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ASIAQUEST TOURSSMALL GROUP TOURS FULLY INCLUSIVE

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Palaces& Castles

21 Days $5680ppT/S Fully Inclusive

New Delhi - Shekhawati - Alsisar - Bikaner - Jaiselmer - Jodhpur - Ranakpur - Kumbhalgarh Udaipur - Kuchaman - Pushkar - Jaipur - Agra

Outside Sydney 1800 144 738 Visit website: www.asiaquesttours.com.au Email: info@asiaquesttours.com.auFor brochure call 92991838

MajesticIndia

28 Days $7080ppT/S Fully Inclusive

New Delhi - Shekhawati - Alsisar - Bikaner Jaiselmer - Jodhpur - Ranakpur - Kumbhalgarh Udaipur - Kuchaman - Pushkar - Jaipur - Agra

Orchha - Khajuraho - Varanasi - Mumbai

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21 Days $5480ppT/S Fully Inclusive

New Delhi - Amritsar - Pragpur Dharamsala - Palampur - Manali

Sundernagar - Shimla

Fully Inclusive ToursFlying SingaporeAirlinesSmall Group Tours10-18 max

6 Traveller Weekend Edition August 22-23, 2009 The Sydney Morning Herald

DESTINATIONWESTERN AUSTRALIA

Pearls on thepeninsulaJanet Hawley discovers turtle eggs, safari tents and aflourishing indigenous trade on the Kimberley coast.

Roma Puertollano, wearing a brightpink singlet, frangipanis in her hairand a beaming smile, stands amonggiant woks and camp ovens under a

sign saying Roma’s Chilli Crab Kitchen. Beyond,through the palms, lies a glorious white beachand cerulean sea.

It’s not Bali or a Pacific island. This is a newtropical destination to rival them, on the DampierPeninsula, stretching 200 kilometres north ofBroome, the coastal region of the Kimberley inWestern Australia’s top end. It shares Broome’smulticultural history of early explorers, mission-aries and pearlers from Japan, Indonesia, China,the Philippines and Malaysia. The result is a won-drous mixed heritage that flavours the lifestyleand attitude of their descendants.

Only 822 people live on the Dampier Penin-sula, 84 per cent of whom are indigenous, mostlyin small communities or individual homes scat-tered around the idyllic coastline. About 20indigenous-run eco-tourism ventures offer arange of spotlessly clean accommodation, frommodest shelters and camping sites to upmarketsafari tents beside secluded beaches and coves.

Many are run by remarkable characters, likePuertollano at Chile Creek. With her Filipino-Spanish-Aboriginal-English background, she isrenowned as a raconteur and cook of spicy Asianrecipes. She is also well known for escortingsmall groups on mud-crabbing tours in the man-grove estuary beside her beach, followed by acook-up of chilli crab.

If you muck up the tide times for mud-crabbing, as we did, Puertollano keeps other localdelicacies on hand for visitors to sample, such asdugong, oysters and turtle eggs. She insists we tryturtle eggs she’s just collected on the beach andboiled. They’re like ping-pong balls made fromparchment. ‘‘Make a slit in the top and suckthem,’’ Puertollano instructs. ‘‘The white neversets, no matter how long you cook it. Only theyolk sets.’’ The taste is so rich it feels like you’veeaten 10 chook eggs.

We head down to her beach to watch the sun-

set under a palm-frond pavilion, fitted out withchairs cleverly fashioned from 44-gallon drumsand cushions.

Like many places on the Dampier Peninsula,Chile Creek has a variety of accommodation.There are camping sites and bush huts, whichshare a rustic outdoor kitchen and a cheerful out-door bathroom, with clam shells for soap holdersand shell-framed mirrors. New self-containedsafari tents are also available.

We’re staying the night at the award-winningKooljaman at Cape Leveque, on the tip of theDampier Peninsula. Our guide, Liz Jacks, reckonsI should see the best the peninsula has to offer onmy first night, then go rustic the following night.

Jacks works for the non-profit Small BusinessCentre in Broome, helping emerging indigenousentrepreneurs, such as Kath Cox, who is also trav-elling with us. Kooljaman is jointly owned by theDjarindjin and One Arm Point communities, andit’s not hard to see why it has a showcase ofawards. Established in the early 1990s and pro-gressively improved, the site is crowned by CapeLeveque lighthouse and red pindan cliffs abovewhite sandy beaches.

Kooljaman has perfected the art of the glam-our safari tent for this climate. Tents are erectedon timber platforms, with a front veranda to ad-mire the view and a timber kitchen and bath-room at the rear. I’m staying in a zip-up tent withgeckos for company but Jacks and Cox are deter-mined to rough it in an open beach hut. Nothingphases Jacks. She was bitten on the ear by a kingbrown while camping out bush. ‘‘My fault,’’ shesays. ‘‘I was too lazy to put up my mosquito netover my swag that night.’’ Hooray for the RoyalFlying Doctor Service, which came to the rescue.

Next morning Jacks and Cox are singing alongto the latest Pigram Brothers album as Jackssteers her four-wheel-drive to Lombadina, half anhour away. It’s a vibrant community and a signproudly announces it’s a Tidy Towns winner. Aresident, Robert Sibosado, greets us. Once a Cath-olic mission, Lombadina is home to an Aboriginalcommunity of 60 people, who run a number ofenterprising businesses, from whale watchingand fishing charters to a wood-fired bakery andmachinery hire. The old Christ the King Church,evocative of early mission days, is built from localpaperbark trees.

As we walk to the beach, Sibosado points outfresh snake tracks on the sandy track. ‘‘It’s a kingbrown, ‘‘ he remarks, ‘‘been out hunting for a rator something to eat last night.’’

Great. Suppose you have crocodiles here, too?‘‘Nah, only seen one croc all this year but you al-ways keep a lookout,’’ he replies.

We drive a kilometre along the glisteningwaterfront through deeply rutted sand to seeancient fossilised human footprints. Advertisingagencies love this beach for outback fashionshoots and 4WD vehicle commercials. Yet evenexperienced drivers get bogged here occasionally.‘‘No worries,’’ Sibosado grins. ‘‘We charge $60 totow you out.’’

We need fuel, so we drive south to Beagle Baygeneral store, then weave back north again. Firstwe visit the peninsula’s other historic missionchurch, Sacred Heart. French Trappist monkscame to Beagle Bay in 1890 but left and werereplaced in 1900 by German Pallottine mission-aries, who continued to staff the mission for thenext 90 years until it was handed over to theAboriginal community. When World War I brokeout the German monks were placed under house