West & North June - July 2016 : Day 09 - Wednesday 06 July - A day in Broome

We found Broome very focussed on tourism - a place to escape the southern winter cold for a week or two. We enjoyed it but are leaving with the feeling that we will probably not bother to return .

Cable Beach - the place to be.

Gantheaume Point - a light house, a rocky headland and an old and well established racing club.

The port had unexpectedly little evidence of pearling, perhaps an indication of how pearl farming has taken over. Plenty of pearl shops in town though, where prices vary from $100s to $10,000s.
(We stayed well within the $100s bracket.)

Volunteers have estalished an impressive museum in some old buildings.
We had not thought much about the impact of WW2 on Broome - the large Japanese population that was interred, the extent of Japanese bombing and more.  An old decompression chamber for divers with the bends makes a CAT Scan look like a Sunday afternoon snooze.
Things like how pearl buttons were made and how people lived too - all very well presented.

A wander in the Broome cemetery was interesting, with its separate Japanese, Chinese, Muslim and general cemeteries, each reflecting different attitudes to death and burial and each accommodating inter-racial marriages. 

 

 

Muslim graves