A rather unusual rush hour is taking place on Broome’s famous Cable Beach: a congestion of camels, cars, and nudists with locals saying the pairing is volatile.
Veteran cameleer John Geappen told the ABC that dangerous levels of congestion on the beach “are putting one of Australia’s most iconic tourist attractions at risk”.
When speaking to the ABC he warned that an “evening bottleneck of hooning cars, dogs and nudists” is creating a potentially deadly scenario.
“The worst-case scenario is you’ll have a car hit a camel train, and somebody is seriously injured or God forbid killed on Cable Beach, and then we’ll all find ourselves sitting in front of the coroner explaining our position.”
Veteran cameleer John Geappen
It’s a big beach, right? Shouldn’t there be room for everyone to coexist?
John believes it’s possible but a major part of the problem is that the camel tour operators are only allowed at an area known as North of the Rocks where cars are allowed to enter the sand and nudists are allowed to hang out.
So all in one spot there are camels trotting through the sand, cars hooning and parents trying to stop their children from spotting nudists. An odd combination indeed.
The solution? The camel operators want to be allowed to run their tours south of the rocks where cars are forbidden.
The Broome Shire has rejected their request saying that at high tide there wouldn’t be room for the camels to move safely past.
The debate continues.
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