Day 51 - Thursday 23 August - Catching pearls

Day 51

Thursday

23 August

Broome – Willie Creek

After getting home late, I was expecting a sleep in, but unfortunately the winds came in howling just before 6am and we had to get up and pull in the awning, after that point, I was awake, so I sat in bed reading my book. I did attempt some shut eye, but it didn’t return me to sleep. 

We eventually got out at 8am, had breakfast, a shower and then got ourselves organised for the day. We piled into the car at 9am, hearing the news report, nothing we needed to know, just the Lib’s in turmoil once again. We stopped for fuel, finding the payment sign entertaining and then continued on towards Willie Creek. 

Today we were booked in to do a tour of the pearl farm and learn a little about the process. However, we had to drive the 38km to the farm first, something we thought would be relatively easy, wrong! 

We had been told that it was mostly bitumen and that the farm was 2wd accessible. Well the road stopped being a road about a kilometre short of our left hand turn and we were faced with nothing but red pindan. It wasn’t until we were driving on it that we realised that this was not going to be the easy run in. It didn’t help having a slow moving 4wd to follow and every time it slowed we were concerned we would lose momentum and end up well stuck. 

We followed the next turn, reading the sign, 8km to go! This was not a fun drive in. Thankfully some of the ground was quite hard and Paul just had to pick the hard spots, swerving like a drunk driver to pick the best line. Thank goodness no one was coming the other way. 

With 5km to go, we reached the compact sand of the salt flats and it was mostly easy to navigate. The slow 4wd had pulled over and we zoomed on by, finally reaching the pearl farm and emptying ourselves from the car shaken, stirred and a little worse for wear, but phew, we made it. 

We entered the showroom, Stuart surprised to see we had made it and dismayed we had been given the wrong information at the tourist centre. Our tour wasn’t until 11.45am, so we had an hour to kill. Paul was shown to some fishing rods, he selected one and we wandered out to the jetty to check out the aquamarine waters and try our luck. It also provided Paul with the chance to destress. 

We chatted with another fisherman, who had had no luck and the boat skipper, who gave us a few pointers as to where to fish, but nothing was taking the lure, so we returned to the showroom to have a look at the jewellery. Pearls have never really been my thing and at these prices they weren’t going to be today either. 

We read a few different information boards and then we were called to begin. Stuart was our guide and there was only 7 of us to show around. We were ushered to the hatchery, to be told about the tour and the new techniques they are employing to improve the pearl quality. We then shifted to the gazebo to watch an oyster pearl shell being opened and a pearl being removed. We had a number of shells being passed around, along with pearls and the seeds they use, parts of a Mississippi mussel shell. It was very informative and highly interesting. 

After the talk, we were given afternoon tea, damper made with Matsos Mango Beer, fruit cake and fruit. It was all delicious. We were then shown a shell cleaning station, before getting out on to a small boat and cruising around Willie Creek. We were shown a long line and a net was pulled, bringing up a tray of 6 shells. One was removed, barnacles were removed with a meat cleaver and then we were shown what animals infiltrate the shell; starfish, worms, borers and a nasty introduced sponge that they are trying to eradicate. 

We were then ferried to the other side of the creek where a large female salty was basking in the sun. She seemed quite happy on the bank, though she moved her head around to take a better look at us. We then returned to the jetty and back to the showroom. Here we were shown some of the jewellery and asked to guess the cost. I ended up wearing a string worth $30,000. It was surprisingly heavy, but I didn’t fancy it, much to Paul’s relief. 

Once we were finished we had the road to tackle once again. We had told plenty of people of our predicament, so we felt confident we would have help if needed, but as it turned out, the run out was far easier. We knew what to expect and we didn’t have any slow-moving vehicles before us, meaning we could keep momentum and cruise through the soft stuff. Before we knew it, we were back on the black top. 

Deserving a drink after the drive, we stopped at Matsos and enjoyed a drink, while sitting in the beer garden, toasting our escape. We marvelled at our little car, what we have put it through and just how well it handles what is thrown at it. She’s a good one. 

We arrived back at the van at 330pm. Paul was in need of a nap and I was keen to continue adding to the blog and the Facebook album, so I took myself off to the wifi spot and settled in for an hour, finally feeling like I might be getting on top of things. 

I returned to Paul who was watching more of Sons of Anarchy. I watched the episode he was on and when it was finished, we locked up and wandered out to the Town Beach markets. Many of the stalls were the same as the Sunday market, so there wasn’t a lot of new things to check out. We perused the food stalls, deciding on what we wanted for dinner and then ordered and found somewhere to sit and eat. A couple from Ireland were entertaining the crowd with their music, they were quite good. 

We decided on crepes for dessert, but had a short wait, so we wandered aimlessly, killing time until our number was called and we could eat and walk our way back to the van for the evening. 

I was straight onto the photos that were taken for the day and Paul surfed the net. He retired to watch the TV, while I wrote the blog, before calling it a night.