Lewis's Travel on the Gravel: Derby to Broome 16th August

Stopped at the longest water trough in the world and had a look at the prison tree. What a disgusting slice of Australian history this place is. The information boards tell of the horror inflicted on the aboriginal people of this area. The tree was used to house aboriginal prisoners and let's be honest the word is slaves. Before they were sent to work on the pearl diving boats. They even have a name for the people who went out and enslaved them, their title was a ' black birder' . I will let you do your own research on this subject it left me feeling a deep sadness.

We arrived at Broome and had a lot of business to attend to. The fridge needed fixing and the car needed a service and we needed some food and a shower. It was a bit of a shock after being bush for so long to be back amongst it. We stayed at a caravan park in Cable beach. Adam dropped the car off for a service and we headed off on the bikes for the day. We didn't get far as our first stop was Cable beach. Needless to say we stayed there all day had lunch and drinks over looking the ocean and then were treated to a whales cruising past and a great sunset. The kids stayed in swimming until dark. Broome's population had swelled to 60,000 so it was very busy and difficult to get accommodation. So we decided to take off for the Dampier peninsula.