Willie Creek Pearls – How to choose the perfect pearl

All about Broome pearls

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Wandering through the showroom at Willie Creek Pearls, I resign myself to leaving Broome empty-handed. It’s not that I can’t find a pearl that I like; the problem is that most of the jewellery I like is way beyond my budget. 

After all, how many of us can afford to spend $5000 for a perfect pearl or $100,000 for a pearl necklace?

Nevertheless, taking a tour of a pearl farm is one of the things to do in Broome most people find enjoyable. 

Willie Creek Pearl Farm
A beautiful pearl necklace for sale in the Willie Creek Pearl shop.

Willie Creek Pearls Farm Tour

There are several pearl farms in Western Australia and some of the best are in Broome.

With half a day to spare I join a Willie Creek Pearls Farm tour on the banks of Willie Creek, 38 kilometres south of Broome.

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The first part of the tour is in a sheltered open-air presentation area where a guide provides us with an encyclopedia of information on cultivating Australian South Sea pearls.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm education area
The outdoor educational cabana at Willie Creek Pearl Farm

$250 million worth of Australian South Sea pearls are harvested in Australia each year; the equivalent of 10,000 pearl necklaces.

The guide hands out Pinctada maxima shells, oysters and pearls of different lustre, sizes, colours and shapes.

We compare white pearls with those that have rose, gold and silver tinges. There are round, button, drop and baroque-shaped pearls.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm
Pearls at the Willie Creek Pearl Farm.

Myths and legends around pearls

Between the mid-19th century and 1914, Broome’s pearling masters supplied 80 percent of the world’s mother-of-pearl.

Most of the divers who worked in Broome were from Japan.

There were around 400 luggers and more than 3500 people.

It was a tough job for those divers who worked here as many died from the bends, cyclones and sharks.

Natural pearls are formed when an irritant, such as a grain of sand, enters the body of a pearl oyster.

As a protection, the oyster coats the irritant with nacre, the pearly matter in the interior lining of the pearl oyster.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm oyster
Taking a closer look at an oyster at Willie Creek Pearl Farm
Willie Creek Pearl Farm educational experience
Learning how pearls are made at Willie Creek Pearl Farm is a hands-on experience.

Perfectly round natural Broome pearls are rare.

Actually, in Broome, Australian South Sea pearls are cultivated commercially using the Australian silver-lip oyster, Pinctada maxima.

It’s a long and expensive cycle to produce perfect Broome pearls.

Highly trained pearl technicians perform the delicate seeding operation where a small nucleus, usually made of mother-of-pearl shell or a bead of Mississippi pig-toe mussel shell, is inserted into an incision in the oyster’s gonad (reproduction organ).

Willie Creek Pearls
The process from oyster to pearl is complex.

Producers expect four year’s production from a good oyster but the odds decline after the first pearl.

The statistics are interesting: around 50% of oyster shells produce a second pearl, with only 30% producing a third and 5% a fourth.

Most of the technicians who seed the oysters are Japanese, however, Australian technicians are being trained.

They work six- to eight-week stints at each farm and are highly paid, earning $100,000 for three month’s work.

Willie Creek Pearls

Anatomy of an oyster

After a crash course on the anatomy of an oyster, a volunteer is picked from the audience. And gleaming dental-looking tools are thrust into his hands.

His task is to extract the pearl from an oyster.

The procedure is slippery and awkward. Eventually, the volunteer gives up and the guide demonstrates how it is done.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm

The next part of the tour is a cruise of Willie Creek Pearls farming operations on the water on board Mutiari Putri.

The waters around Broome provide a nutrient-rich environment that produces big beautiful Willie Creek pearls.

Long lines of white buoys floating on the surface mark spots where pearl panels are suspended in the water below.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm boat tour
Willie Creek Pearl Farm tour involves going out on a boat to see how pearls are harvested.
Willie Creek Pearl Farm tour
Willie Creek Pearl Farm tour is an educational experience.

Another guide shows us how to clean the seeded pearl oysters in the mesh panels and talks about how they are nurtured until the pearls are ready for harvest.

Back in the showroom, pearls worth thousands of dollars are passed around and reluctantly handed back.

We learn how to choose a pearl according to five virtues: surface, lustre, size, shape and colour.

I leave the showroom with a white Australian South Sea pearl hanging around my neck.

It’s not perfectly round (and didn’t cost me anywhere near $5000) but it has become one of my favourite pieces of jewellery.

Wille Creek Pearl Farm shop.
Wille Creek Pearl Farm shop.

Discover Broome

Qantas, Virgin Blue and Skywest fly from Perth to Broome.

The Willie Creek Pearl Farm tours run daily in Broome, tel: (08) 9192 0000 and the business has showrooms in Broome, Perth and Melbourne.

Find out more about Western Australia here:

Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm

Whale shark wow – Ningaloo Reef

Broome and the Bungle Bungles

Willie Creek Pearls

wille creek pearl farm

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Christina Pfeiffer
Christina Pfeiffer is a writer, photographer and video blogger based in Queensland, Australia. She has lived in three continents and her career as a travel journalist has taken her to all seven continents. Since 2003, she has contributed travel stories and photographs to mainstream media in Australia and around the world such as the Sydney Morning Herald, CNN Traveller, The Australian and the South China Morning Post. She has won many travel writing awards and is a full member of the Australian Society of Travel Writers.