Joel arrived back in Broome on Friday looking very worse for wear! I would like to say it was because he worked so hard for 2 weeks (and really this may have had something to do with it) but the main reason was because Thursday night they spent at the pub and none of them remember how they got home! So he was messy!
He spent the whole day in bed which was probably good cuz he needed the rest but I was hoping to be awoken from my tv coma; however had to stretch it another day!
Saturday we headed out for a bit of a tourist adventure. We first drove out to Willie Creek Pearl Farm which is about 30km out of Broome. Driving out you can see why roads get closed pretty easily around here in the rain...the road is just like a big skate bowl type thing (high sides and dips in the middle) and the killer is that it is all beautiful red dust! Which of course turns to dirty red mud as soon as water hits it. Even though it hasn't rained here for maybe 4 days there was still huge puddles of mud on the road that needed to be avoided. So you can only imagine if it rained for a solid period, it would be chaos!
Anyway back to the pearl farm...we were originally going to just have a look around but ended up being convinced to do the tour which is $55 each for 2.5 hours. The tour includes a talk about how they create the pearls which was quite interesting. For all of you that don't know they collect oysters, bring them back to their farm, acclimatise them to their waters and then seed them. Seeding involves pulling the oysters out of the water, putting them in a big tank, filling it up with water and then draining the water (which makes the oyster think the tide is going out so they all open up) they then put a wedge in the shell to keep it open and use tiny tools to insert a small bit of shell (that they create into a small round ball) and insert it into the shell of the oyster. Then back in the water for 2 years! They check them, clean them all the time and X-ray them to make sure they are producing round pearls. Now what actually makes the pearl is that the oyster doesn't like any foreign objects in its shell and when it has something in its shell (they described it as when we have something stuck in our teeth, we keep licking it etc to try and get it out) it excretes this stuff and coats and coats the little ball they insert and eventually whola a pearl. They reseed 4 times in the same oyster and each time it will produce a bigger and bigger pearl. So 1st seeded pearls are slightly cheaper but smaller and 4th seeded are loads bigger and very expensive! They showed us a 4th seeded 27 pearl necklace....it was gorgeous! $45,000!!
Anyways that was long winded but I found it interesting so hopefully you might too. The tour also includes morning tea with homemade damper and they show you how they price pearls, how to keep pearls clean and take you on a boat ride around their farm including how they clean and check the oysters.
It was an interesting tour but we probably wouldn't recommend it unless you are super interested in pearls and buying them. It wasn't really worth the money but its a tourist thing so they charge you the earth. You can just go and have a look around and their is a cafe there you can buy food so you don't have to do the tour.
Pearl tour done we decided to head back to town and have a look at Gantheaume Point which is where the lighthouse is and also dinosaur prints can be seen on low tide and a pool that was handmade by the lighthouse keeper years ago for his arthritic wife. Well of course it wasn't low tide when we arrived but we had a walk down as far as we could go...it was really nice coastline and rock formations very similar to Kalbarri. Couldn't see dinosaur prints, may have seen the pool but it wasn't obviously signed so it may have just been a hole in a rock! Haha and the lighthouse was not the prettiest I have seen but hey it beats the tv coma. Will have to go back on low tide another time.
Finished the day off with staircase to the moon which is a natural phenomenon and is created by the rising of the full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats at extremely low tide - creating a beautiful optical illusion of stairs reaching to the moon. It only happens a few times each year and today was meant to be the best one this year because of the size of the tide variance 9.9m! We waited in our car with about 200 other cars and I was convinced we wouldn't be able to see it at all unless we got out of the car but all of a sudden Joel says "I think it's going to be right in front of us...look there is like an orange glow there" so we kept watching and the glow got brighter and brighter and eventually we could see the moon and what looks like steps to it. The colour is spectacular and the whole thing was just incredible. Don't miss this if you are in town when it's on! They also have markets on which were very Byron bay feeling but great food and some stalls to look at, live music etc..was a nice night out.
I would like to say I took this picture but I didn't, the lens I had on was nowhere near big enough but still photos don't do it justice. Courtesy of google....
Monday we did some shopping and went to see some recruitment agencies. We will stay here if we can continue to get work so tried to get a feel for what was around. We booked in to see someone tomorrow so see how that goes. Joel also got a call today from the place he was working at Derby and they want him for another week of work so he is heading off again tomorrow to do another week. So hopefully this may continue to happen over the weeks and he can keep working out there because he really likes it.
Until next week.
Carly & Joel
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