Broome
Postcode: 6725
Broome is a pearling and tourist town in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, 2200 km north of Perth. The year round population is approximately 14,000, growing to around 30,000 during the tourist season. Broome International Airport provides transport to several regional and domestic towns and cities.
Cable Beach is situated 7 km from town along a good bitumen road. The beach itself is 22.5 km long with beautiful white sand washed clean daily by tides that can reach over nine metres. The water is crystal clear tourquoise, and the gentle swells hardly manage to topple over as they roll up onto the almost perfectly flat beach. Caution, however, is required when swimming from November through March as stingers are present during those months. Four wheel drive vehicles may be driven onto the beach from the car park. This allows people to explore the beach at low tide to a much greater extent than would be possible on foot. Sunset camel rides operate daily along the beach.
Cable Beach is home to one of Australia’s most famous nudist beaches. The clothes optional area is to the north of the beach access road from the car park and continues to the mouth of Willie Creek, 17 km away.
Being situated on a north/south peninsula, Broome has water on both sides of the town. On the eastern shore are the waters of Roebuck Bay extending from the Main jetty at Port Drive to the mangroves on the edge of Chinatown. Town Beach is part of the shoreline and is popular with visitors on the eastern end of the town. It is also the site of the famous stairway to the moon where a receding tide and a rising moon combine to create a stunning natural phenomenon. On stairway to the moon nights, a food and craft market is operated on Town Beach.
Roebuck Bay is of international importance for the millions of migratory waders or shorebirds that use it seasonally on migration through the East Asian – Australasian Flyway from their breeding grounds in northern Asia. They feed on the extensive intertidal mudflats and roost at high tide on the red sand beaches of the Bay. They can be seen in the largest numbers in summer, but many of the younger birds remain throughout the first and second years of their lives. The Broome Bird Observatory on the northern shore of Roebuck Bay was established by Birds Australia, and opened in 1990. The purpose of the observatory is to study the birds, learn how to protect them, and educate the public about them.