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Published Aug 2024
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12 December 2023 By: Fleur Bainger
Eleven reasons to put Broome on your holiday radar for the year ahead.
There is so much more to this unique WA destination than camel trains and Cable Beach. With a raft of new activities and experiences redefining the holiday town, there are now even more ways to experience ‘Broome-time’, and new opportunities to explore beyond Broome while you’re there.
Here are just a few reasons to consider chasing the sun in Broome for the 2024 season.
In Broome
Spinifex Cable Beach brewery
This December, Cable Beach will have a whole new look. Beyond the blonde sand, turquoise water and lines of camel hoofprints, Spinifex Brewery will be the newest attraction on this iconic stretch of sand.
The Aboriginal and co-owned business started as a pop-up in Zookeepers restaurant. Its purposely low-alcohol craft brews infused with native produce, have proven to be a huge hit – so much so that the brewery’s owners decided to open a standalone space. The 4500sqm brew pub fits up to 600 people and was supported by a nearly $2M WA Government grant.
The venue is deliberately family-friendly as CEO and veteran Adam Barnard says Broome has been missing such a spot. It combines a playground, sandpit and a schedule of kids’ activities with a food forest of native Indigenous botanicals found in the beers. The business has a strong social conscience: it donates 50 per cent of profits from its F88 lager to military veterans’ mental health support, promotes sustainability by feeding the brewery’s spent grain to the Red Sun Camels that lope past it each day and will run apprenticeships for Aboriginal hospitality students.
Mud crabbing cruise
Laying crab pots in milky creeks is no longer only for the locals. Broome Tours recently began running a mud crabbing cruise, sailing across Roebuck Bay to a mangrove forest woven with tidal streams.
To explore the shallow creek system, mud crab fans pile into a tinny, which holds crab pots pre-loaded with raw meat baits. After a quick demo, everyone gets a turn casting a pot into the water before madly looping its anchoring rope around a tall mangrove.
After returning to the 42ft catamaran for a rest on its deck beanbags, the dinghies zoom back to check the pots. Anticipation and excitement accompany every pot-pull, regardless of what’s found inside – chewed bait or a blue-grey crab.
“Every time any of our friends come to Broome, they ask us to take them mud crabbing,” says 30-year-old skipper and co-owner Ryan O’Dea. “We did it all the time and they loved it. Then it snowballed into this cool tour idea.”
The five-hour experience finishes with the haul being served up as fresh chilli crab on the cruise back to town.
Streeters Jetty restoration
After a two-year closure, Broome’s historic pearl hauling jetty has been fully reconstructed and reopened in 2022. Streeter's Jetty cuts through the mangrove-strewn tidal zone of Dampier Creek, a short walk from the iconic Sun Pictures open-air cinema.
Originally built in 1886, it was serviced by a rail trolley that would courier pearl shells from pearl lugger boats to merchants and dealers, right up until 1948. Since then, it has provided pedestrian access to those keen to witness Broome’s extraordinary tides as they flow in and out, revealing the mud flats beneath.
Its latest restoration marked the fifth time the jetty has been demolished and rebuilt. It’s hoped the new structure will remain in place for the next 50-70 years. With steel piles and a steel frame in place beneath timber decking, the landmark is again a great place to spot a variety of crabs and waterbirds.
Broome’s first corroboree
It’s rare to be able to witness an Aboriginal corroboree, with the cultural ceremonies usually open only to Traditional Owners. In 2022, Mabu Buru Tours started holding Broome’s – or Rubibi’s – first and only public Aboriginal corroboree.
The outdoor performance happens at sunset, as the day’s warmth fades and shadows lengthen. Young Pintirri dancers adorned with white body paint and feathers stamp their feet in the sand as boomerangs are clapped together.
Stories are told between dances as billy tea is boiled and damper is baked on coals. The whole experience is called Wakaj, which roughly translates to "The coming together of family." Tour guide, crocodile wrangler and Yawuru, Karrajarri, Nyul Nyul and Bardi man, Johani Mamid purposefully maintains his cultural heritage by sharing his family activities.
The Aboriginal-owned business is a social enterprise and some 50 per cent of its earnings are allocated to ceremonial practices and Mamid’s community, enabling self-determination. The bush event runs once a week at the Mabu Buru grounds, which lie 15km from Broome, beside the Malcolm Douglas Crocodile Park.
Secret South American restaurant
A splash of colour lights up an otherwise sleepy street in Broome, with the arrival of South American restaurant, Papa Fuego.
Tucked next to the Continental Hotel, bright yellow bricks and cobalt blue shutters mark the exterior, while the insides buzz with terracotta orange and leaf green walls. In Spanish, papá means father and fuego means fire, so it stands to reason that the kitchen is led by a sizzling flame grill.
Squid, chorizo, lamb rump and rib eye all get the wood-charred treatment – expect a cooked-through, South American style to the meat. Kingfish ceviche with leche de tigre, cured prawns with casava crisps, and fried provolone cheese with blackened capsicum are all menu highlights.
Behind-the-scenes art walk
This might be the art walk for those who don’t usually ‘do’ art. There’s no evening exhibition loitering, multi-syllable descriptors or black-on-black attire. This tour starts early to beat the heat, is casual and conversational and finishes with breakfast.
Chris Maher of Salty Plum Social weaves his way through Broome’s historic heart, pointing out plus-sized public art works and unlikely pieces you've got to be in-the-know for.
There are patterned streetlights harking to the era of Japanese pearl divers, sand-blasted concrete walls revealing Aboriginal designs, bench seating carved with riddles once used in illegal gambling games, and mosaic-like pavement that’s actually a map of freshwater spots.
“Everything in this precinct is related to Broome’s unique history,” says Maher, who also shares stories of Broome’s many characters – some of whom are represented in life-like sculptures. A bacon and egg sandwich at a local café completes the experience.
Cruise in a pearl lugger
Few things relax you into the slower pace of ‘Broome time’ better than a sunset ocean cruise. After a major refit in 2019, the last operating (reproduction) pearl lugger in Australia now sails along Cable Beach each evening, as the sun paints the sky in strips of glowing red.
It’s an impressive moment when the big white sails are raised. Guests are invited to pull the ropes, with adults hoisting the mainsail and kids tackling the front jib. There’s also a boom net that drags through the water on the schooner’s side, where guests take a ride (with or without a beverage in hand). The wooden vessel was called Willie as a reference to the wind known as a willy willy. It was built by hand to fish for mother of pearl shell but these days, from April to October, its purpose is all about pleasure cruising.
Beyond Broome
Safari tent style
Staying overnight on the Dampier Peninsula no longer necessarily means pitching a tent or staying in an open-air cabin. Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, near the tip of Cape Leveque, a 2.5hr drive north of Broome, launched 15 brand new glamping eco tents in 2022. The canvas-sided, hotel-standard abodes have real beds, air conditioning and kitchenettes, as well as ensuites. They are positioned in a wide circle, an easy two minutes’ walk from the working farm’s infinity pool and restaurant, both overlooking the beach flats revealed by the region’s giant tides.
Falls degustation cruise
You no longer have to fly or take a multi-day cruise to see the mighty Horizontal Falls, also known as Garaanngaddim. The twin cascades, which squeeze through narrow gaps in the McLarty Ranges and appear to froth on a flat surface, are hidden inside the remote Buccaneer Archipelago. Kimberley Day Cruises is now whisking people to this Kimberley hotspot on a day-trip expedition boat, leaving from either Cygnet Bay (shaving four hours off the journey) or via bus transfer from Broome. The adventure isn’t rough and tumble either: you’re served a four-course breakfast followed by a seven-course degustation lunch, making this experience as much for foodies as wilderness lovers.
Clawfoot bush baths
After last summer’s once-in-a-century floods in the Fitzroy region, the Gibb River Road reopened with a number of novelties. Ellenbrae Station, some 230km west of Kununurra, has added a touch of outback glam, thanks to two clawfoot 'bush' baths housed in a rustic, corrugated iron shelter overlooking a secluded creek. The experience can be booked by the hour and you can ramp things up with a grazing platter. There’s also an extended sunset session with cheese and drinks for two – or the whole family can splash in.
ellenbraestation.com.au/experiences
Helicopter flights to hidden destinations
Nearly 240km east of Derby, in the Wunaamin Conservation Park, is the newly renovated and reopened Mount Hart Wilderness Lodge. The former cattle station has recently added helicopter tours to its outback experience. There are six flights to choose from, exploring icons such as Bell Gorge or the Horizontal Falls, and the lesser-known Kimberley surprises such as the 90m-tall Twin Flame Falls or Isdell Valley. There’s even a highlights flight called The Golden Goose Tour which ticks off a cluster of gorges and falls that you’d never see otherwise. Flights range from 40min to 1hr 50min and promise to be unforgettable.
