“Slip into Broometime” is a well- worn local saying in Broome. It perfectly captures the chilled atmosphere of this north- western Australian town. Somehow, this remote town manages to mix reclining tropical charm with richness in style, class and history.

The Indian Ocean’s stunning turquoise makes Broome’s shores a great place for lolling around. Spend your morning lazing about on Cable Beach and then migrate to a hammock for the afternoon. Then, if you can muster enough energy, have a cocktail under the clear night sky that Broome is famous for. Or wander the shops and find that perfect world- class pearl for your sweetheart. It’s all good in Broome.

This small town where the bush meets the sea has a strong oriental and pearling mystique. It’s still a well- suited coastal habitat for pearling. Broome is also amazingly ethnically mixed for a remote Aussie town, with many locals of Japanese, Filipino, Arabic and Malay origin who all came to Broome at the beginning of last century, after the “Pearl Rush” of the 1880s.

More recent philanthropic interest in the area led to the sealing of the coastal highway from Perth in the early 1980s. And since then, Broome has grown as a classy resort town. So why not pamper yourself, and spend a night (or a few) at the $55 million Cable Beach Resort?

Incredibly, Broome also somehow retains a lot of its frontier charm. Some describe it as a larger, richer and more complex version of Port Douglas, but less commercialised.

Catch a movie at the Sun Pictures in Carnarvon Street. Built in 1916, it’s thought to be the oldest open air cinema in the world and it still operates!

The Japanese Cemetery at Broome (the biggest in Australia) will blast you back to a time when hundreds of Japanese divers drowned or died from diver’s paralysis. Quite a few died during the cyclones at the beginning of the last century. Dating back to the early pearling days, the first recorded burial in this cemetery is 1896!

And it’s not just pearls and history in Broome. The town also happens to be the western- most limit of saltwater crocodiles. Visit the Broome Crocodile Park and check the big guys out! You can also spot many migratory wading birds around the area, a third of Australia’s species visit Broome.

By car from Perth, visitors have the option of taking the Great Northern Highway, inland road through Newman or the North West Coastal Highway via Carnarvon and Karratha to Broome.


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