Kimberley holiday accommodation expands at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm
Amid the vastness of WA’s northwest, Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm sits like an oasis on the coast.
Western Australia’s Kimberley region is famous for big things. There are dinosaur footprints imprinted into coastal rocks near Broome, tides that are among the world’s most extreme, and if driving from Broome in the west to Kununurra in the east, you’ll clock up more kilometres than driving Sydney to Brisbane. On Cable Beach, huge beasts of 4WDs crawl along the sand, competing with camel trains for attention. Sunsets sprawl across the sky like an oversized box of watercolours dropped in a lake. The monsoonal rains are so biblical that houses don’t bother with guttering.
So imagine my shock when I shoot straight past the turn-off to Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm. This spot near the top of the Dampier Peninsula is so well-known I expected signage to match its reputation. Instead, there’s a barely legible weatherworn sign and a tinny, complete with outboard motor, beached on a rock. “Caravans welcome”, it says on the boat’s flank, along with “2.6km” and an arrow pointing east. I nose my rented 4WD along a dusty red track – the Dampier Peninsula is, after all, smack-bang in pindan country – not knowing what I’ll find at road’s end.
Surprisingly, I emerge from low woodland into a bustling village, complete with a “Main Street”. Cygnet Bay is a working pearl farm but also provides tours and accommodation, ranging from basic to fancy, with an overall capacity for 346 overnight guests. You can also catch a seaplane from here to the world-famous Horizontal Falls.
I’m staying in one of the Diver’s Creek deluxe bay-view safari tents that are tucked into dry monsoonal rainforest 1km from the farm’s main hub. It feels a world away thanks to a rough track that gives the 4WD a bouncy workout. My first stop, though, is the onsite Homestead restaurant where, from the deck, you can glimpse bluer-than-blue saltwater when the tide’s in. Thanks to saltwater crocs, sharks and jellyfish, ocean swimming isn’t recommended. It’s safer to swim in the infinity pool next to the venue.
For lunch, I can’t resist an entree of pearl meat (similar to scallop sashimi) dressed with passionfruit and citrus, and paired with mango salsa and a salad. Sadly, the kitchen’s out of barramundi, so I settle for a steak sandwich and chips. Suitably fortified, it’s time to take a pearl farm tour.
It all began when patriarch Dean Brown sailed to this spot to begin work in the pearl-shell industry in 1946, the same decade that plastic decimated the mother-of-pearl trade. In 1956, after a state ban on manufacturing cultured pearls was repealed, Japanese technicians started creating cultured pearls at Kuri Bay (Dean’s son Lyndon, at Cygnet Bay, later became the first non-Japanese technician to cultivate round pearls). Kuri Bay, 200km northeast of Cygnet, was one of the world’s most successful pearl farms before Paspaley shuttered it in 2011 to focus on its other Kimberley operations. Kuri Bay’s worker accommodation briefly did time as high-priced “lodge” accommodation. These days, it’s a stop on various Kimberley cruises.
Cygnet Bay, meanwhile, has gone from strength to strength since opening to the public in 2009. Accommodation is split between the Diver’s Creek area, which is 4WD-access only, and Pearler’s Village, where 15 new airconditioned glamping tents are open year-round. If you’re staying at Diver’s Creek (open from April to October), you’ll drive right past them.
The pearl farm tour (adults $37) starts in the former classroom where Dean’s grandson James, who is now Cygnet Bay’s head pearl farmer, was educated. It continues outside where an oyster shell, at the end of its productive life, is opened for us. It contains two tiny keshi (all nacre, no nucleus) pearls that go to the former homestead-turned-gallery and jewellery store – the Shellar Door – for valuation; its pearl meat is diced and sampled before tour’s end.
Finally, it’s time to head to my tent, which has a fire pit out front and water views beyond. It’s a simple set-up, with a deck, bedroom and ensuite bathroom with double vanity and on-point corrugated iron walls. There’s a bar fridge but, to make a hot beverage, you must head to the nearby camp kitchen. While waiting for the water to boil, I can frolic on the nearby swing or read about the surrounding monsoon vine thickets. The Bardi Jawi people call this type of dry rainforest mayi boordan (bush fruit country) or boonyja badarg gorna (all the trees are good for fruit and medicine).
The signage also alerts me that the area is frequented by rose-crowned fruit doves. Near my tent, I hear a dove’s tell-tale wing-whistle but it’s too dim to spy if it’s sporting the male’s pink head feathers. After being lulled to sleep by nature’s soundtrack, I’m up at the crack of dawn for the tide-dependant waterfall reef tour (adults $240) that ultimately proves fatal to my camera.
Back at the hub, an amphibious vessel rolls up next to the deck. We step aboard and slip out into the ocean to see King Sound’s extreme tide falling away from a hard-coral platform reef, leaving flailing fish as a breakfast buffet for white-bellied sea eagles and eastern reef egrets. We continue into the open ocean where common terns are diving en masse for fish. I pop my camera into a supplied dry bag without fastening it, lulled by the promise of a drier ride home. Needless to say, I’m unprepared for the comically huge wave that breaks over the bow where I’m sitting, soaking everything.
A camera death is hard to bear but I perk up when I happen upon artist-in-residence, Bardi Jawi pearl-shell carver Bruce Wiggan, back at base and ready for a yarn. His delicate work, known as riji and displayed in the Shellar Door, is inspired by nature’s wonders, such as cloud patterns and whirlpools at the water’s edge, along with his own stories. The incisions are highlighted with pigments, ground from rocks of various hues, or colours extracted from tree bark. “If I feel a bit tired, I come up and sit down in my workshop and feel strong,” says Wiggan, who is also a healer.
Pearl shells form another drawcard along the peninsula. Before returning to Broome, I note the distance to Beagle Bay’s turn-off but again I overshoot. The must-see attraction in this community is the Sacred Heart Church’s extraordinary shell mosaics that blend traditional Christian symbols with Kimberley history (such as a pearling lugger being tossed on rough seas). Before the altar, the floor is inlaid with images of turtles, dingoes, emus, fish, weapons and bush foods; things central to the lives of the Nyul Nyul people. Take it as gospel: it’s a pearler of an experience.
IN THE KNOW
Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, 200km northeast of Broome, provides accommodation ranging from tent and campervan sites to basic bush tents, glamping or solid-wall options including pearler’s shacks and the top-tier, three-bedroom Master Pearler’s Private Retreat. Glamping tents from
$244 a night.
The Broome-Cape Leveque Road is an all-weather, fully sealed road (remember to wave back when approaching drivers raise a friendly hand). A 4WD can be rented from Broome Broome Car Rentals outside the entry to Broome Airport. Entry to Beagle Bay’s Sacred Heart Church is $10.
Katrina Lobley was a guest of Tourism Western Australia.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout