Day 11 Broome Day 2

There are a lot of aboriginals lounging and relaxing around Broome.

The history of the pearl diving trade.

The volunteer manning the Sisters of St John museum.

An original photo of aboriginals at the time of early contact.

The red soil, the tide and some mangroves.

The town beach, which is closer than Cable Beach.

An ibis.

Tuesday, September 20^th.

This morning the Germans and I walked across the street to the Oasis cafe and had a breakfast of wraps and a smoothie before we went back and got organized for the day. We walked down Fredrick Street to the visitor's centre where we found out about a couple of things to do. Then we walked to Chinatown which is the central shopping area where we split up to do our own thing. They wanted to shop, I wanted to get a shave, I was looking quite bogan, as I hadn't shaved for ten days. I walked around the main drag a couple of times looking for a barber. I found one who would use clippers but not shave me. I found a barber shop and asked the price and was told it would be $35 for a face and $45 for a head shave! $80 bucks! I said I'd do it myself.

I met the others at the Dragonfly cafe and we had a drink before Gutrand and I went off to find the Lugger's museum, the Sister's of St John of God Old Convent Campus, and the Broome Historical museum.

The first was an exhibition of two lugger boats and all the history and apparatus needed for mother of pearl diving. This town has a rich and sad history of pearl diving. Sometimes the aboriginals were used against their will as divers in the days when they wore iron helmets with primitive air pumps and knew nothing of the bends.

The second was a cultural and catholic museum dedicated to the work the Sisters of St John nuns did in the early 1900's educating and converting the aboriginals. They also ran an orphanage. It was quite interesting and the volunteer at the desk was an aboriginal man who was happy to talk about his history and that of the town.

The third was the museum of the Shire (their word for county) of Broome and contained exhibits of aboriginal history pearl diving history, the invasion of the pastoral farmers, t and the bombing by the Japanese during WWII when the Japanese found a number of Dutch ships in the harbour and sunk them killing Dutch refugees from the Dutch East Indies who fled to escape the Japanese. There was also a dinosaur footprint that was one of a series that they found along Cable Beach at low tide about 10 years ago, by a woman who was collecting shells.

After all of that we walked to the town beach where we met up with Anja and Albert for a short swim. The beach here is much smaller and not as pretty but the water felt good on my hot body. After we relaxed in the shade for a bit. I wandered over to a table to read a book Godrun had bought about the Kimberly and wound up talking to a retired 'truckie' and his wife. They are on a road trip from Perth to escape the cold of the south and enjoy the outdoors of the north. He used to drive road trains. We had a great talk for about an hour about Australia and traveling. They offered me a beer and we had a good time.

Eventually we took the city bus back to the hostel where I had a swim in the pool and then shaved my own head with only minor damage. We met up in the lobby again with Katherina and went to the Little India Restaurant where I had the best curry prawn dinner I've ever had. Then back to the hostel to get organized for tomorrow's departure with the new group on a new truck.