Broome and the Dampier Peninsula
Back
To Earth…. After our Kimberley Quest II cruise we were quickly
brought back to earth. We picked up our
caravan from storage and met up with Liz’s sister Jan, and husband Ian
who had been traveling up from Denmark,
south of Perth. We stayed out at Cable
Beach on a 3 acre property (friends of
Jan and Ian’s) for the week while Jenny and Bob Gault had another week at
Cable Beach Resort. Jenny and Bob thoroughly enjoyed the week at Cable Beach
Resort just relaxing around the resort and catching up with us at different
times. We had a barbeque on Cable Beach
one night whilst watching the sunset.
The sunsets in Broome are rather spectacular and the beach is a very
popular spot to see the sunsets as the camels (up to twelve) walk along the
water’s edge. The camels
silhouettes make for a brilliant photo shot.
More Birthday Celebrations….. We went to the
pictures at the Sun Theatre in Broome.
This outdoor theatre was built in 1921 and you lay back in sun deck
chairs outside to watch the movie which was “Mr and Mrs
Smith”. The six of us rated it 2
out of 10. The chocolate bomb ice creams
were very good though. We spent the week
just relaxing, fishing off the beach with not much luck, except for a big sting
ray that ended up breaking the line, and a couple of under size fish. The best thing was swimming in the clear blue
waters in water temperatures of 23 degrees.
It was Jenny’s turn to celebrate her birthday which Liz and Jenny
did in style. Jenny had booked a 
massage each at Cable Beach
Resort. It was the most luxurious
massage and after an hour of being pampered and feeling so relaxed we joined
the others in the Sunset Bar for drinks at sunset and dinner. What a nice way to say goodbye to Jenny and
Bob who were returning to the cold winter in Melbourne the next day.
Heading
North Again….. On Monday 11 July, we set off with Jan and
Ian for our seven day camping safari up the Dampier Peninsula. The road up the Peninsula
(photo left) is predominantly 
corrugated sand tracks and on average, not in as good
a condition as the Gibb River Road. Our first stop was Beagle Bay,
an aboriginal community. We had morning
tea here and visited the Beagle
Bay Church
(right) which was built during and after World War 1 by the Pallotine
monks. The church was built of local 
stone and the altar is inlaid with mother of pearl
shells and cowrie shells. We then moved
onto Middle Lagoon via a back track which we were told about by the aboriginal
community. This track was very narrow
and sandy but after crossing a bit of a bumpy creek and following the instructions we were given, we reached
Middle Lagoon and only ended up doing one U-turn which was very good,
considering none of us fully understood the instructions. We camped here for two nights and enjoyed the
beach, fishing and a rocky lagoon area where we had fun snorkeling.
A
Village Jewel…. Lombadina was the next aboriginal community
we visited with a population of about 60 people. Again this is a working
community and it hasn’t changed since we last visited in 2000. The gardens and lawn area are looked after
with pride and the shady mango trees and spreading palms create a village green
atmosphere. The bakery was still
operating. We were lucky as the bread is
only made in a wood fired oven three times a week and we just happened to
arrive when the bread was being taken out of the oven and closing for the morning. We bought a loaf each and walked around the
small community. There is the craft
shop, a general store, mechanical repairs, wood working facility, and the
lovely old church (above) built in 1934 with its thatched roof and built with
local mangrove and paperbark and supported with wooden poles. This aboriginal community is an absolute
credit to them and they take real pride in the appearance and upkeep of the
entire area.
Chile
Was Certainly Not Chilly…. It was then onto Chile Creek, only 7 kms
from Lombadina. Liz had heard a good
report about this place so we decided to seek it out. When we arrived we found that an aboriginal
youth group of 30 girls and boys would be there. They were there for leadership skills
training and to learn some of the aboriginal arts of spear making and
fishing. They were quite a well behaved
group of people and would go off each day to do the various activities
organized for them.
It was very hot at Chile Creek with not a
lot of shade but very new toilets and showers – thank goodness. We spent out time fishing for that big
fish. The estuary and beach was a good 5
minute drive on a very sandy track but we fished both days and could only catch
rock cod. We learned that the youth group had been taught how to throw a
particular plant into the water off the rocks which would stun the fish and
enable them to spear the fish. This may
have been what we should have done. The
beach was beautiful with a good selection of shells for the collection.
It was here that Jan and Ian learnt how to
erect their tent perfectly. The
instructions they had on tent pitching were not all that clear and their tent
didn’t look square to the walls and erect. Some other campers gave them the clue they
needed and from then on it was a fine upstanding tent for the three nights we
had at Cape Leveque.
Kooljaman,
Paradise Found…. We were ready
to leave Chile Creek and move onto Kooljaman at Cape Leveque
once described as “paradise where you can do as much or as little as you
want”. Kooljaman is the prize at
the end of the Cape
Leveque road. The road is certainly corrugated, sandy and
fairly rough in spots. There were a
number of washaways due to the heavy rain earlier in June and some parts of the
road were roped off, but we made it
safely there and booked into our beach shelters.
These beach shelters are free standing
treated poles with the roof and walls thatched.
The floor is sand and a cold water shower is in one corner and table and
bench seats complete the furniture provided.
Hot showers and toilets are in a separate building nearby. Each shelter has a beautiful view of the
beach which is just outside your entrance.
We pitched our tents under the shelters and for three days enjoyed all
that Cape Leveque has to offer. We awoke one morning to a pod of whales just
offshore and they amused us while we had breakfast.
On the western beach the colour in the rocks is
amazing, ranging from burnt sienna through to 
burnt orange, red and ocre. When the sun goes down the colours of the
rocks change, so of course everyone goes down to see the sunsets and have a
fish as well. Again we fished and this
time we were quite lucky and managed to have a fish entrée on one of the nights. We took Jan and Ian fishing to Hunter Creek. This very wide creek is 7 kms from Kooljaman
along a sandy marked track. The tyres on
your 4 WD are let down to 18 psi to travel through the fine sand. Once there we cast our fishing lines in and
it didn’t take long before this enormous groper about 1.5 metres in
length swam in which made it nearly impossible to land a fish. In 2000 a similar incident happened and this
particular groper named Henry by the aborigines, would swim in and grab
everything off your line. It was
happening again in 2005.
One
Arm Point, A Party Atmosphere…. We read about a festival day being held at
One Arm Point, again another aboriginal community supporting themselves. This was the closing of NAIDOC –
aboriginal islanders gathering every year in July to celebrate their
culture. We decided to visit for the day
and what a day we had. We arrived around
2.00 pm in time for the boomerang throwing competition. At 4.00 pm the boomerang throwing competition
commenced but who cares if the festival is running late – everyone was
enjoying themselves. Kathy Freeman was
there and mixing with the community.
There were food stalls and a food tasting area as well. A turtle had been cooking in coals for hours
(picture right), a dugong was also cooking and rock oysters straight off the
rocks were cooking on an open fire.
Everyone was invited to taste and Jan and Ian and us sampled the turtle
and dugong. Both of them tasted like
lamb and weren’t too bad. The
oysters were very salty but nice. The
aboriginals in this community are very friendly and happy and we had the most
enjoyable and enlightening day with them.
At the end of the day a stage was set up in the sand
with branches of trees and from behind each group of branches appeared small
aboriginal boys at first, who danced and performed part of a dreaming
story. Three aboriginal elders banged
their decorated boomerangs and told the dreaming story. It was an unforgettable experience as groups
of older aboriginals all made up with face and body paints and in costume performed
the story in front of the gathered crowd.
The crowd winner was a little aboriginal boy of no more than 5 years who
performed all of the sequences of the story.
He had been taught all the hand and body movements and didn’t miss
a beat. It really was an unforgettable
day and we arrived back at our shelter well after 6.30pm.
Cape Leveque would have to be one of our favourite places probably
because of its remoteness and the beach shelters which are in a unique setting
and the scenery. We had three nights
here and we all thoroughly enjoyed the time together. It was then time to leave and return to
Broome which took 4 hours to travel back along the same road. It is always good to return to “our
little home away from home” and have some luxury again.
Time
For A Reunion…. For our last
week in Broome, we caught up with Cheryl and Bob Lockwood, friends of ours who
left Ballarat on 1st May, the same time as we did. The six of us went out for dinner at Café
Carlotta, a very nice Italian restaurant set in a garden surrounded by
palms. We all enjoyed the food and wine
after camping for a week. We had drinks
at sunset on Cable Beach again which is really hard to take, swimming,
relaxing, reading and a bit of domestic housework filled in the week, then it
was time to say goodbye to Jan and Ian as they headed off to travel the Gibb
River Road and a bit more camping. They
are now experts at this camping game.
For our last night together the six of us had dinner under our awning
– chicken Italienne and a lemon pudding (Liz’s invention!)
Cheryl and Bob left for Cape Leveque
one day later so we went to the Mangrove Hotel for drinks and to see Staircase
to the Moon then a BBQ of barramundi to say goodbye to them. We are now back on our own again and left the
following day for 80 Mile Beach which is 377 kms south of Broome.
The highlight of this section of our
trip. Has to be our three days at Cape Leveque
and the day spent at One Arm Point enjoying the aboriginal NAIDOC
celebrations. A great experience.