17th August 1929
One fine Saturday morning in Broome, when the sun was just peeking over the horizon, old mate Bruce was out fishing, minding his own business, when suddenly his esky started to wobble. "Oi, Sheila," he yelled to his wife, "did ya put the beers in wrong?"
But it wasn’t Sheila or the beers—it was the Earth itself throwing a bit of a wobbly! The ground shook, and Bruce thought it was the biggest barra he'd ever hooked. His boat started bobbing like a cork, and he swore the fish were dancing the macarena under the water.
Meanwhile, down at the local pub, the blokes were blaming the rum for making the floor sway. "Nah, mate," said Gazza, "I reckon the footy team's doing their warm-ups upstairs!" But it wasn’t footy—it was a proper earthquake, and the seismograph in Perth went off like a kangaroo on a trampoline.
After it all settled, Bruce just shrugged, took another swig of his beer, and said, “Well, that was a shake-up, but the fish’ll be telling tales about this for years!” And with that, he cast his line back in, certain that no earthquake could stop an Aussie from a good day’s fish.
The Government Astronomer, Mr. Curlewis, later explained that a massive dislocation of the ocean floor, about 300 miles off North-West Cape, had caused the biggest rattle the region had felt in ages, with the seismograph boom swinging over 6 inches!
* as depicted by AI - may not factually be correct