influence that has shaped this town.

The streets lined with buildings clad with the same white corrugated iron to give a clean and neat appearance. After wondering the streets for a while we picked up an aerial and headed for home to get the footy going. Much to my disgust the new $70 aerial was as handy as the crap I had used in port Headland and whilst this one picked up 3 stations none showed the football, all 3 showed the same cooking show!

We got cleaned up had a feed and walked 30 steps from our site to Town Beach for the show that a few hundred people had lined the shores of Roebuck Bay for.  A few times every year the moon and tide align to put on a show known as The Staircase to the Moon where a full moon rises in darkens on a low tide creating the illusion of golden step on the sandy flats leading up the moon. The tides in these parts are pretty amazing, not the 1.5 to 2 meter tides we are used to in the East, here in Broome they rise and fall from 1 to 8 meters, even more further up the coast where Shelly was born in Derby where it can be 12 meters at times.

So on this Saturday evening with the beaches full for natures show it was nature itself that let everyone down, clouds! We left the beach still wondering what all the fuss was about.

Sunday morning was hot, 33c at 8am when old mate Gordon from Goulburn came over to help get the TV going, we had ran into Gordon and his wife in four different parks over the last month, a nice old guy in his 70s who loved to tell a joke. We worked out the aerial was crap so we left for town to swap it for a bigger one.

We stopped at a memorial in the center of town to read the story of March 3, 1942 the day the war came to Broome. On this day 10 Japanese planes departed Koepang in Timor to the North for the short journey to Broome where they flew into Roebuck Bay at 9:30am to bomb the airfield and 15 floating planes in the bay, which housed around 40 Dutch civilians. The surprise attack killed 100 people and destroyed 22 aircraft before Broome was evacuated incase a land raid was next.  Surprisingly none of the death toll was made up of Australians in this raid or the following 3 raids in Broome.

We are told many of the planes destroyed in Roebuck Bay are still visible at low tide, I will pack a bag with water and a camera and make the one kilometer trip on a morning low tide soon.

After some lunch a swim at Cable Beach was a must since the mercury had climbed to 38c, Cable Beach on the Indian Ocean is one of the nicer beaches in WA, 22ks of white sands and clear water. It was only a 7k ride with a stop half way to change a flat. Cable Beach was named in honour of the telegraph cable laid from Broome to Singapore in 1889 that allowed communication through to England.

The sign as we entered the beach showing the conditions told us the water was 28c, surprisingly hot considering the water down south can be 14c at this time of year. Shelly as usual floated on top of the water rather than under it, and no it’s not for the reasons some of you may think, she just floats on top unlike me who sinks to the bottom fast.

I had to change a second flat tire before we rode home! We hadn’t noticed the Japanese cemetery on the way out but stopped on the return trip to check it out, like the Chinese the Japanese had spent much time walking the ocean floor in search of pearls the main industry of Broome, the cemetery located next the Chinese cemetery was the resting place for 919 Japanese pearl divers. It was strange to have read the story of the a Japanese air raids on Broome earlier in the day and now standing at the gates of the perfectly laid out Japanese cemetery and reading the story of the strong ties between Broome and the Japanese going back to the 1800s.

We spent the afternoon in the Roebuck Bay Hotel watching the Roos get rolled in a close one before we rode home and went a few steps out the front gate of our park to the Town Beach Tavern and the 20 year old Sunday night Crab Races. A guy stood at the microphone with the worst looking hat in the shape of a crab calling the names of the crabs in each race, a hundred or so punters gathered around to purchase tickets into the raffle for crabs, if you were lucky enough to be pulled out in the raffle you got to choose a crab and hope it was first to run off the table to claim your prize of around $100 each race.

After 2 crab races and not even getting a starter we rolled around the corner to the street food market next to our caravan park and the venue for the last moon show until June. Loads more people gathered tonight with no clouds insight we knew the show would go ahead.

When the large orange moon cast its light upward before it appeared the crowd got excited and rushed down on to the beach by the time the moon had broken the hold the horizon had on it the broken staircase was visible for a kilometer, unlike when the sun sets on the water and a full line reaches back toward you this one was a broken line the width of the bright moon reaching back across the sand flat and shimmering of the little left behind by the fast running tides. It is hard to explain why this was so good to see but to say, its something you should try to see once in your life. I took many pictures some almost capturing what see were looking at but none captured the feeling we were feeling sitting on the shores that night.

High Tide

Low Tide

The plan was to spend a couple of days at Cable Beach before heading to Derby but its now a week since we arrived in Broome and we have no plans of moving in the near future. It’s Wirralbura on the aboriginal weather calendar now, one of seven seasons that seems to make more sense than our traditional seasons, the locals tell us the days should drop to the low 30s and nights much cooler, the sky will stay blue and the winds low for the next 4 months, if that’s that case we will be staying in the best climate in Australia a little longer.

Broome

Cable Beach

Japanese Cemetery

Sunrise

Cable Beach

Crabs

Broome

War in Broome

War in Broome

Shells eye

Roebuck Bay Caravan Park

Coffee at the markets

One of 7 Seasons

Broome

High Tide

Tough to take

War in Broome

20 Years of Crabs

Japanese Cemetery

Broome

Cable Beach

Moon

Crabs

The Local

Broome Street Food

Crabs

Broome

Cable Beach

Broome

Broome

Flat!!!

Broome

Moon

Broome

Japanese Cemetery

Moon

Broome

Low Tide

Broome