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    The continuing sunset.: by flyted, Views[318]
         		 At high tide the water would nearly reach the tops of these rocks.: by flyted, Views[329]
         		 At the extreme low tides, it is a common site to see people scouring the rocks for traces of more footprints, perhaps undiscovered. Only the most obvious though are easy to find.: by flyted, Views[415]
         		 The dinosaur footprints, found at extreme low tide at Gantheuame Point, and presumed to be theropod tracks, dating back to the Early Cretaceous period, so 110 to 120 million years ago. These are the real deal, even though they look kind of fake, but are actual fossilised dinosaur footprints.: by flyted, Views[1382]
         		 Crab.: by flyted, Views[378]
     
    This is one of my favourites.: by flyted, Views[324]
         		 by flyted, Views[317]
         		 The sun making its way down behind a canopy of clouds.: by flyted, Views[337]
         		 Flag markers positioned well out into the ocean; normally this would all be covered in water.: by flyted, Views[348]
         		 An extreme low tide at the beach. Cable Beach's tides add to its fame, with extremes of 9 metres or 29.5 feet, which it was approaching on this day. The beach is so flat though that it is less of a big drop and more a case of the water line reaching further and further back. High tides reach nearly up to the edge of the sand dunes.: by flyted, Views[619]
     
    Cable Beach with very minimal surf.: by flyted, Views[364]
         		 A massive roundabout near Cable Beach, a small sense of scale in the Kimberley.: by flyted, Views[356]
         		 A street scene in Broome: red soil, dry grass, 4WD trucks and hot hot hot.: by flyted, Views[349]
         		 The greater Broome Cemetery which surrounds the Japanese one. It seems most people were buried above-ground, judging by the mounds of dirt in front of headstones. I didn't find out why that was, but I was surprised to see quite a number of fresh mounds the day I was there...: by flyted, Views[311]
         		 This one is in English: Ryotaro Takaya, Died 31 March, 1915, Aged 23 Years.: by flyted, Views[364]
     
    Just a few of the grave markers, most of which are written exclusively in Japanese.: by flyted, Views[354]
         		 As the plaque says, most deaths were due to either drowning or diver's paralysis (the bends), which occurs when a person dives to deep into water and surfaces too quickly.: by flyted, Views[435]
         		 The famous Japanese Cemetery in Broome, where 919 Japanese divers who lost their lives now rest. Even more would have been lost at sea, and nobody knows the full toll.: by flyted, Views[564]
         		 Looking north, past the rocks where the camel tours start, another two thirds of Cable Beach in the distance.: by flyted, Views[346]
         		 A little bit of surf.: by flyted, Views[380]
     
    And they call Cable Beach “busy.”: by flyted, Views[400]
         		 A low tide forming.: by flyted, Views[384]
         		 Back at Cable Beach, getting ready for another day of relaxing.: by flyted, Views[371]
         		 Fresh wreathes on the Broome War Memorial, two days after ANZAC Day, when a dawn ceremony was conducted.: by flyted, Views[785]
         		 A great pile of red soil, the quintessential outback image.: by flyted, Views[1694]
     
    Pioneer Cemetery and Town Beach.: by flyted, Views[549]
         		 The old Pioneer Cemetery near Town Beach, featuring some of the early founders of Broome as well as a few Japanese divers.: by flyted, Views[486]
         		 A Japanese arch looking out over Town Beach, one of many tributes to the town's Nipponian legacy.: by flyted, Views[991]
         		 Looking east to the far side of Roebuck Bay, about 20 km away.: by flyted, Views[369]
         		 A small section of the mangrove trees that encircle Roebuck Bay, and cut off the town from having direct access to it.: by flyted, Views[515]
     
    The waters and sands at Town Beach aren't quite as nice as over at Cable Beach, but hey it's still a beach.: by flyted, Views[392]
         		 Town Beach, on Roebuck Bay, the closest swimming hole to the town. Broome itself sits on a peninsula that points south, separating large Roebuck Bay from the open Indian Ocean. Cable Beach is on the west side of the peninsula, a good 7 km from Chinatown and the centre of Broome. Thus it is quite a trek to get from one place to the other, especially by foot, which would be a little hot in the middle of the day. The Town Beach is far more accessible for locals, being just down the street from Chinatown.: by flyted, Views[1080]
         		 The pearl diver, indigenous apology plaque, and Carnarvon Street in Chinatown, Broome.: by flyted, Views[465]
         		 The statue of a pearl diver in a turn-of-the-century diving suit, one of the classic images of Broome. In the early 1900's, by far most of the divers were Japanese, but the federal government in Melbourne was desperate to enforce its “White Australia” policy, and considered the reliance on Japanese labour by white merchants in Broome to be an embarrassment. And so, 12 white British Navy divers were recruited from Britain to try their hand at diving and pearl harvesting and prove that white divers could be as good if not better than the Japanese. Within a year, 4 of the divers had died from paralysis or the bends, and the remainder were so woefully inefficient that they quietly crept out of town. Pearl diving remained a brutally harsh occupation in which only the Japanese were willing to accept the risks and losses.: by flyted, Views[1235]
         		 The first divers “recruited” by the white pearling merchants were of course indigenous people, from all across the Kimberley. They were excellent at free diving but eventually once the easy to reach shell was gone, divers in suits were required, and the aboriginals were relegated to even more menial tasks. Most aboriginal families in the Kimberley were affected by pearling, and as the indigenous population dwindled by the early 1900's, many ended up living on the streets or in the prisons of Broome. This plaque is an effort by the town to redress the litany of historic grievances.: by flyted, Views[490]
     
    Carnarvon Street, one of the main drags in “Chinatown,” which is what they call the historic original heart of Broome and still today the main commercial and tourist area. Despite the fact that there were never many Chinese living there, on the contrary Broome was well known during its big pearling days as being about two-thirds Japanese. The Japanese were the most capable and willing divers, willing to take on the many risks inherent, and would work the pearl season in Broome to send money home to Japan. As a result, there were many Japanese businesses and even a Japanese hospital which catered to the community. China never had much to do with it at all, but these days all the signs say “Chinatown.”: by flyted, Views[461]
         		 Laneway culture exists in Broome too, on a small scale. Little annexes such as this connected the main streets and offered some shade and maybe even a bit of air conditioning wafting through.: by flyted, Views[436]
         		 The Male Oval (named after a town founder), a large Aussie Rules playing field in the middle of town. It was frightfully hot to walk through most of the day, at least from 9 am to around 4:30 pm. : by flyted, Views[869]
         		 In the town of Broome, this is the runway of Broome International Airport. The airport sits between Cable Beach and the town, and so planes will land and take off directly over top of the beach and the shops in town.: by flyted, Views[419]
         		 Weaving their way through the rocks on Cable Beach. I stayed at Cable Beach Backpackers for a week; one day another guy in the room came in and announced he had a new job as a camel tender, helping to lead them on their walks. The room took on a pungent odour from then on.: by flyted, Views[384]
     
    The camels about to set off for home.: by flyted, Views[359]
         		 Camels couched on Cable Beach at the end of another long day of touring. Camels were introduced to the beach a few years ago by enterprising tour operators, and now there are a few different outfits offering camel-back rides up and down the beach. They are a spectacle in themselves at the beginning and end of the day, when trains of a dozen camels are paraded off the beach and down the highway, back to their camel stable.: by flyted, Views[481]
         		 by flyted, Views[268]
         		 More sunset scenes.: by flyted, Views[363]
         		 It's a heart-shaped cloud over the Indian Ocean...: by flyted, Views[756]
     
    Close up on the Intombi. Back in Broome's pearling heyday, from the 1880's to around the 1920's, the town had a fleet of dozens of these small boats which would comb the coast, sending off divers to look for mother of pearl shell. The diver, their air pump tender, a sheller and the pilot would live on board for weeks at a time, pulling up thousands of dollars worth of shell for the master pearlers in Broome.: by flyted, Views[510]
         		 by flyted, Views[350]
         		 The sun starts to set over the Indian Ocean. On the left is the Intombi, one of the last pearl luggers (schooners) surviving in Broome, formerly used for the harvesting of pearl shell but nowadays for day cruises around Broome.: by flyted, Views[384]
         		 Low tide at Cable Beach, featuring the firm, packed yet comfortable sand. Not too soft, dry and burning hot, but not rock hard either. Very nice.: by flyted, Views[397]
         		 Not much surf on this day, although Cable Beach rarely gets the surf of many other famous beaches in Australia. The water though was a comfortable 28 degrees.: by flyted, Views[378]
     
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