Author(s): Kristin Weidenbach

Pearling Yesterday and Today | Broome and Pearling | Biography and Memoir | Broome's Top 10

At a time when others only dreamed of growing pearls in Broome’s giant oysters, the pioneering Brown family mastered the secrets to coax the perfect pearls to life. With an Aussie can-do attitude they created Cygnet Bay pearl farm in the 1960s, the oldest Australian-owned and operated pearl farm and producer of the world’s largest fine-quality pearl—the size of a 10-cent coin.

From seven years living in a paperbark hut alongside the local Bardi Jawi people, to herding goats and snakes,and managing a male work crew of pearl technicians, divers and deckhands, Australia’s ‘First Lady of Pearls’ shares her life of adventure raising two children and building an entire community in the isolated tropical paradise of Western Australia’s north.