Thierings on Tour

Waking up in paradise is something I could definitely get used to… the ocean sounds, the beautiful sunrises and the incredible scenery! You can see why people stay here a while and come back over and over again…

The little girls had a wonderful time searching for sea sponges, shells, hermit crabs and rolling in the sand for some whilst I admired this amazing part of the world.

Next we were off to Cygnet Bay, as Jazzy and I had the Horizontal Falls tour booked the following morning. Cygnet Bay is a working Pearl farm, so we were looking forward to learning more about it.

But first things first – the pool! The kids have definitely been judging the trip by the quantity and quality of pools… this one was rather pretty and freezing cold as well, but perfectly acceptable in the heat.

Then it was back to the classroom for the pearl farm tour and we learnt about the 60 years of history associated with Cygnet Bay. It’s incredible how the industry has shifted from pearls being reserved for the elite and the pearl shell being used for buttons for everyday folk, to the introduction of plastic that completely replaced any need for pearl buttons.

That’s where Mikimoto’s technique of pearl cultivation became groundbreaking, which essentially means that pearl shells would be impregnated and the pearl would grow around the foreign object and then extracted once a fully grown pearl was ready. Most of the time the inserted object would be a Mississippi freshwater pearl. It was really interesting to learn about it and then even more special to see it in action! 
The farm has a resident Aboriginal artist Bruce Wiggan, who paints stories on some of the shells too, he was actually proudly walking around the farm and telling everyone it was his birthday, you could see he was a character!

They say that only about 50% of the shells they open actually have a pearl in them and that climate change and the rise in seawater temperature is making this industry even more brutal from a commercial perspective. However we were lucky not only to have a pearl in the shell but that our lucky, curious learner Jazzy got to extract it from the shell! Almost nothing goes to waste – the shells are sold, the meat is used in the restaurant and the pearls get made into jewellery evidently.

Then it was off to learn about the grading of pearls – from size to lustre to shape and others. Our extracted one came in as a B1, with a value of $322. Sadly, Jazzy didn’t get to keep it just for her efforts…

We heard that the biggest pearl ever harvested came from Cygnet Bay and is worth a whopping $1.5M!

After the tour we got ready for a nice dinner, only remembering at the restaurant that it was our 13th  wedding anniversary the day after. So we decided to make it a special one with steaks for the girls and a seafood platter for Chris and I. The chefs were happy to hear that the girls wanted their steaks cooked rare to blue, ha ha. It was a lovely evening and the colouring kept everyone entertained.

Kms travelled – 100