When Lord McAlpine arrived in Broome, many of the old pearling buildings were in decline.He restored and rebuilt, shaping how parts of the town look today.

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Building the stations was only the beginning.Floods, distance, and the realities of the Kimberley tested what had been created along the Ord.

Over time, the river and the land would change — and so would the future of the Durack holdings.

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The Durack family made one of the great overland journeys in Australian history — driving cattle from western Queensland to the Kimberley across country nobody had mapped. It took years, cost lives, and changed the north forever.

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In 1879, explorer Alexander Forrest named the region during his expedition across the north, honouring John Wodehouse, the Earl of Kimberley.

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The Kimberley coast has been seen and described for a long time.

Long before it was settled, ships worked their way along this shoreline — charting, observing, and trying to understand what was there.

One of those visits left a record that lasted.

Not a grand arrival.Just an early account of a place that was still largely unknown to those writing about it.

It’s a reminder that some of the first impressions of this country came from people passing through — noticing what they could, and leaving the rest.

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Out in the east Kimberley, the country opens out into long, flat stretches of red earth.

And then, without much warning, it changes.

A near-perfect circle set into the ground.Wide. Quiet. Contained.

It’s something you don’t expect to find out here.

Formed long before anything else you can see around it, and sitting in the landscape as if it has always been there.

It’s the kind of place that feels separate from everything around it —even though it isn’t.

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Johnny Chi was one of the early figures in Broome’s pearling days — a man who arrived from overseas and became part of a harsh, complex industry on the edge of the continent.

His story sits within a time of opportunity, tension, and cultural mixing, when Broome was still finding its shape.

What remains today isn’t just the history… but the traces of the people who lived it.

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Camels have been part of northern Australia for a long time.

In places like Broome, they’re still visible today — sometimes in ways that feel familiar.

But the role they once played was different.

Set against country that was difficult to move through, they became part of how things were carried, supplied, and connected.

What remains now isn’t a continuation of that work.

Just a reminder.

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Gantheaume Point sits just south of Broome, where the red cliffs meet the Indian Ocean.

At low tide, the reef reveals something unexpected — marks in the rock that reach back more than 100 million years, from a time when this coastline looked very different.

There are other traces here too. Old stories tied to the pearling days. The remains of a lighthouse that once guided ships along this coast. And always, the contrast — deep red rock against bright blue water.

It’s a place where time sits in layers.Ancient, recent, and present — all in the one stretch of shoreline.

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Joseph Lyons never looked like power — but in the hardest years Australia had known, he led with steadiness and care. This story traces his journey from a poor Tasmanian childhood to Prime Minister during the Great Depression, and asks what quiet leadership looks like when a nation is afraid.

On This Road— Travel stories from Australia

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