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DESTINATION AUSTRALIA
Broome with a view Eoghan Corry in the northern corner of Western Australia
Camel trek on Cable Beach. photograph by James Morgan
T
o see the best bits of the northern outreaches of Western Australia, you need to take to the sky. Our Cessna is waiting for us on a red dirt airfield. Our pilot Yohan Chandiramani completes a runway inspection for animals before we take off for a flight over Cape Leveque and the vast Buccaneer Archipelago. The star attractions are the horizontal falls, water flushing through two narrow inlets as the tide rises and falls with a ferocity
that has created headaches for three centuries of sailing vessels. As we fly over the nude section of Cable Beach the pilot jokes: “we'll get lower next time to get those sweet back packers.” From up here you are reminded that Western Australia is a vast state on a vast sub-continent. At 976,790 sq miles, if it were independent it would be tenth largest country in the world just after Kazakistan. Our flight to a sheep station-
turned camel trek centre in Mount Augustus brings us over a different landscape. When the Fitzroy river floods it becomes the second largest in the world, 14km wide, so the land is surprisingly green. There I heard about the aborigine who was refused a passport because he was not Australian enough. Gudibul Butt and Bugily Bangu told me how it happened. They planned a big adventure from their Mount Ander-
■ Eoghan Corry flew to Australia with Emirates, who fly direct Dublin to Dubai daily 7 days a week and offer 70 onward connections a week to FIVE Australian cities: Perth, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide since Nov 1. www.emirates.com 01-4773256. ■ Internal flight from Perth to Broome was with Qantas Airways: www.qantas.com.au ■ Ground arrangements were by Purely Unreal Kimberley Dreamtime Adventure(+61 8) 447 214 681 www.kimberleydreamtimeadventures.com.au ■ Broome Sightseeing Tours www.broomesightseeingtours.com (+61 8) 9192 0043 ■ Matso's Broome Brewer, www.matsosbroomebrewery.com.au (+61 8) 9193 5811 ■ Accommodation was at Eco Beach, Broome WA: www.ecobeach.com.au Tel: (+61 8) 9193 8015 ■ Cable Beach Club Resort & Spa: www.cablebeachclub.com (+61 8) 9192 0400
sen camel tour operation to Pushkar camel fair in Rajasthan. They all trundled into Broome post office to apply for their passports, where a stern woman told them that needed birth certs from both their parents. This was a problem, for many of the group had parents whose births had not had never been registered. “How do I know you are Australian?” she asked the disbelieving group. The matter was revolved just two hours be-
fore the flight was about to take off. Casper my camel responds to the lads shouting “husta” in their native language, Nyikina-Mangala, as we weave through bush tomato plants, waddle, eucalyptus and boab trees. Gudibul (“that’s my blackfellah name, the tourists call me TJ”) feeds him grass along the way. Rob Bamkin runs indigenous tours on behalf of the Jarlmadangah Burru community in Mount Augustus.
The place has a dark past. The aboriginal people were worked here in slave like conditions until 1967. They received no money, just their food and clothing. A hundred years after slavery as abolished in America it as still extant in Australia. Eventually, when the owners were required to close down they thrashed the place before they went. There is a toilet but when I flush before returning to the airplane I wash down a frog.
(left) Eoghan Corry fishing on Eco beach (Right) Bugily Bangu and camel