DAY 61 – BROOME Thursday, 1st September
This morning we held the children back from running to Marj and Barry’s cabin for as long as we could! Then bacon and eggs outside for breakfast, and I don’t think any of us drew breath while telling them all that we had been doing for the last 8.5 weeks. The Dearness and Pattersons came over to say farewell before heading off to Eighty Mile beach and Alanna brought with her a Broome t-shirt for David to say thanks for cooking all the barbies over the last week! Very cute.
We took everyone into town to the St. John of God convent for the “Relationships Exhibition” which focuses on the Sisters contribution to life in the Kimberley and more specifically Broome and Cape Leveque. It was incredibly interesting to read the enormity of the sisters passion for Aboriginal people, their perseverance during the early years when they had so little, and the immense sacrifices they made to live in such a remote area in a time when there were no modern conveniences or communication. It is also interesting to take ourselves out of our comfort zone and reflect on the fact that although many of these were very good women, it does not alter the fact that they brought with them many diseases that the Aborigines of Broome and Cape Leveque had not encountered before and therefore had no immunity to. They also cared for many of those children we now refer to as the “Stolen Generations”. Life is never black and white – so much grey.
After that we had a well-deserved ice cream and back to the van for a late lunch before heading down the beach to join Lawrence and Violet and the boys, who had just had their camel ride, for some dinner and to watch the sunset. Unfortunately, it was very windy and the waves were no good for boogie boarding. I keep meaning to google why this is the case, as I feel sure it must be related to the tidal fluctuations we are having at the moment. When we first arrived in Cable Beach the water was calmer and the waves were fantastic. Last night was about the highest and lowest tides they reach in Broome – a peak of 10.12m and a low of 0.29m, so the beach can appear about 5 metres wide at one part of the day and about 200 metres wide at another part of the day!! Quite amazing to see.
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