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Category Archives: Broome
Shelly at the crab races
After many weeks spent drinking beer and buying tickets to win a crab at the Broome crab races Shelly finally got crabs… Check out the video of her crab race below.
Broome Time
Since arriving in the dark and the center of a storm Broome has grown on us over he last two months, well not Broome more so it’s weather. Most days since that night we set up in the rain and wind have been near perfection, no cloud, no wind and over 30c.
The people that we had ran into all the time as we moved north have kept moving and after old mate Gordon left Broome we haven’t seen any of the many people we had got to know south of Broome. The Roebuck Bay Caravan Park is on the shores of Roebuck Bay and our penthouse is situated only a left foot kick from the water, well for me anyway for most of the people I played footy with its two kicks away.
The park is split into three parts due to its beach location, we are in the old but better split by a cliff and the newer part who reside a few meters above a rocky beach, the backpackers getting a rough deal who live in the MCG, the mango camp ground out the back under the harsh sun and a couple of mango trees.
When we arrived not even a third of the 200 or so sites were taken now it’s a full house most nights with the sign out the front going up most days prior to lunch. Ninty percent of our fellow residents are gray nomads who make the 2000-kilometer trip from southern WA each year. One group in front of us have been coming for 15 years and all gather at 4:30 each afternoon for a drink and chat until 6:00pm when they all disappear until 5:00am the next morning when most appear with a little conveyance of some type that the contents would be best dumped on a lemon tree.
Ian and Mrs. Ian in there 80’s were the first of the veterans to arrive around a week after us and we found it funny that Ian mowed the site prior to setting up and once set up started watering the grass each morning. From Mandurah south of Perth Ian (and Mrs. Ian) are a nice couple and love footy, it’s a dam shame they follow the Dockers and then Eagles if the Dockers are not playing, a rare thing in the west the norm is you love one and hate the other.
Over the next few weeks one by one the group arrived and now they are up to 20 strong on some nights as they sit around talking Eagles and Dockers until the clock strikes 6pm when they all turn into pumpkins… some nights they have a feast not unlike what we see at Christmas with a long table and each stands to give a talk about something. We have been brave on a couple of occasions and entered the nomad space to see what the fuss is about but been warned off (with a smile) “you just aren’t old enough” something to look forward to… or not?
We have Bob and Linda from Numurkha in Victoria behind us, Bob’s an ex copper with some stories from underbelly, he’s the same Bob who put a hook through his finger in the fishing with Bob video we posted way back.
The West’s from Wonthaggie arrived on a Saturday morning to stay for a night before heading to Cape Leveque but stayed for a week when the road north was closed after rain. Bevan, Jo, Fraser and Harry were half way into a three month trip up around the country, you can see the Wests in the fishing with Bob video Bevan is the guy who pulling the hook out of Bobs hand. Bevan came along to footy training with me one night and after chatting to one guy for some time realised they knew each other from Victoria, the local had played cricket with Bevan’s father for years. They even knew a guy I went to school with having worked with him on the Wonthaggie decal plant. The West’s were Carlton supporters and named the boys after Carlton players, not sure they admitted to this but it seemed obvious to me.
Eddy and Leah in there 20’s pulled up a day or so after us and became our neighbor’s for 7 weeks, being Queenslanders like us we had much in common, every night we would have a beer when Ed and Leah had some fruit or pasta, in the morning (around 5:00am) when Ed and Leah were over in the park working out we were living it up in the penthouse snoring.
Ed found work as an auto electrician and Leah as a teacher but we became good friends spending plenty of time having a chat or feed together and on a special occasion we even had a beer together.
We see many people arrive on motorbikes loaded up with tents and supplies not unlike Mike on his bike just out here traveling the roads of Australia some cover the distance in a few weeks, some a few years…
Vinnie a Kiwi guy was doing the trip with his father Murray on bikes, I spent the night chatting to them over a few beers and admired the bond and fun they were having as they rode a few hundred kilometers a day with a swag and not much else to keep them going. Murray lives in Esperance shared stories of his early life in NZ and his time now in southern WA, he’s even played a few games of aussie rules a game in his words “gee its tough”.
Another guy out here on his bike is a fellow Bomber and shares a name with his father and journalist Tom Prior, most of you Bombers will recall Tom senior as the chief footy writer with the Sun and the man who wrote Kevin Sheedy’s first book Pockets of Greatness. The Priors hale from Geraldton in the west, the same town as Paddy Rider and a heap of boat people. Tom junior is a cook in the town beach café where Shell is a Chef and I dishpig on occasions.
Our campsite is the highest of many levels as it rises from the beach, next to us on the left we had three 4×4’s pull up and set up 5 swags (on legs) and camped out in the open air, they had driven up the Tanami track to Broome from Shepparton (County Bovalino) in Victoria. We ran into these guys at the Satay Hut (a bar only 60 meters from our park) whilst watching the Bombers Suns game, Gus Underwood a bloke in his 60s or 70’s sat down next us and introduced himself and the treasurer (Mrs. Underwood).
Gus is the local sports writer around Shepp and knows Bova and many of other names we know who hail from the area. We had a few beers with Gus and the Treasurer who were great friendly country people who would have talked all night.
We have had many tents and small camper vans pull in to the site below ours and a few weeks back we had Max proudly ease the Blue Heeler in pointing to the sign on the front of his mid eighties Toyota van with his head out the window saying “do ya like me blue heeler”. Max pulled up grabbed a seat out of the van and jumped up on our site to sit in the shade and read his paper. The 85 year old told us he was an ex farmer from Wangaratta in Victoria and has been traveling the country for years “I stayed here 5 years ago you know”. We were heading into town and Max asked us to grab him todays paper “my paper is yesterdays” he told us.
We returned an hour or so later to find Max’s head still firmly planted in yesterday’s paper. He continued to chat away before we told where we are from, “do you know Reece Plumbing” Max asked “my grandson works at Reece Plumbing in Noosa” I said, I know your grandson and I dropped in to see him at Port Hedland because he left Noosa last year. Max’s face light up when he realised I knew his Grandson “you know Jezza” I sure do mate “wow you know Jezza A” It made his day to hear my stories of his grandson’s time in Noosa.
Max stayed for around nine days and each of them he was waiting for me to come down from the penthouse in the morning for a chat about his travels or the Sydney Swans before being ready for another quick chat prior to retiring for each afternoon. One thing Max talked about with passion with his favorite sandwich, bacon, egg, onion and cheese with BBQ sauce toasted sandwich so one morning I set him up on a table by the water at the Town Beach Café and served up his favorite sandwich with a cup of tea, he was one happy 85 year old.
I ran into nine guys from Melbourne ranging in age from late 20’s to mid 50’s they were packing up after camping over near the café about to set off on another long day in the saddle, these boys left Melbourne two weeks ago and will be home in two weeks after they spend some time in Perth and ride the Nullabour east to Victoria. They are traveling with a set up a little more elaborate than most out here, the convoy consists of eight motorbikes a van and large trailer with a cage on the back with tents, chairs and few eskys to keep the lads refreshed in the evening.
Whilst eight of the boys are riding with the wind in the hair at a time one of them is bringing up the rear in the van towing the luxury items. The two weeks so far have taken them west to Adelaide where they turned right to ride the Sturt highway north through Alice to Darwin before heading south west to Broome where we had a chat this morning.
Right now the Victorians are arriving and our current neighbors are from, Leongatha, Berwick and Nicholson and in two days our friends are arriving from Darwin driving hire vans back to Perth.
One guy “DJ Madman” decked out in a Hendrix t-shirt carrying cheap a $20 CD player from Target has just sat next to me on the beach as the tide recedes half a kilometer with his VB stubby and ACDC bursting the cheap speakers, this nutter is rocking hard to Bon and Angus singing Kicked in the Teeth, his head is rocking that hard whilst playing his air-guitar that I wont be surprised if it falls off soon.
Yep, you meet many types, most great some just plain mad…
Fishing
Shell & Bob
My mate Max
Shell & Bruce (or Stan)
Dawn Princes
Two Up @ Broome Races
Birthday Bowles
Home
Dusk
$320 to get out!!!
Camping in Wild
Winner
Birthday
Happy
Bowler
mmm
Broome Pearlers
Dawn Princes
Camping
Shark
Ed & Lea
The Wests
Gus Underwood
Hair
Working
Cuba
Fashion Show
Broome Races
Fashion Show
Satay Hut
Mad DJMan
Good spot to write this blog
DishPig
Two Up @ Broome Races
Broome Races
Camping Food
mOOn
Winner
Bogged
Fishing with Bob
Broome – Crocodile Park
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
Scooter
Croc
Sizey Croc
Small Croc
Alligators
Alligator
Entry Croc
Croc
Feeding Time
Small Croc
Scooter
Birds
Alligators
Alligators
Crocs
Sizey
Birds
Old Mate Feeding
Croc
CROC!!!
Alligators
Croc
Croc
Croc
Broome
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.
Crabs
Broome
Broome
Broome
Broome
The Local
Cable Beach
Cable Beach
High Tide
Coffee at the markets
Tough to take
War in Broome
Cable Beach
Japanese Cemetery
Broome
Moon
Shells eye
Roebuck Bay Caravan Park
20 Years of Crabs
Broome
Cable Beach
One of 7 Seasons
Broome Street Food
Broome
War in Broome
Sunrise
Crabs
War in Broome
Japanese Cemetery
Broome
Japanese Cemetery
Moon
Broome
Flat!!!
Broome
Crabs
Moon
Broome
Low Tide
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