Today we were due to drive ourselves to Willie Creek Pearl Farm. The self drive aspect of this tour requires you to have a 4WD vehicle. This immediately made me nervous. Great, more Palm Valley stuff. Mud? Ruts? Sand? At least it hasn’t rained for a couple of days. The friends that we had been talking to said the road had quite a few puddles and muddy patches that had to be take carefully but that we should be just fine. The skies looked ok when I woke up just before 6am but at 6:15 we were closing the windows and even winding in the awning as a precaution as the sky literally opened up and dumped a huge amount of rain on us over the next 90 minutes. We sat and ate breakfast and stared out of the now fogged up windows in awe of the spectacle being unleashed before us. The road was a river and we assumed that our tour would be cancelled. Either was there was NO WAY that I was going up a dirt road after all that rain.
We rang the company and were informed that there had not been any rain out at Willie Creek that morning (we are only talking 15 or so km north) and the road was fine. Yeah right, I thought but after asking the girl on the other end of the phone for reassurances no less than 3 times, I figured I should leave her alone and we should at least give it a go. The original storm cloud loomed over Broome as we skirted our way to the pearl farm and a few errant drops fell (surely they would prevent our retreat, I thought) but the road was actually dusty!
The Pearl Farm was great. Very professional but still entertaining and informative for us and the kids. Beautiful setting. Shannon got the opportunity of opening a Keshi oyster shell and actually removing the pearl from it. Wow, how many people actually get to do that? We were given the opportunity to purchase it at a discounted price and we did. We went out on a boat to see the oyster lines and into the mangroves and watched the swirling tide rush in at 26km per hour!
We returned without mishap and spent a leisurely afternoon around the van and the pool and went to Cable Beach before sunset for a swim and to watch the sunset. The water was a balmy 32 degrees and we had to chase the water as the tide went out!!
Due to pack up the next morning we had a quiet night sitting around having a cuppa with some more Victorian travellers we had met and spent some time with since Fitzroy crossing. It was their son’s birthday and I had some candles and bikkies so instead of the traditional lamington stack birthday cake we had biscuit stack birthday cake. When camping you have to improvise folks!
Much as I am loathe to appear to be making commercial endorsements, I will go out on a limb and recommend to anyone who is going to Broome to camp, to stay at the Cable Beach Caravan Park while you are there. It is clean and tidy, very well maintained and the pool is great. You will need to book well ahead in peak season I imagine.
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