For most travellers, Broome is their gateway to the Kimberley. Balmy warm weather, beautiful beaches, friendly and relaxed locals and plenty of fun places to eat and drink make it a popular weekend or week-long break from winter in Perth. Chill with the locals or use it as your base from which to explore the wonders of the West Kimberley by self-drive or an endless array of road, air and boat tours.
Broome is a wild-west town with a difference - it was pearl shells, not gold, that caused the rush to this red dirt town on the most remote coast in the world. It is WA’s original melting pot and many of the locals today are a mix of European, Japanese, Chinese and local aboriginals who have worked and lived together since the 1800s. The town centre is simple yet charismatic, its wide streets lined with huge, square weatherboard buildings with vast verandahs. Their steep corrugated iron roofs have no gutters so the enormous rainfalls of ‘the Wet’ flow into the streets rather than living rooms. Wander through Chinatown to take in the pearl showrooms and retail outlets, before enjoying a break at the sidewalk cafes. Around town, you’ll see historical sites, notably commemorating the town’s ocean industry, from restored pearling luggers, and the old jetty and historic pearler’s quarters on Dampier Terrace, to four life-sized statues on Carnarvon Street. The Japanese Cemetery, meanwhile, provides ample evidence of the dangers of pearling in times past. You can also check out the wrecks of Dutch flying boats bombed in World War II, and the nostalgic open-air cinema Sun Pictures. The mangroves in the former port of Roebuck Bay form a fertile wetland where so many fish are spawned that they travel the south-flowing Leeuwin Current to populate the seas as far off as Tasmania. Three times a month between March and October, at low (king) tide, people gather at Town Beach to look over Roebuck Bay and watch the tiny gold sliver of moonlight appear on the black horizon. As it rises across the exposed shallows, it creates the illusion of light known as the Staircase to the Moon. So simple, yet so uplifting, the phenomenon unifies the community and visitors alike.Explore Broome Peninsula
Updated: 16 Aug 2018
Tian Sisak
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