Point Samson has a magnificent beach with some fine reefs. Migratory waders feed along the water’s edge, turtles come ashore to lay their eggs (and to take a rest from the attention of male turtles) and terns roost on the reef and nest above the reach of high tide. It is precious.
In an effort to keep it precious dogs are forbidden on the beach. There is no way to avoid the signs that are at every access point to the beach. It’s an opportunity for the entitled to mount a little act of defiance …
Heading south. The first day’s drive took us from Broome to Pardoo Station. We left with clear blue skies but soon were traveling through a very smoky atmosphere. The Pindan scrub was on fire in many places. Smoke was everywhere but we only saw flames by the highway in a couple of spots.
Just north of the road house at Sandfire the scrub gives way to more open country and the atmosphere cleared up considerably. The next road house is at Pardoo. This was knocked over by cyclone Ilsa in April earlier this year. It didn’t look as though rebuilding had made any progress since we passed it last. There will be no fuel at Pardoo for a while yet. Our first night was at Pardoo Station. Ilsa seems to have snapped the tops off most of the gum trees but they are sprouting nicely.
Top temperature for the day was 45°C (113 in the old money).
There is some nice country to explore beyond the caravan park. Birding was good. Australian Bustards were the star of the show …
Day two took us on to Point Samson where there are two caravan parks. I am typing this in a shady corner of the boutique one. We stopped for fuel at Roebourne where the lady taking our money declared that it wasn’t hot til it hit fifty.
Western Australian pearling began at Shark Bay in the 1850’s. The Pinctada albina oyster was collected by dredging and as well as pearl shell yielded some small straw coloured pearls. Cossack followed and it was the where commercial exploitation of Pinctada maxima began. That is the oyster that later made Broome famous.
White settlers arrived in what became Cossack with their stock in 1863 after favorable reports of the area by the F T Gregory expedition a couple of years earlier. In the early days the settlement enjoyed various names probably because there wasn’t enough there for anyone to notice until pearling commenced in 1866. The name Cossack was adopted in 1871 and by 1875 there were 57 licensed vessels operating out of the town. The next few years were about pearl shell, wool, a gold rush and cyclones. In 1886 most of the pearling fleet sailed off to Broome. After that Cossack entered a slow decline. In 1910 the town was dissolved and was eventually abandoned.
The National Trust rode to the rescue, Cossack was classified in 1970. Some restoration was carried out over the next couple of decades. Today it’s on the WA Heritage Register. There is a court house, the old school, a museum, some accommodation, a cafe and a couple of store houses. It can be seen well from the Tien Tsin lookout.
Outside the court house there is a horse trough. Not a lot of horses these days but the birds approve …
Brown HoneyeaterZebra FinchMore Zebra Finch
If you head north east from the court house the road takes you to the cemetery and to Settlers Beach.
These days it’s mining that brings the big bucks to the Pilbara. Rio Tinto’s Lambert Project (iron ore)is close by Point Samson. At Wickham you can star in Honey I shrank the Kids with a Tonka Truck or play with a train.
In Sams Creek road there is an oyster hatchery that you are told not to enter so there may still be a little pearl farming going on.
Again. This time to explore the coast of WA before heading across the Eyre Highway for Christmas with friends and family. Posting, never very disciplined, will be totally irregular!
If you walk into a Chinese restaurant and find half the tables occupied by Chinese you can be sure that the cooking is good. Barn Hill is on the coast about 130km south of Broome and very popular with the locals. That’s a good sign. The tourist season is winding down so Gayle and I thought it a good time to spend a few days there.
The scenery is magnificent. The beach seems endless. Rock formations add interest. There are rock pools to explore when the tide goes out and the skies are dark at night …
The Lost City
There were plenty of birds around including Yellow-throated Miners which are common enough elsewhere but decidedly uncommon around Broome.
The unfortunate mollusc is not an oyster. It looks like it might be a Black Date Mussel but no guarantees when it comes to mollusc ID.
Barn Hill is part of Thangoo Station, a working cattle property. The caravan park is 9km off the Northern Highway. The access road is a sandy track but not challenging, 2WD would suffice. The biggest challenge is opening and closing three gates along the way. Facilities are basic but clean. The website suggests that mobile coverage is good … they exaggerate.
Broome Whale Watching again but this time their dolphins and turtle tour in Roebuck Bay. It was a windy morning which necessitated a change of starting point but didn’t interfere too much with the trip.
Roebuck Bay is about 550 km2 in area and shallow. The tidal range is huge – as much as 10.5m and at low tide exposes as much as 160 km2 of mudflat. Seagrass meadows lie just below the low tide line, Mangroves are inundated by the high tides. The tidal flow stirs up sediment that makes the sea a beautiful turquoise which teamed with the red cliffs and red sand gives Broome its characteristic vibrant palette.
It wasn’t long before we encountered our first Snubfin Dolphins. They are rather sedate as dolphins go, no leaping out of the water or dashing to the boat for a ride on the bow wave. They have heads like a melon and tails like little Humpbacks. They move relatively slowly but tell that to the photographers … the best chance to get a head shot is when they surface. Where will they surface? Good luck with that.
They were lumped with the Irrawaddy Dolphin from the Bay of Bengal until DNA studies earned them an identity of their own in 2005. They are found around the coast of northern Australia and presumably southern New Guinea. They are reliably found in Roebuck Bay but rare elsewhere.
Snubfins grow up to 2.7m and weigh up to 133kg. Males are typically larger than females. They get around in small groups that may join another group at a feeding site. Their diet consists mainly of fish and cephalopods. They have been seen at the surface spitting water over fish to fool them into swimming towards them.
Next on the agenda was the Flatback Turtle. These are another denizen of Australia’s northern waters but wander a little further than the Snubfins. Their carapace gets to about a meter from front to back and adults weigh 60 to 90kg. Females are sexually mature from about seven years of age. Mating takes place at sea, the females come ashore to lay clutches of about 50 eggs in a nest dug in the sand. The sex of the offspring is determined by the ambient temperature – below 29 °C (84 °F), the hatchling will be a male.
If you arrive in Broome by road you will pass the Roebuck Roadhouse. establishments like this lend so much character to outback travel.
There is a pleasant caravan park attached. You can get a meal or a beer, friends speak very highly of the Big Breakfast.
I stopped to take that shot on my way home from the middle of nowhere away from city lights where I took this shot. Putting the new lens through its paces.
We stopped shooting them in 1970. According to an Australian Geographic article they went from fewer than 3000 to 100,000 by 2016 in the Northern Territory alone. There are probably half as many again in the adjacent states, WA and Queensland. They are becoming more numerous and, as the population ages , they are getting bigger.
Broome’s Cable Beach has been closed a couple of times in the last couple of months because of croc sightings. Town Beach is another spot that gets the occasional visit. Beaches, though, are not their preferred habitat, when they are seen there they are just traveling through. It’s in the mangroves, creeks and near coastal lakes that you need to keep a sharp look out. Not that they advertise. The top photo shows just eyes and nostrils. They can hold that position indefinitely. If they want to be really sneaky they can submerge and still see you perfectly well. A crocodile can hold its breath for an hour or more.
Estuarine Crocodiles Crocodylus prosus live up to 70 years, grow up to 6 metres in length and weigh more than half a tonne. They will eat any animal they find in the water or at the water’s edge, so mainly fish with the odd cow, dog or human. Males are territorial and extremely aggressive. They are not gentle with their partners when they mate.
If you are visiting Broome take care near the water.
The safe way to see crocodiles is at the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park where all the photos in this post were taken. The way in is through the only crocodile mouth you want to enter … ever. In the park there are plenty of Salties and a collection of other crocodilians including Australian Freshwater Crocodiles, North American Alligators, South American Caimans and a New Guinean freshwater croc. The tour is included in the entry price, feeding is at 3 pm and you can play with a baby croc if that takes your fancy. I enjoyed my visit but would say that it is not well set up for the photographer.
In recent years the road from Broome to the tip of the Dampier Peninsula has been sealed. About 16km off the highway about half way up the peninsula there is a quiet camping spot called Banana Well. It’s where I spent the last few days.
The campsite itself is in open woodland adjacent to some ponds fed from underground. From there to the sea is about a two and a half kilometre drive, 4wd only on a sandy track and across some mud flats. The adventurous can also visit the Burrguk Creek, keep your dog away from the crocodile and your wheels away from soft mud.
The facilities are somewhat run down but certainly not overcrowded. It’s a great spot for the birder and it also attracts some fishing enthusiasts. Other than that maybe hermits might like it. Mosquitos and Sandflys abound. I discussed the fishing prospects with some other campers. They had launched a boat the day before, a process they described as “Not for the faint-hearted”, caught nothing and got bogged retrieving their vessel. Fortunately they had gone with two vehicles and one was able to tow the other out. They had no intention of doing that again.
Burrguk Creek
For the birdo there is a lot on offer, Melaleuca woodland around the ponds, Savanna woodland, mangroves and at low tide extensive mud flats.
At night the sounds of feral donkeys ring through the camp ground but you rarely get to see them.
Other noises through the night included Barking Owls, Bush Stone-curlews and the crazy calls of the Brain Fever Bird, Brush Cuckoo – do they never sleep?
Here are some of the scenic shots, as always, clicking on a gallery opens it up for a better look …
White-breasted Woodswallows
The mud flats are inundated on king tides and some areas on moderate tides. One way to get into trouble is to venture into areas covered by yesterday’s tide. This guy was heading east on our last morning. The sun was in his eyes. He made another 150m after the wheels started slipping! More than enough to ensure that no one could get near enough to tow him out.
Remember the warning sign at the top of the post? It’s out of date. We were unable to extricate the vehicle despite a lot of digging and the deployment of the rescue boards (I have only seen them work on one occasion – much over-rated bit of kit). When the futility of our efforts was eventually acknowledged a tow truck was summoned. The quote was $5,000. There was no way that it could arrive before the next high tide which will have reached above the bottom of the doors but probably not far up the engine. The poor guy was sure his wife was going to kill him.
bobmcgee 