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.