17 April 2013 - Palm Grove Tourist Village, Cable Beach, Broome, Western Australia

We would have been gone soon after 8.30 am this morning had the very pleasant park manager, Sean, not come over to see all was well. He is a talker and had kept me captive for nearon an hour yesterday when I just popped into the office to exchange a couple of books. Then we had discussed the shocking news of the Boston bombing just through on the morning’s news, the shocking behaviour by Britons in reaction to Margaret Thatcher’s passing, mostly by those who were not even alive during her 'reign' and the ever complicated plight of aboriginal affairs here in the north. I could have spent the whole morning in the air-conditioned comfort of the office chatting with this interesting chap, however I detected that his wife thought he should be attending to more practical matters and I expected Chris at any moment to arrive looking for me. I should have been entirely selfish, sat down and spent the morning there trying to right the world, but that’s not me. I left them to their business and returned to see if I too should be doing something useful.

That was when I had Chris dig out the hair-cutting kit we had purchased back in Mt Isa, and cut his hair, half an inch all over. I think it is the best cut he has had for years however he is still coming to terms with this very modern look that is supposed to minimise the baldness effect. Of course he says, that “I would say that, wouldn’t I?”

Anyway, back to this morning, we did finally leave but it was still too early for some people. We were keen to visit the Mowanjum Art & Cultural Centre located about seven kilometres south of Derby in the closed aboriginal community of the same name, a little way up the Gibb River Road. Alas we found the gallery shut and so have come away from Derby with no souvenir art. Nothing new, however we are in a mind-space to buy a little something and should strike while the iron is hot, or we might loose our nerve or recover our caution.

I forgot to mention that soon after we arrived at Fitzroy Crossing, Boab Bob came to visit us in the caravan park. I missed the whole event because I was on laundry duty. When I finally returned to the caravan, Chris told me that “Bob had been to visit”.

“Who?” I asked.

And so it was explained that this very old aborigine had come bearing his artworks, intricately carved boab nuts, for a price worth considering. Chris had sent him away. I sent Chris to look for him however he had disappeared into the community or on to the pub. We left word that we were keen to catch up with him but he never did turn up again.

The stock trough at Myall's Bore

Yesterday at the Norvel Gallery, I saw carved boab nuts but none looked as beautiful as those Chris had described. Perhaps we will come upon something similar further down the track, but I suspect not; it was a missed opportunity.

We returned to the main highway and found our way to the “commonage”; a strange name for an area utilised by drovers and their cattle herds in bygone years.

Here is Myall’s Bore, 322 metres deep which was sunk in about 1911 to replace the original one dug in the early 1890s. It was of course a part of the infrastructure set up for the great drives through for export from the Derby port.  The long concrete water trough adjacent to the bore, 120 metres in length, was built around 1912 and could handle the thirst of one hundred bullocks at one time. However the flow from the bore started to drop off and the water is now pumped into the trough by a windmill, although I am not quite sure who or what drinks all the water. Passing roos or back packers filling their water bottles?

The Boab Prison Tree

Here also on the common the Boab Prison Tree is to be found, believed to be about two thousand years old. It used to be the staging point for prisoners being walked into Derby in the early days. The hollow in the tree could hold quite a mob, but that same mob, if they were fit and canny enough could climb up through the top and escape, but by all accounts, they were brutally chained and escape was rarely an option. While the tree is quite beautiful it does indeed harbour bad memories and stories that paint bloody pictures of the past up here in the remote outback.

After a couple of photos and passing a few words of greeting to fellow travellers, we headed off again, down the forty or so kilometres to join the Great Northern Highway once more. Soon we crossed the Fitzroy River, today not looking a lot greater than at the Crossing. The bridge is a one way structure as is that further up river and most of the other river crossings across to Broome.

It is only 220 kilometres from Derby to Broome, across undulating scrub-lands  Perhaps the road was not quite as good as we have encountered since we crossing the Queensland – Northern Territory border west of Camooweal, but it was certainly better than the average roads in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland.

We had been warned about caravan parks in Broome, ever since arriving in Australia; they are always full and always expensive. Well we are here in mid-April, before The Season, and so were confident we could find a vacancy to accommodate us, and so it is the case. It is price that has driven us spare today.

Yesterday I sent emails out to all the parks that are listed in the brochures, because it was evident from their webpages that they had different tariffs for different months of the year and I wanted to be sure we were armed with correct information. Most replied. Only one caravan park, the Broome Caravan Park, had a comprehensive website with the tariffs set out month by month in a most helpful easy-to-understand manner.

It was the Broome Caravan Park that had been recommended to us and checking on Trip Advisor, we found high praise for the park and more especially for the swimming pool. It looked like we were on a winner here and this park was well sitiuated, five kilometres from the middle of the town so you didn’t have to negotiate the crowds, traffic and streets of Broome. This last piece of advice had come from a couple we met on entering Derby, from just out of Brisbane who considered this the main concern.

Now those who have visited Broome and live in Sydney or the like, they would just hoot with laughter. And alas, so did we. I just hope these lovely people do not have to tow their caravan through Sydney, or even the middle of Brisbane for that matter. But then best they don’t. They would no doubt be a hazard themselves!

We pulled into the park, shade on offer, all looking promising. The office was locked and there was a note to push the intercom button, which we duly did. With no reply we did so again, and were suddenly confronted by a young woman who told us that she had had to come some way. We had expected a response on the intercom, such as “ Just a minute” or “I'll be there soon”. Her irritation set the mood. She advised the tariff was $39 per night. “No!” we said. “It is only $34 on your website for April.”

“Oh that?” she replied. “That was back in 2010.”

We told her that she should update the website, Chris adding that it was against the Consumer Act to misrepresent such matters and told her we would go check out other camps. She said we would be lucky to find anything cheaper but here was a map to find our way to the Information Centre.

We drove on into town although the part we travelled through did not seem very town-like. The Information Centre had a sheet up on the wall listing all the caravan parks and their tariffs, a most helpful arrangement. We wanted one with a swimming pool which ruled out the one most conveniently situated in the town and another near Cable Beach. Cable Beach Caravan Park sounded very nice but it was $43 per night so instead we headed to Vacation Village Caravan Park.

On arrival we were met by a very pleasant New Zealand women who had put her travels on hold for the season, trying to grab a space for her lunch but was happy to welcome us to the park. The tariff was $36, thank you very much; I recalled that it had been advertised in the Information Centre as $34. Silently we paid up and she started to tell us where this and that were situated around the park. “But”, she said, “the swimming pool is currently out of action. It is being painted and will not reopen until May.”

“Oh, no!” we said. “This is the whole reason we have come to your park!”

She pointed to a notice on the door, where in small printing, advice about the pool was spelled out but alas not in fluorescent bold letters for the likes of us. Without fuss, she refunded our money although the EFTPOS machine did give her some grief in doing so.

It was nearly 12.30 pm, we had not had a drink since breakfast and the temperature was well up into the high 30s. We drove toward Cable Beach and found a park near the surf club and had lunch.

Refuelled and calmer, I checked the emails and found that Shirley of  Vacation Village had in fact emailed me back although not until this morning and had advised the higher tariff. Now rather beaten, we decided we would try out the Palm Grove Holiday Resort and so here we are. The tariff is currently $39 per night and it does have a very nice swimming pool. It is also within walking distance to Cable Beach, reputedly the most beautiful beach in the world.

Further exploration will have to wait for tomorrow. We are booked in for a week and have plenty of time to enjoy the attractions of the southern gateway to the Kimberleys, a very popular holiday resort for Australians, as well as Germans it would seem, if the numbers in the swimming pool are anything to go by.