We settle into our now very routine morning of lazing around our hotel room interspersed with the odd dip in the pool.
It seems that were here in the middle of Broomes annual Shinju Matsuri Festival, so we head off into Chinatown to watch the parade. We read that the name is Japanese for Festival of the Pearl, and its been going for 51 years. Its intended to celebrate the four very diverse cultures which together here over the decades - Chinese, Japanese, Malay and Indigenous Australian. Theres a large crowd gathered on the side of the road to watch. Based on what wed seen to date we could have been forgiven for thinking that the local population was made up entirely of grey nomads and nubile South American waitresses. This crowd is very different - European, Indigenous and Asian families - we assume theyre the real locals and we never get to see them because theyre all either at work or school most of the time....
The parade is very diverse. Its led by a Chinese dragon followed up by a range of floats and street performers - girls on stilts, dinosaurs and their skeletons (in
recognition of the dinosaur footprints out at Gantheaume Point), kids on unicycles, the police, fire brigade and state emergency services; the local football team, the Broome Saints, brings up the rear. A camel the recent passing of Abdul Casley who is credited with starting up the Cable Beach sunset camel rides back in the early 1980s. I hope his name didnt lure any of his guests into thinking they were getting a ride with a genuine Afghan cameleer - apparently his real name was Hilton John and he was born and raised in Geelong. The Parks and Wildlife Service float seems to have a slightly unhealthy obsession with crocodiles. The kids riding on the back of it are all wearing hats emblazoned with the word Deadly, which we think is intended as a not so subtle reminder that crocs are dangerous. Do they think its even vaguely possible that anyone up here doesnt already know this? I think the parade must be sponsored by the local dentists; sweets are being dispensed liberally from every float and the local kids seated kerbside are scrambling to make sure that none go to waste. Its a bit sobering to see a
bus draped in colourful streamers celebrating 20 years of the Kimberley Link Up Service, whose role is to help reconnect indigenous Stolen Generation families separated by the unbelievably cruel policies of our past governments. The location feels a bit ironic; were standing right across the road from the rather large and forbidding looking Kimberley District with tall razor wire topped fences. I doubt the parades making the prisoners feel too festive, and it seems to us that running it right next to their cells is rubbing their noses in it ever so slightly. The locals seem to have gone out of their way to make sure that they dont waste too much petrol transporting miscreants around the place - the jails next to the police station and directly across the road from the courthouse.
We head off to Divers Bar in Cable Beach for dinner. Ads occupying virtually every square millimetre of available wall space leave us in little doubt that this is the headquarters of the Miss Cable Beach Bikini Competition. I think I remember hearing that the heats are on this weekend. I encourage Issy to enter, but she reminds me that wed probably need
to get divorced to make her eligible. I hope she doesnt still want to enter. Weve been to a few of Troys gigs at seedy venues in Melbourne where our feet have stuck to the carpet. Thankfully theres no carpet here, so our feet are safe. Unfortunately the same cant be said for our forearms - if we rest them on our table top for more than a few minutes theyre in real danger of permanently attached..
