2026/07 Kimberley Part 4

2026 July

Kimberley Part 4

Drysdale River, Manning Creek, Galvan Gorge, Bell Gorge, Derby, Broome

Stunning desert roses

Tuesday, 21 July

We left Drysdale River Station to travel through the heart of Kimberley cattle country to Bell Gorge.

Gibb River

Abundant birdlife

Travelling along Gibb River Road

Have you tried the Burger off our 'Secret' Menu?

Mt Barnett Roadhouse

Big Boab

We are travelling through cattle country

I want my mummy ...

Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges

Enjoyable lunch in the shade of paperbark trees

Manning Creek

After lunch, we walked over gravel and boulders to a picturesque waterhole.

Galvan Gorge

Check into Bell Gorge Wilderness Lodge

Superior Tent with comfort ... Starry Starry Night ...

Wednesday, 22 July

Bell Gorge

Thursday, 23 July

Bell Gorge to Broome

Wunaamin Miliwundi Ranges

Yellowcub Kapok tree flowers

Queen Victoria's profile?

Travelling towards Derby

Boab Flower

Boab Prison Tree

Before Derby was established in 1883, Aboriginal people were kidnapped from the West Kimberley. The kidnappers, known as blackbirders, were settlers who were connected with the pearling industry. They wanted divers and workers for the pearling boats. They rounded people up, put them in chains and marched them to the coast. Some may have held their captives at the Boab Prison Tree while they waited for a boat.

Norval Gallery

Long-term Derby artist husband-and-wife team Mark and Mary Norval run this diverse Gallery, which showcases their own insightful work as well as the artwork of many Indigenous artists from the Kimberley region.

Mark Norval's work ... one of the many gallery rooms

Part of the artwork?

Mark Norval's Sculpture on the Marsh Trail

Port of Derby

Check into Cable Beach Resort in Broome

Entrance to Cable Beach Club

Construction in progress

View from our balcony

A cheerful group clad in Boab-trees enjoying the funniest joke of the trip during our Farewell Dinner

... there's Leigh and Karen

Janine and John

... Geoff in the back. I just wish I could remember the joke.

Friday, 24 July

Check-out Cable Beach Club

View towards the restaurant

Did anyone say breakfast?

Early pearling industry

Australia's original inhabitants prized pearl oysters long before European contact. The Aboriginal people of northwest Australia have appreciated the allure and beauty of mother-of-pearl since time immemorial. Communities used the region's tidal movements to collect pearl oysters from shallow coastal waters. They ate the pearl meat and used the lustrous shell for ornament and ceremony. Carved pearl shells, known as riji in the Bardi language, were regarded as having healing and spiritual power. Communities highly valued them and traded them extensively from Eighty Mile Beach to the Dampier Peninsula. Artists in the Broome area still use these carved iridescent shells today.

William Dampier found Pinctada albina pearl oysters near Shark Bay in 1699. Before the Australian pearling industry began about 600 km south of Broome in Nickol Bay in the 1850s, few other industries existed in this remote part of Australia. The search for pearl oysters expanded northwards, resulting in the discovery of the world's richest Pinctada maxima pearl beds off Eighty Mile Beach, south of Broome. Over time, these pearling grounds yielded some of the most important natural pearls ever discovered, and Broome quickly became the hub of the region's most lucrative industry - mother-of-pearl - that was exported all over the world to be used in jewellery, objets d'art, inlay and fine-quality buttons.

Mother-of-Pearl buttons and artworks

In the early days, people gathered pearl oysters from the shallows at low tide. However, shallow-water oysters were depleted within a few years, and the industry turned to hard-hat divers who could reach oysters at greater depths.

Pearls are cultivated in these shells

By 1910, Broome supplied 75% of the world's mother-of-pearl. Western Australia's extraordinary world pearl oyster beds had made Broome one of the world's most important pearling hubs.

Trip to Willie Creek Pearl Farm

Immersing ourselves in the fascinating process of modern cultured pearl farming.

In this state-of-the-art Willie Creek Pearl Farm hatchery, ...

... the little beauties are cultivated

Pearl technicians delicately seed and harvest oysters.

The many uses of pearls

Pearls are not only lovely on your skin and valuable in your jewellery box, but also used for marine biomedical purposes.

The University of Western Australia is researching Pearl Bone, a bioactive bone substitute made from converted nacre from WA pearl oysters. Bone substitutes are the most promising solution to address the shortage of bone grafts for dental and orthopaedic conditions. Nacre, commonly known as Mother-of-Pearl, is a potentially suitable resource for bone implant material and is hoped to promote bone regeneration.

Friday, 24 July

Check-in: Mangrove Hotel, Broome

Nestled amongst the dunes

Home is 2nd from the left

How good is this?

On the water

Restaurant

Saturday, 25 July

Walking distance to town ... shopping ...

Visit to Broome Historical Museum

We had an enjoyable time studying Broome's interesting history:

AIR

Broome's One Day War

On 3 March 1942, Broome experienced the first and most devastating of 4 Japanese air raids during WWII. 22 aircraft were targeted and destroyed, including 15 flying boats that stopped for refuelling.

Bombing of Roebuck Bay

One of 6 large aircrafts

Many of the flying boats attacked in Roebuck Bay were carrying Dutch refugees fleeing from Java (then Dutch East Indies) ahead of the Japanese invasion. The aircraft were being refuelled in Broome before flying on to southern towns and cities. It is not known how many refugees were in the flying boat which had left Java in haste, but many were women and children.

Dornier Engine

This Wright Cyclone R1820 F52 Radial Engine is from one of the 5 Dornier Do-24 flying boat destroyed during the air raid. Retrieved from Roebuck Bay over 50 years ago, the engine has recently undergone conservation treatment to stabilise the engine and ensure its longevity.

After the raid, about 30 bodies were retrieved from the bay; many others were never found.

Recovered toy tin soldier ... Dutch refugee cemetery - Town Beach, Broome

The case and legend of the Missing Diamonds

On the same day in March 1942, diamonds, estimated to be worth over $20 million today, went missing off the Broome coast. Piloted by legendary Russian-Dutch air ace Captain Ivan Smirnoff, the DC-3 “Pelikaan” plane was fleeing Java with 12 people and the diamonds ahead of the advancing Japanese military when it crashed off the coast of Broome. 4 people died before survivors were rescued 4 days later.

Local Jack Palmer found the submerged package of diamonds at the crash site. The diamonds were transported from Amsterdam to Australia for safekeeping during the Nazi invasion. Weeks later, Palmer handed a small portion of the jewels to military authorities. Palmer and his associates were charged with stealing the missing stash, but were ultimately acquitted by the High Court. “Diamond Palmer” never had to work again, spending his cash freely until his death.

Captain Ivan Smirnoff (1895-1956)...Jack Palmer (unknown-1958)

Historians and experts estimate that only about half or a small fraction of the total diamond stash was ever recovered. The bulk of the multi-million-dollar cargo remains an enduring, unrecovered maritime and wartime mystery off the Kimberley coast.

Investigation team after Palmer (far right) surrendered the diamonds

SHIPPING

In Broome’s early days, shipping was the preferred form of transport. Passengers and freight regularly arrived and left from ports along the North West coast. On 4 May 1912, the State Steamship Service was born and continued to service almost 1/3 of Australia’s coastline for more than 80 years.

MV Koolama at Broome in about 1940

'Koolama' ... Broome Jetty' ... painted pearl shells

Pearl shells depicting vessels and ports were popular souvenirs for passengers travelling through Broome by ship.

MRS MAC'S SHELL COLLECTION

In 1914, Phyllis Bardwell came to Broome to visit her successful pearler brothers, Beresford and Bernard. She met Daniel McDaniel, whom she married 1 year later. Together, they built a thriving pearl business that lasted over 50 years.

Phyllis Bardwell (1889-1979) around 1907 ... Mrs Mac with one of her shell tables

Phyllis, a keen swimmer, became the first woman to swim the five-mile Swim Through Perth race in 1912. After her marriage, she continued her daily swims from the old jetty to the shore.

Broome - The Old Jetty

Known affectionately as Mrs Mac, she also taught countless Broome children how to swim, earning lifelong membership in the Royal Lifesaving Society.

Queen Elizabeth and Mrs Mac ... Mrs Mac's shell collection

Mrs Mac and her brothers shared a passion for conchology, and her shell collections became so well known that Queen Elizabeth visited her house in Broome in 1963.

CHINATOWN

Broome’s Chinese heritage dates back to the 1880s, when Chinese sojourners and merchants arrived to support and participate in the town’s booming pearling industry. Chinese migrants worked as crew members, divers, artisans, and business owners, establishing stores, boarding houses, and noodle shops.

The historic Chinatown district served as the settlement's commercial and multicultural heart, featuring distinctive corrugated-iron architecture adapted to the tropical climate. Unlike any other Chinatown in the world, this was the home to several Asian and European cultures alongside its Aboriginal traditional owners. It sits on the traditional lands of the indigenous Yawuru people, which hold deep significance for this community.

Johnny Chi Lane

Johnny Chi Lane and The Old Tang Wei Café & Residence on Carnarvon Street are named in recognition of Chinatown’s multicultural pioneers.

Art in the Historical Museum gardens

Town Beach

Be aware - Crocs everywhere

Nine Zeros, Nine Stories

This artwork commemorates the attack on Broome on 3/3/1942, as a silent legacy to those who lost their lives and the impact on this remote community.

On the Beach

Town Beach Jetty

Towards the harbour

Towards town

Sunday, 26 July

Vantage point

Many of our senior people lived here, maintaining the law and performing ceremonies. From this high vantage point, they could keep watch over the country, looking for fires to indicate where people were travelling around the bay and along Thangoo's coastline. The hill was also an important observation post for watching the creek for any dugong or turtle that may come up with the tide. - Jimmy Edgar.

Roebuck Bay Lookout

We came from there

Heading towards Chinatown

Observation point

View over Dampier Creek

Sun Pictures - An Open-Air Cinema Since 1916

The World's oldest operating Picture Theatre est. 09/12/1916

For thousands of years before a cinema stood here, this site was a freshwater soak and camping place for Aboriginal people. In the early 20th century, the Yamasaki family operated a Japanese emporium and playhouse here. In 1916, master pearler Ted Hunter bought the buildings and built the Sun Picture Stadium. The theatre was built for the tropics – half roofed and half open to the night. Patrons sat on deckchairs and benches, some under cover, others exposed to the elements. Before the levy bank was built, king tides flooded Carnarvon Street. People rolled up their trousers or were carried through ankle-deep water.

The Show must go on

$6 for a Chocbomb? How can you resist? But don't forget to... Fight the Bite!

The good old days ...

Who is the real ticket seller?

Silent films were accompanied by a pianist. In 1933, the first talkie film played to a full house. Westerns, musicals, war films and comedies followed.

Monday, 27 July

Attending the 'Historic Audio Tour'

What's more historic? The cinema or me?

In the early years, seating was divided along racial lines. Europeans occupied cane chairs in the centre. Japanese and Chinese patrons sat behind them. Aboriginal, Malay, Koepanger and Filipino people entered through a separate door and sat on one side, separated by a low rail. These arrangements remained in place until 1967, when racial discrimination became illegal.