Derby - Broome

We left Liveringa and headed up to Derby, where we ended up just having lunch at the wharf before heading off down to Broome. We stopped at the Boab Prison Tree on the way which is located just near Derby. It is quite a sad story on what this was used for.

The aboriginals used to get kidnapped from the West Kimberly area by settlers connected to the pearling industry who wanted divers and workers for the pearling boats. They would round up the you aboriginal men, put them in chains and marched them to the coast. They would often stop and hold their captives in the Boab Prison Tree on their journey.

The Prison Boab Tree

We spent 3 nights in Broome, and really just used the time to relax and catch up on some computer work. It was a bit of a shock to the system coming into Broome. After spending so long out on the Gibb River Road and then on Liveringa it was strange to be in a tourist town, packed with tourists!

It is actually hard to get into any of the caravan parks in Broome because it is such a popular destination this time of the year. We camped for our 3 nights in the oval area owned by PCYC. Although we were camped in a dust bowl with no shade, Aidan and Cody enjoyed the use of the basketball courts there. We enjoyed swimming on Cable beach and we met up with a friend of a friend who lives in Broome and much to our disappoint he said that the fishing around Broome was terrible, especially at the moment so that ruled out our fishing plans. We did lots of long walks around Broome, checking out the town centre and the Port. We will be coming back to Broome in about a week’s time and plan to do a couple of touristy things when we come back.