Broome Broome going up Dampier Peninsula

Western Australia’s Finest

After getting our car and tank finally fixed in Derby we made the long trip towards Broome. We were scheduled to stay around 2 nights or more. I felt like we did more cleaning than exploring but all was good as my grandma was scheduled to arrive in Broome in 2 weeks. The thought of having grandma with us made me happy as we had not seen her in like nearly 9 months.

While in Broome we spent most of our time packing all our essentials in the car as we were going to leave our caravan in Broome and head towards a pearl farm in Beagle Bay. It was going to be a new experience as this is our first time doing a HELPX, that is, you help/work around the farm in turn for accommodation and food. We left Broome quickly left our caravan and headed towards Beagle Bay. The road was actually quite good if you compare against other roads like the GIBB, although it was very sandy, we had experience on our side.

We arrived at Beagle Bay and met our hosts Erin and Steve. Personally, I thought we were going to camp, but they had other plans as they introduced as to our own rooms with exotic ocean view.

I could get used to this if I could manage to sleep in a comfortable bed. At the pearl farm there were only another couple, Thibaud and Marion (the French), Erin and Steve (hosts), Mark who lived in a property and Alex who arrived a few days after us.

We started getting into a tight schedule getting up at 7:00 am which was really hard as I was so comfortable, had breakfast and got doing our jobs. I myself did some garden maintenance including picking up pine tree leaves which were big and spikey, setting up sprinklers and moving them every ten minutes and some unfinished Cocky business. I did my jobs separately during the day and when it was time I would exterminate the Cockatoos with Steve’s metal slingshot as they were a pest to the native trees. While I was doing that dad, Alex and Thibaud would build a wooden frame for solar panels to save electricity.

I really felt at home not only did they give us electricity, water, a place to stay but they also took us to sacred places in aboriginal land like the sand dunes which was good fun.

At lunch time mum (the cook) would dish out wonderful meals, why doesn’t she cook like that in the caravan? Daily when I had spare time I would get out the hand line and try my luck by myself at the beach. It didn’t go as planned as I threw the line it spun back and hooked me on my back and through my thumb ouch. I cut the string with a knife and took my hooked thumb up to the kitchen for assistance. It was bloody hurting as it nearly went through my whole thumb. I put my thumb inside a bucket of Dettol to prevent germs while Steve came with some pliers. I felt a bit less stressed and safer as he told me that he had experience with it as he did the same thing to his thumb. Then as everyone was putting pressure on my thumb Steve pulled it out. I had a big hole in my thumb on the bright side the pain was subsiding. A few days after the incident it started feeling better also I missed on doing some of my daily chores hehehehe.

We started getting familiar with the people working around at the farm we started playing more games and getting routines going. My brothers and I would usually give smoothies or fruit salad to Thibaud, Marion and Alex at around 10 am then do the sprinklers then I myself would shoot down some Cockies. I regularly would shoot 1 or 2 a day as they were really far away.

We started exploring our surroundings and noticed that we had the privilege to take part in celebrating the church’s 100-year celebration. The church was unique in its own way like the inside of the church was made out of shells, isn’t that just majestic.

It was fascinating to see the aboriginals burning leaves in what is called a smoke ceremony, the smoke is used to bless people so that the bad spirits would stay away.

We all participated in breathing in the smoke. We had a few vegetarians’ snags before watching the aboriginal people do some dancing and telling us some stories. Before it got late we arrived back at pearl farm and before I could say sleep I fell asleep.

In the morning I did my duties as the garden manager did I mention the beach walks? As they were spectacular, the whole family even our friends and the dogs as they were running ahead we had the whole beach to ourselves. On the way back, we found sea cucumbers and then the war began as my brothers and I would squeeze them and water would come squelching out, it was disgusting but fun.

On another day Steve took us on his boat to go for a dip an also to do a bit of fishing. It all suddenly changed as we had experienced the closest most curious whale mum and its calf encounter. This truly was special and so was Steve with his kind compassionate nature but it wasn’t over yet as dolphins came to see the show.

There was so much attention that a bull shark decided to check what’s on the menu. He wasn’t welcome though as he came closer to the boat. With all that excitement we headed back to our cabin with a good memory.

One a fine hot day we decided to go crab hunting as we haven’t had been successful with fishing. We got to were Steve suggested and we had our metal poles to check if the crabs were in the holes, but it was high tide, so we had to wait to prevent having the risk of crocodiles eating us for dinner. Twenty minutes later the tide remained the same so we decided to go with plan B Improvise. We found another way, but we got a bit wet. After a lot of walking and looking for holes we ended up being unsuccessful. We finished our magnificent time at the Pearl farm by going on a day trip towards Cape Leveque. It was a rough ride, but it was worth the effort as the food was lovely and the beach beautiful. We check out the many beaches and saw a few whales far in the distance. At the time we swam at a particularly popular beach as everyone was there.

Two weeks came and left as we arrived at Pearl farm and now we had to leave, had a blast then left. We said goodbye to our lovely friends and sadly made our way to our next destination. We arrived at Broome the following afternoon after having 2 weeks of a fantastic time at Beagle Bay. Good things must come to an end but having our grandma coming to Broome that day did lighten the moment.

So, it began we had to show my grandmother (Silas) the Aussie outback outside the neighborhood of Victoria in a month. I was hyped as we arrived at the airport awaiting our grandmother. Soon she came out with a wooly jumper, socks and a beanie, Melbourne clothes. Soon she realised that this wasn’t Melbourne it was the Aussie outback. We all greeted her with warm and kind welcomes before we arrived at our next caravan park.

For the first few days she was here she got us all in a tight routine of exercise as she was very fit. We would do a few laps around the caravan park then do 60 pull ups she all showed us how thing would be done. We did a few beach walks and managed to witness a beautiful sunset at cable beach. The next morning, we packed up and set off towards Barn Hill which I would be talking about in my next blog.

My time at the pearl farm was very special and is a time I will never forget.