Kimberley and Top End-Broome

Last night we met the tour guides, Kim and Ben, and the passengers (21 all together) at dinner. The next morning we boarded the bus for the first of 14 days of adventure. The bus is a 4 wheel drive Mercedes truck with a cabin on the back. It was air conditioned and comfortable. The first day was a tour of Broome and surrounding areas.

Gantheaume Point's unusual lighthouse. There was a huge Osprey Eagle's nest on the top platform.

The contrast of the red, pindan earth and rocks with the pearlescent, aquamarine water was beautiful. Anastasia's pool is a hand dug pool made for an early lighthouse keeper's wife to ease her arthritis but it was empty as it needs a high tide to fill. There are also Dinosaur footprint fossils at the water's edge.

We had an informative visit to 'Pearl Luggers' a museum showing the history of the pearling industry.The industry started in 1880's after settlers failed as graziers due to drought. Some of them started collecting the huge pearl shells from the shore and selling them. The shells were sought after overseas for buttons and decoration. Soon all the shells were gone from the shore and aboriginals were made to dive for them. Soon they needed to go deeper for them and so deep sea divers were employed. The Japanese were the most successful divers.

They wore heavy suits with long woollen underwear and.....

.....with lead weights, very heavy boots and the mask connected with air tubes and a line for signals to the lugger. It took them hours to get dressed and they needed help.

It was an extremely dangerous job. An old pearling lugger being restored. The sought after shells used for buttons by Europeans and a modesty cover for Aboriginals. Occasionally a natural pearl was found inside the oyster. This one is worth over $100,000 Many hundreds of Japanese divers are buried here in the Japanese cemetery. At the end of the day we were taken to the beach to watch the famous Broome sunset. Our friend Joe is a character, who kept us entertained throughout the trip. Here he watches the sunset with a seaweed moustache. So ends the first day of our tour.

Kimberley and The Top End Adventure

Kimberly is the name given to the northern area of Western Australia and Top End is the name given to the northern area of the Northern Territory. Two weeks ago we flew from Brisbane to Broome via Sydney to join a guided tour through these regions to Darwin. Broome is a small town but rapidly growing due to the tourist trade. It has a population of 15,000 which increases to 45,000 in the tourist season. There are two seasons: The Wet and The Dry, both are hot but it is hotter in The Wet, tourists prefer The Dry. (Apr-Nov.) Temperatures range from 30C to over 40C.

Together with six friends,we arrived at the small international airport.

Soon we were transferred to our resort. Bill, Helen and Paul.

After we settled in we went for a walk to the beach. We passed these Boab trees, which are common in the outback. They are fibrus inside and don't have rings like other trees. We noticed how different the houses are compared with the East Coast. They are made of colourbond, corrugated iron as this is the cheapest material to transport the huge distances, and they don't have guttering because no guttering can cope with the torrential tropical downpours. Cable Beach is 22.5k/15miles long and has 9m/30ft tides.It is called Cable Beach because it is where the telegraph, undersea cable connects Australia to Singapore and the rest of the world. It was laid in 1889. Tourists can take camel rides along the beach. Camels were introduced into Australia to help transport supplies to the builders of the overland telegraph line in the 1800's. After train tracks and roads were made the camels were often let go to run wild. Now we have the biggest population of camels than any other country. We even export them to Arabia. The camels are on their way back and the tourists in 4Xwheel drive vehicles drive on the beach to picnic and watch the spectacular sunsets over the sea, (which is unusual for us East Coasters).There were also 2 weddings taking place on the beach.

On the way back to the resort we stopped by a lovely restaurant for dinner. "Eight friends will travel." The next morning we explored the little town centre, because we weren't meeting the tour guides until 6:00pm. One of the two main streets with arcade. The car has been travelling on the red dirt roads.

I couldn't get used to giving way to cars even when on a crossing. Nearly got skittled a few times. Broome has a colourful history. In the late 1800's Broome developed due to the discovery of "Pinctada maxima", huge mother of pearl shells. The shells were sought after by overseas countries for the manufacture of buttons, and for the rare finding of natural South Sea Pearls. These statues are of the men who developed the pearling industry.

The old jetty where pearling luggers used to unload their haul of shells.

In town there is still operating today an open air movie theatre. It was built in 1916.

Some of the chairs had been moved today to make way for another function.

A local aboriginal. In 1942 when the Japanese occupied Dutch Indonesia many refugees arrived in Broome. There were many Dutch, American, British and Australian ships and flying boats in Roebuck Harbour in Broome. The Japanese mounted three bombing raids over the harbour. Many ships and flying boats were sunk and 88 people were killed some were Dutch civilians on board the boats. The war with Japan caused extra problems for Broome because the pearling industry employed hundreds of Japanese deep sea divers.

Birthday Bear Joins the Choir.

Birthday Bear sings for the CWA with Helen. 

Bear joins the CWA Choir with helen.

Bill helps bear with the lyrics. Mary was the clever person who dressed Bear in a beautiful outfit.

Mary, Bill, Paul, Bear, Helen, Ann and George.

Bill's favourite lunch. Sausage and Mash.

My favourite fish Snapper.

Helen is happy to have a companion to go to choir.

Berrinba Wetlands

We live in Logan City, it is the area of urban sprawl between Brisbane City and The Gold Coast City. These three cities together with the Sunshine Coast area to the north of Brisbane and Ipswich City to the west make up the densely populated South East corner of Queensland. However the councils do try to keep some green areas for the community to enjoy. I recently read about a new area in Logan that has been opened to the public called Berrinba Wetlands. So off we went to explore. It took some finding as the roads to it are so new they were not in the GPS but Google Maps came to the rescue. It only took about 20 minutes to get there.

Pelicans

There were many pathways and cycle tracks.

A wattle tree in bloom

The path passed between two sheoak trees, which are also in bloom.

It is a very tiny flower.

 It could be a cormorant. We walked a short circuit but I would like to do the longer one another day.

We returned to the back of the new interpretive centre.

Then around to the front.

There were nice picnic spots and a big, children's playground. I thought it was a lovely area but Bill reckons it will be better when the plants are more developed and the water is clearer.

Swiss National Day

Today is Swiss National Day. We don't always celebrate but this year we did. Bill comes from Switzerland but has lived in Australia longer than in Switzerland and he is an Australian citizen. However it is sometimes nice to remember your heritage, so he did today.

Bill has an Alp Horn, which usually adorns our stairwell wall. Today he took it down, brushed off the dust and gave the neighbourhood a rendition of haunting mountain music. He rarely does this as he is a bit shy.

Then we hunted the wardrobe for our Swiss souvenir T-shirts, jackets and hat, jumped in our matching red car and drove to the northern suburb of Mitchleton, where there is a very good traditional Swiss restaurant called Des Alps. We had arranged to meet some Aussie friends who wanted to celebrate with us especially as they know how good the food is there.

I have a Swiss cow on my shirt and the Swiss crosses on our jackets? It was such a hot winter's day that we had to take off our jackets.

Des Alps is a small cosy restaurant with a function room at the back.(Look how these patrons are dressed for winter, she has a strappy blouse..yahoo I think winter is over)

Nick and Monique, the owners were there to greet us and cook for us. They had pulled out the 25 Canton (state) flags of Switzerland to decorate the restaurant for us.

Paul, Bill, Denis, Colin,Val, Helen and Peter enjoyed lunch with us.

I had the special set menu. Cheese Tart appetiser.

Smoked trout entree (absolutely delicious)

Veal in a lovely sauce with Rösti potatoes for main course (Half eaten, I nearly forgot to take photo)

Rice pudding, cinnamon ice cream and ginger biscuits for dessert.