Serene scenes ... Windjana Gorge.
It's hot, and fat-trunked boab trees rise out of the red soil and the acacia scrub that we're passing in the west Kimberley, hundreds of kilometres from Broome.
The Gibb River Road, closed during the wet season between December and March, is dried out, corrugated and sprinkled with sharp rocks that can shred a $300 all-terrain tyre in a moment. The corrugations make my glasses kangaroo-hop down my nose and dust sneaks through the air vents as we belt along. We're not going at breakneck speed, just fast enough to try to float over the corrugations.
Every now and again, wallabies dart out from the acacia, while Brahman cattle, with less-than-flattering shoulder humps and flaps of skin dangling from their necks, meander onto the road. Most respect, however, is reserved for the occasional triple-trailer road trains that come at us head-on.
We slow down and veer to the side as these supersized semi-trailers whiz by with loads of cattle that are likely bound for live export to the Middle East and slaughter with a knife to the throat.
The road trains release dust bombs as they go and the dust's fusion with the sun creates an eerie haze that hangs for kilometres afterwards.
We're bumping along from Broome to Windjana Gorge in the Napier Range, where ants run around in the dirt like they are angered by the heat, where 100-metre limestone cliffs provide the shade and where unblinking razor-toothed crocodiles lie at the water's edge.
An elderly woman in another tour group is being helped out of the gorge. She has broken her arm after tripping on a tree root and is a thousand bone-jarring bumps from medical help.
I'm travelling in a rugged 20-seater bus that would look more like a troop carrier than a tourist coach if it had a daub of army camouflage and was put to work in the Iraqi desert. But I don't dare think we are doing it tough. We have air-conditioning and the cargo hold is like a mobile delicatessen, packed with lunch meats and breads and cheeses.
There is calm in this land and I absorb it with leg ham and yellow pickles on a paper plate and an icy-cold bottle of water in the armrest of a fold-out canvas camp chair under a gum tree.
In the 1890s, there was little peace here. This is where legendary Aboriginal freedom fighter Jandamarra roamed as he led a bloody and ill-fated resistance to white men's authority.
Literature about Jandamarra frequently refers to him as the "black Ned Kelly" and Anthony Harrison, our guide on this one-day, 850-kilometre Kimberley Wild trip, repeats the notion. "If his skin wasn't black, he would be as big a legend as Ned Kelly."
Jandamarra does at least have a song written about him by Paul Kelly. Pigeon-Jundamarra (Pigeon was his nickname) recounts how the police black tracker, who had betrayed his people, changed sides again and killed a policeman named Bill Richardson to release a group of his countrymen from their shackles. Kelly sings:
Pigeon used to be so tame
Til one day he turned against his master
Killed him, broke his brothers chains.
As I walk in Windjana Gorge, there's hardly anything moving except the ants. Freshwater crocodiles (they're meant to be the timid ones but, if provoked, can inflict gangrenous wounds requiring much stitching) are scattered about the sandy shores and float like logs in the water.
Jandamarra probably fled through this water when he escaped a posse of 30 men. After his getaway, he continued a guerilla-like war for three years, during which he gained mythical status among his people for his ability to outfox his pursuers. Our guide says Jandamarra is still revered by the area's Aborigines who celebrate Jandamarra Day annually.
It all came to an end at Tunnel Creek, 36 kilometres from the gorge, where he was shot in 1897. His head was cut off and taken to England as proof of his death.
I'm now in the darkness of Tunnel Creek, wading in knee-deep water and thinking about Jandamarra and freshwater crocodiles. It's a scramble over big boulders to get into this 750-metre "secret" cave that served as a hideout and escape route for Jandamarra's gang.
The cave is high and wide and has sandy beaches and permanent pools with catfish. Bats and stalactites hang from the limestone ceiling. It's child's play, really. Children with torches are on the adventure of their lives, while adults in old runners or sandals tread a little more warily. Unlike the gorge, I don't see one crocodile.
There's a nice waterhole at the end of the cave and as I float about there are two eyes on me. They don't belong to a croc but a sharp-clawed water monitor that would wreak havoc if it were trapped in a cardboard box.
Jandamarra hunted water monitors for food, along with bush turkeys, goannas and wallabies. But I'm not up for a water monitor on my plate and I'm soon on the way back to Broome where the next meal is pearl meat, a delicacy that sells for $100 a kilogram or more in Australia and more than $400 a kilogram when dried and exported to Asia.
Pearl meat comes from the pinctada maxima, the oyster that produces the pearls that have made Broome the world pearling capital and the producer of 70 per cent of the world's quality pearls. The meat is a byproduct of the pearling industry and just 200 kilograms is released in Australia each year.
I know I'm privileged to try it. What's more, I'm served the delicacy in a fine-dining restaurant with three original Sidney Nolan paintings on the wall. The Nolans, depicting scenes of the north-west Kimberley, are great and the after-dinner cigar selection in a sealed box looks superb, with a lung-busting Cohiba Siglo No. 1 for $34.
The pearl meat, adorned with coconut and lime dressing, is as colourful as the Nolans. But I'm underwhelmed. The meat, with a consistency of calamari, is surprisingly bland.
All this unfolds in the Club Restaurant at the Cable Beach Club Resort and Spa, which provides the quintessential Broome accommodation, with buildings of corrugated iron and painted lattice, often with wide verandas and jarrah floors.
The resort's Sunset Bar overlooking Cable Beach is one of the choice places to watch Broome's famous sunsets and lines of tourists riding camels along the sand. I see beach weddings and wonder whether this is where celebrities Rove McManus and Tasma Walton married in their Broome beach wedding in June.
The resort, laid out in 10.5 hectares of lush tropical gardens, claims to have the largest collection of Nolans anywhere in the world (they won't say what they're worth), along with other Australian and exotic artworks and garden sculptures, such as Chinese warrior horses, stone lions and Buddhas.
While on a guided group tour of the manicured and sweet-smelling gardens – thick with palms, frangipani, hibiscus and dry, rocky river beds to replicate the desert and billabongs filled with water lillies – I become entangled on a pathway with a passer-by. The man is polite and after a few false steps, bypasses the group. It's only later that I realise it was James Packer. It's impressive that he kept his cool, not because it's hot but because the morning television shows have been reporting for hours that he has just lost $315 million in a collapsed casino venture in Las Vegas.
Packer, I guess, is staying in one of the Cable Beach Club suites that come with butlers.
Cable Beach Club has attracted celebrity since it was established by Lord Alistair McAlpine in 1988. There are challengers though, most notably Pinctada Cable Beach Resort and Spa (pinctadacablebeach.com.au), a new five-star resort with cascading water features, pools and a day spa that is seemingly going head-to-head with Cable Beach Club's newish Chahoya Spa.
Just down the road from Broome – well, 127 kilometres – the Eco Beach Wilderness Retreat (ecobeach.com.au) has just reopened for business after being flattened in 2000 by Cyclone Rosita, the last big cyclone to hit the region. The five-star resort has villas along the beachfront and safari tents.
Eco Beach has set up a shop in Broome's Carnarvon Street, near the cafes with outdoor tables, pearl shops and galleries that make this such an interesting town.
Even McDonald's fascinates. Long resisted by the locals, it nevertheless has a firm foothold now, blending in because it has adopted the stylish corrugated-tin architecture of much of the town.
Not far from McDonald's, the weekend morning markets are set up in parkland. Craftsmen, foodies and didgeridoo players give it an interesting vibe but on the serious side, staunch local activists campaign against a liquefied natural gas-processing plant that has been planned for the coast north of Broome.
Singer Missy Higgins, who is based in Melbourne but has a house in Broome, has added her voice to the environmental cause, occasionally speaking out against the proposal at her concerts.
Higgins says she draws inspiration for her songs from the Kimberley and is about to star in a new Broome-based movie, Bran Nue Dae, which opens at the Melbourne International Film Festival on August 8.
Of Broome and the Kimberley she says: "I really love the space of it all, just how far away from the city it is and the sheer beauty of it."
Robert Upe travelled courtesy of Cable Beach Club Resort & Spa and Australia's North West Tourism.
Fast Facts
Qantas flies to Broome from Melbourne for $409 one way and from Sydney for $433. Qantas also has a one-way fare via Perth of $394 from Melbourne and $414 from Sydney. Virgin Blue flies via Perth for $249 one way. All fares include taxes.
The Kimberley is 421,000 square kilometres, twice the size of Victoria and half the size of NSW. The population is only 40,000, with 17,000 living in Broome.
Cable Beach Club Resort and Spa studios for two from $391 a night high season (June to October), minimum four-night stay. Massages at Chahoya Spa from $70 for 30 minutes to $540 for a five-and-a-half hour "Indulgence", with body exfoliation, massage, facial manicure, pedicure and more. Phone 1800 199 099, see cablebeachclub.com.
Eating and drinking there
- The Club Restaurant at Cable Beach Club Resort and Spa has chilli-spiced pearl meat as an entree for $29. Pearl meat is served in several Broome restaurants when available.
- Matso's Boutique Brewery has charm and brews such as mango cooler, chilli beer and "hit-the-toad lager" (10 cents from every glass sold goes to stopping the cane road from reaching Broome). It has casual dining with tasting plates and a highly rated Indian menu.
- Cafe Carlotta is an out-of-the-way and hard-to-find Italian place that is said by many locals to be the best restaurant in town. Book well in advance. It's open only during high season. See cafecarlotta.com.au.
- For quirky, try bacon and egg with caramelised onion pizza for breakfast at The Aarli, $17.50.
- The Mango Place at the 12 Mile settlement out of Broome sells mango products of all sorts, including wines, jams, sauces and corrugated mango soap. Phone (08) 9192 5462.
Touring there
- Kimberley Wild has tours from half a day to 22 days. The Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek day trip is $229 an adult and $129 a child. A Taste of Broome half-day tour is $129 and includes most of the places described, with oysters at Broome jetty and a sunset barbecue. Phone (08) 9193 7267, see kimberleywild.com.au.
- Camel rides on Cable Beach, from $35 for 30 minutes. See broomevisitorcentre.com.au. Book in advance during school holidays.
- Don't miss Sunset from the Cable Beach Club's Sunset Bar; Sun Pictures, the world's oldest outdoor cinema; Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Farm; galleries with indigenous art: Gecko Gallery (geckogallery.com.au) and Monsoon Gallery (monsoongallery.com.au).
Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance by Howard Pedersen and Banjo Woorunmurra (Magabala Books, $22.95) available at Kimberley Bookshop, 4 Napier Terrace, Broome.
Australia's North West Tourism, see australiasnorthwest.com.
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