Eclectic blend somehow makes sense at Cable Beach Resort in Broome

THE unusual ambience at this Broome resort just enhances its many other attractions, writes Kari Gislason.

Eclectic blend makes sense at Cable Beach Resort

A DAY of flights, confined spaces and queues comes to an end. I'm more tired than when my kids were infants. I've lost all sensation in my knees. And I'm thinking that perhaps I should have taken my wallet out my back pocket. In the course of a day's sitting, it seems to have indented a deep square into my right buttock.

I hadn't planned to have a credit card number as a tattoo. But such are the joys of travel.

And gradually I notice a different feeling taking hold. It's the growing realisation of having come away, and of having arrived. No matter how tired I am, I know I couldn't sleep right now. No matter how dark it is, I want to see the Indian Ocean. It's just round the corner from my villa, under the stars of the Kimberley. I want to feel the warm, evening breeze of a coastal night.

So I extract the wallet from its new home. I change my shirt. And then off I go in search of somewhere that has the three things that I need most right now, possibly more than ever before: salt, deep-fried potatoes and beer.

I find them at the Sunset Bar and Grill, which I will call the front office of my accommodation, Cable Beach Club Resort and Spa in Broome. The back office is something they call reception. It's perfectly nice, too, but that's where you get your credit card swiped, and I'm a little wary of credit cards at the moment.

Here is where you look up from the table and catch the breeze that you've been dreaming about all day.

This is where you remember why you travel.

Resorts aren't for everyone, and I'm not sure that I would normally say that they're for me. My fear is that they go too far in evening things out for the sake of comfort. The best journeys, the ones you remember, are normally more than just pleasant or easy. Quite often they are hard work, because difficulty is a sign that you're doing something new.

The furnishings at the Cable Beach Club Resort add character. Picture: Supplied

I think this resort has managed something difficult. It has placed comfort in the service of experience, and not the other way around. This takes confidence, because it means turning your back on the generic resort experience: white marble floors, crisp black or cream furniture, splashy abstract artwork, lots of small rooms, loud staff uniforms and really big pot plants.

All right, some of the staff uniforms here are quite loud, and the pot plants are big. But with them, Cable Club is asserting its own story and its sympathetic relationship with the personality of the town.

The bass notes are laid down by the architecture, which quotes heavily from the pearling masters' homes of earlier boom years. The Queenslander in me recognises the wraparound verandas and the feeling of being in a sleep-out. The sense of familiarity, though, is undone by the exteriors, which owe more to Oriental traditions: the lattice cladding is painted in bold red, the trims in dark tree green - a colour scheme that also apparently looks back to the frontier days and the town's multicultural origins.

The accents in the resort's design are varied and many. Both the first developer, Lord Alistair McAlpine, and the resort's subsequent owners, have crowded the grounds and buildings with privately collected art and artefacts. Their arrangement is deliberate and thought-out but also rather homely in the odds-and-ends feeling it creates, and unapologetically eclectic.

For instance, in the Italian restaurant, you find yourself sitting under an ornamental Turkish chandelier that hangs from a high ceiling also decorated with Chinese bird cages. Dark wooden panels and iron candelabras further complicate the orchestration of the room.

It's a bit odd, but I really like it, partly because I like things that are a bit odd. That's still my idea of good travel. As importantly, though, I like it because the eccentricity of the setting accompanies a perfectly sane, high-end dining experience: if you don't know quite where to look, then look at what's on your plate. On mine is the confit duck rustichella orzo, roast lamb, then chocolate and amaretto mousse. And the wine glasses look OK, as well. For most of the evening mine is filled by a very fitting bottle of McLaren Vale shiraz. You see how I am toughing it. There's a similar conversation between the personality of the place and 5-star quality in the rooms. You may encounter Balinese furnishing, terracotta warriors, Nepalese portraits, vast originals by Sir Sidney Nolan, intense studies by Elizabeth Durack. You will lose the ability to guess what's coming next. But through it all emerges a constant melody. The items are joined by the travellers' curiosity or the journeys that led to their purchase. If the owners haven't collected on a theme, they have responded generously to where life has taken them, and in turn given generously to the resort.

The dining experience at Cable Beach Club Resort is top class. Picture: Supplied

Thus, if you arrive wondering whether a resort should express the purchasing power of its owners quite so clearly, you leave wishing that more places did. It's eccentric, but like all the best eccentricities, it's deeply charming.

Broome is a town on the edge of the world that welcomed the world. What has this area done if not collect the odds and ends of both our near and distant neighbours. And it's at Cable Beach, where in 1889 after a long journey under the Indian Ocean a new telegraph cable to Australia finally emerged.

I hear the first message was an order for chips and beer.

The writer was a guest of Cable Beach Club Resort &Spa and WA Tourism.

Go2 - Cable Beach, WA

Getting there

The writer flew Qantas and Skywest.

Staying there

Cable Beach has a range of accommodations including studios, bungalows, villas and suites. (www.cablebeachclub.com)

More

Broome is an ideal base from which to explore the Kimberley region. Nearby treats and activities include camel rides, pearl farms, fishing excursions, star tours, and scenic flights. www.westernaustralia.com; www.broomevisitorcentre.com.au