Boab Tree
Geikie Gorge
Staircase to the Moon
Broome Golf Course
Port Beach
Spear Fishing
Passinger Ship off Cable Beach
Flags of the Nations
September Dairy 2010
“Power is the cause of all performance of all things throughout the universe” (The Emeral Tablets, cira 3000 BC).
This quote comes from the cover sheet of a book called ‘The secret, the Power’ by Rhonda Byrne. (Worth a read). The power Rhonda refers to is of course Divine Power. For me it brought into focus another type of power which has been coming out of Canberra lately. I refer to the power games that have been going on in the political arena the last few weeks – the independents certainly are basking in their new found political power.
At last we have reached that part of the year when we can bring a suitable conclusion to the 2010 football season. Collingwood beat Saint Kilda on the second attempt to win the big Grand Final Cup. The Broome Saints won the local competition which came to an end a few days ago and what better way to tell the story than to quote the ‘Broome Advertiser’, which by the way is the excellent Community Newspaper up here. “The Saints, on their 50th anniversary year, called on much skill taking out the 2010 West Kimberley Football League premiership title. The epic clash with the Peninsula Bombers ended with the jubilant team huddle.”
Broome is of course regarded as the most multi cultural town in Australia and you only have to read its history to know why. The other Broome news, which may not have reached the East, is the big announcement by Colin Barnett, our Premier, that he had commenced moves to compulsorily acquire land at James Price Point for a $30 billion gas precinct, just on our northern door step. This move has been met with much outrage here in Broome. To be fair I would say the community is pretty evenly divided. The ‘Aboriginal Land Council’ here in Broome is unhappy about it and he had them on side before the announcement. Not to worry these things take years to sort out so I don’t think they are going to start any time soon. I hope it does not affect Cable Beach in any detrimental way.
Curtin Detention was on my mind again this month. Sister Jarklin Ford, a Mercy, has been appointed to serve the asylum seekers where she can. She is just back from Puru and is now living in Derby. Bruce Needham, Manager of the Centre, is happy to have her and he tells me they have 700 asylum seekers housed there at the moment and expect the number to go up as high as 1200. When I was last there, Bruce suggested that 600 would be the limit, now he is expecting the delivery of another 40 dongas (SElf contained units of ten rooms each) to cope with the increase. At the moment they have had to put bunks in the two classrooms – not good. I am back in the game of recycling computers. I have sent them four second hand computers just recently and will send more as I graduall work through fixing them. ‘First Click’, a self teaching freeware package created by the State Government and we hope to use it to teach them some basic skills. A piece of freeware worth knowing about is ‘Open Office’ which operates much like Microsoft Office. .
One of this months photos features the deep water port opened by David Brand in 1966. It is a good couple of kilometres out of town and a great fishing spot. One Aboriginal family were using a spear attached to a cord so they could retrieve the spear after each throw - brilliant. Of course the rest of the fishing individuals on the catwalk were using expensive rods! I think the spear was mightier than the rod. A couple of oil-rig tenders were parked at the jetty when I took the photo. Two passenger ships visited us this month and one moored alongside the jetty, the other just off Cable Beach. A big passenger ship was due in the last week of September but due to strong winds had to sail past and on to Asia.
We do have a golf course overlooking the port, which I have visited a couple of times. It is nice and green though quite expensive to play on. People like the Negus twins and Peter Hardiman are will remember for their many successful exploits here in years past. You have to start early to beat the heat. It has been in the 40s the last couple of days. The wet season is almost upon us.
The circus for kids came to town this month but was only on show for a couple of nights. This is really the tail end of the tourist season. The big crowds have all gone now though there are still plenty of people here enjoying the third term School holidays. A visit to the crock farm is still a favourite tourist spot but the news of the death of its creator Malcolm Douglas, our crocodile-man, really shook the town. We are not sure if the park will continue at this stage. Family came in from Sydney for the funeral.
Till next time Peter T
