Ultimate Guide to Broome: The Pearling Town Where the Kimberley Meets the Indian Ocean

The things to do in Broome span every visitor type — the couple after a sunset camel ride and a cold mango beer, the family chasing 130-million-year-old dinosaur footprints across the reef at low tide, the photographer waiting for the full moon to light the mudflats of Roebuck Bay, the angler after barramundi and threadfin salmon, and the history-minded traveller tracing the pearling boom through Chinatown's verandahs and the Japanese Cemetery. This Broome travel guide covers all of it, organised by what you're actually looking for rather than what a brochure decided you should want.

It is also honest about the parts a brochure skips: this is the tropical north, and the water here is not the water of a southern beach holiday. Saltwater crocodiles live in these creeks and bays, and box jellyfish and Irukandji drift in over the Wet-season months. Cable Beach is the patrolled swim and the safe default; Roebuck Bay is for looking, not swimming. Every section below links to a dedicated in-depth guide — here's everything Broome does well, and how to do each of it safely.

Cable Beach is the reason most people first picture Broome, and for once the picture is accurate. Twenty-two kilometres of white sand run dead straight along the Indian Ocean, broad and firm enough at low tide that 4WDs cruise the northern end and camel trains file along the tideline as the sun drops. The sunset here is a genuine event — half the town drives out, sets up chairs above the high-water mark, and watches the sky run through orange to deep red before the green flash on a clear evening.

Swimming is safe and patrolled at the southern, main end during the Dry, where Surf Life Saving WA flags the beach and runs a stinger-aware patrol. The northern end, beyond the rocks and the 4WD ramp, is clothing-optional and quieter, but it is unpatrolled — and from roughly October to May, box jellyfish and Irukandji mean you respect every sign and stay out of the water unless it's flagged. A sunset camel ride with one of the long-running operators, a cold drink at the Sunset Bar, and a swim between the flags before dusk is the classic Cable Beach evening.

Broome exists because of pearls. From the 1880s it was the pearling capital of the world, and the dangerous work of diving for pearl shell drew Japanese, Malay, Chinese, Filipino and Koepanger crews to a town that became one of the most multicultural places in Australia long before that was fashionable. You feel that history everywhere: in the corrugated-iron verandahs and pearl showrooms of Chinatown, in the weathered headstones of the Japanese Cemetery (the resting place of more than 900 pearl divers), and in the working pearl farms still producing the South Sea pearls Broome is famous for.

The history is easy to walk into. Pearl Luggers in Chinatown tells the diving story with original luggers and a hard-hat demonstration; Willie Creek Pearl Farm, a drive north of town, shows the modern cultured-pearl operation on a tidal creek; and Cygnet Bay, further out on the Dampier Peninsula, runs the oldest Australian-owned pearl farm of all. Even a slow morning wandering Chinatown's lanes, coffee in hand, reading the heritage plaques, tells you more about who built this place than any museum could.

On the town side of Broome, Roebuck Bay is one of the most important shorebird sites on the planet. Each year tens of thousands of migratory waders — from godwits to sandpipers — fly in from the Arctic to feed on its rich mudflats, and the Broome Bird Observatory on the bay's shore is one of Australia's premier birdwatching bases. The bay is also home to the rare Australian snubfin dolphin, found only in northern Australian waters, which surfaces in the shallows on calm mornings.

The colour alone stops people: when the tide fills the bay over the red pindan cliffs, the water turns an electric turquoise that looks unreal next to the rust-red earth. It is, however, a look-don't-swim bay. Saltwater crocodiles move through these mangrove creeks, and the mudflats and stingers make it unsuitable for swimming regardless. Come for the birds, the dolphins, the Staircase to the Moon over the flats, and the colour — and keep the swimming for patrolled Cable Beach.

Broome runs on two seasons, not four, and choosing between them shapes the whole trip. The Dry, roughly May to October, is the peak: warm days in the high twenties and thirties, cloudless blue skies, almost no rain, cool nights, and the full run of tours, markets and camel rides. This is when most people come, when the whales pass offshore, and when the Staircase to the Moon lights Roebuck Bay on the full moons. It is also when prices are highest and accommodation books out, so plan ahead.

The Wet, November to April, is a different town: hot, humid, dramatic with lightning and monsoon storms, and the season of stingers in the water and a quieter, cheaper, greener Broome. Some tours pause, the heat is serious, and the build-up before the rains can be oppressive — but the storms over Roebuck Bay are spectacular and the town is yours. For a first visit, the Dry is the safe call; the Wet rewards travellers who don't mind heat and want the place without the crowds.