A day in Broome

We started the day early yesterday with an 8.00am meet up with our guide Chris for the Salty Plum Big Art Walking Tour of Broome's Chinatown. We met at the very sculptural Roebuck Bay Lookout at the intersection of Dampier Terrace and Fredrick Street with its 180o views of Roebuck Bay and Dampier Creek.

Our guide Chris is an artist himself and proved to be an excellent and informative guide to the outdoor art works of Broome's unique Chinatown district. The inspired use of collaboratively designed public art, commissioned by Council and part funded by the WA Government, revealed so much about Broome's settler history and the exploitative way different cultures were absorbed into the town's pearling industry.

The art of the local Yawuru people forms a big part of the public art works too and I admired the informative, balanced and respectful way Chris paid homage to this work. We finished off his excellent tour with a light breakfast and coffee at the Green Mango Cafe on Carnarvon Street in Chinatown. Ro and I checked out a few galleries afterwards and Paspaley Pearls HQ (retail) on Short Street for a bit of pearl envy (sorry, I meant to say education).

The iconic Sun Pictures on Carnarvon Street .........

At midday we made our way to the Liyan-ngan Nyirrwa Centre in Reid Street Cable Beach to experience Wanggajarli Burugun (we are coming home) the Yawuru's Story of Repatriation. We found this a very sobering experience, beautifully presented in immersive multi media that really brought home the violence wreaked on the Yawuru people from the 1860s onwards - and their fight to bring the stolen remains of their ancestors back home to country from museums in London and Germany. 

The Yawaru elders all spoke of the respectful way the German institutions have responded to their claims - and the ways they've been blocked at every turn by the English!!! Such a sad sad story, repeated in so many ways - and we have learnt that over 16,000 Aboriginal peoples' remains were taken from country back to England and Europe in the 1900s as part of the colonizing effort - so dehumanising in every way!

The presentation started with a smoking ceremony ....

Around 4.00pm we met up with Yawuru man Bart Pigram of Narlijia Tours to embark on his wonderful discovery tour of the  mangrove forests and jabalbal (mudflats) on Roebuck Bay.

We started walking on to the mudflats not far from our starting point at Matso's Hotel, and hadn't gone too far before seeing evidence of a mud crab feast, most likely speared by "local mob".

With the tide at its lowest and our reef shoes on, it was access all areas of the mudflats zone - with all sorts of sea life to discover and learn about.

Bart was a wonderful storyteller and an excellent guide to the way Broome's Aboriginal and settler histories are reflected in the landforms and environment of the bay area.

 We walked all the way across the squelchy sticky mudflats to the small island at the mouth of Dampier Creek, at the northern most point of Roebuck Bay.

.......... and another wonderful Broome sunset

There was lots of evidence of wrecks from the days when this part of the bay was filled with pearl luggers and other boats.

We ended this unique local experience with Bart setting up a small fire and cooking for us some of the "tucker" (shellfish) we'd collected along the way.

... he cooled the shellfish down in the sand after they'd been cooking for about 10 minutes, before breaking them open using flat stones. They tasted delicious, rich and chewy, even though mine was a bit gritty on the tongue. We loved this whole experience.

We ended off a wonderful day at the stylish Mangrove Hotel with a long beer and a bowl of Korean Bimbinbap under the stars ..... as the blood red moon rose above the mudflats where we'd been walking an hour or so before, all to the soundtrack of didge playing in the background - a glorious accompaniment ...... my camera didn't really do it justice, but Rob's iPhone got a better approximation!