Live life in full colour at this incredible Western Australian outpost
I could sit here all afternoon and just watch the show. So I do. It’s simply mesmerising.
When the first thunder of the wet season rattles the red dirt, the sand monitors start to stir. Rain rouses the goannas from their subterranean hibernation and they emerge to feed and breed in the vibrant, tropical and somewhat misunderstood oasis that is Broome in summer. The local Yawuru people call the wet season “mangala” and the prevailing wisdom is you’d have to be mad to visit this Kimberley resort town at the height of its heat. But from my balcony at Moonlight Bay Suites, I see things rather differently.
For starters, I see the most wondrous colours. Roebuck Bay is an opal blue ribbon sandwiched between dark green mangroves and storm clouds in 50 shades of grey. Lightning flashes and a fierce wind – dare I call it a cooling breeze? – flies across the bay, shredding the surface and setting the palm trees outside my suite swaying. I could sit here all afternoon and just watch the show. So I do. It’s simply mesmerising.
While I’m not sure I’d want to brave the spring build-up, when the humidity and the unfulfilled tease of rain becomes unbearable (“mango madness”, they call it), mangala is proving magnificent. To be honest, I’ll take it over the unrelenting sun and monotonous blue skies of the dry season. There’s an intoxicating sense that anything could happen.
Downsides? Some businesses are closed, there’s no “staircase to the moon” (the moon rises over land instead of water) and beach swimming is reserved for the foolhardy. On the flip side the crowds are down, and so are resort rates. Plus, there are things you can only do in the wet, such as fly over thundering waterfalls or take a sunset camel ride along a car-less Cable Beach (vehicles are banned from the beach in summer due to turtles nesting in the sand dunes). You might even be lucky enough to spot a mother turtle shuffling along the sand in the early morning. Accentuated by the dramatic clouds, sunsets are undeniably more spectacular at this time of year, and the bloated boabs are in full bloom, their creamy white flowers deliciously fragrant in the muggy air.
If my balcony is the best seat in the house, then best seat above the house is surely in an Air Kimberley Cessna 210. We take off over the Indian Ocean and set a course north, watching the roofs of the town recede behind us, shimmering silver like shells in a midden. We’re soon banking over the red pindan cliffs of James Price Point, jammed between the turquoise sea and avocado-green scrub, a palette so quintessentially Australian it warrants a celebratory pouring of prosecco (not easy in a tiny plane). But again it’s the colossal storm clouds that steal the show, erupting in slow motion on every horizon; “Shotguns going off everywhere!” as our reassuringly calm pilot Lachie Campbell puts it. Harness the raw power of all this and you’d have a renewable energy source to run the country.
Broome at ground level is equally captivating. Long-time local guide Bart Pigram takes us to Gantheaume Point, where 130-million-year-old dinosaur footprints are stamped in the red reef rock, then to mangrove-fringed Simpson Beach, where locals pluck bluenose salmon from the bluest sea you’ve ever seen, and walk across the mudflats at low tide to spear stingrays.
I’m not quite so self-sufficient. Craving air-conditioning and a cooling dip I head back to Moonlight Bay Suites, which sits at the southern extent of a sand dune system where the local inhabitants would have watched the first European ships sailing into Roebuck Bay in the mid-1800s, in search of a new pearling port. Within decades Broome would become the world’s largest pearling centre.
Formerly a fisherman’s house, the four-star property has had a $4 million facelift. My “Bay View” suite has a main bedroom overlooking the mangroves and a dreamy outdoor pool, a second room with two single beds, plus a fold-out king single bed in a spacious, combined kitchen and living area. It’s fresh, functional and light-filled, with cool tiles and colourful artwork from local landscape painter Suzy French; families will be content here.
Broome’s public spaces are also getting a makeover. A $35 million foreshore redevelopment will deliver better promenade views of Cable Beach, while historic Chinatown has recently been revitalised into a pedestrian-friendly arts and retail precinct. Get yourself bejewelled at one of the many pearl boutiques or simply appreciate the public art installations, including a beautiful sculpture of a pearl shell and two boomerangs by local artist Michael Torres.
Pigram explains how the massive molluscs were valuable even before Europeans arrived, with tribes using the shells as a canvas for carving, and for trade. The boomerangs are etched with names of the four Yawuru skin groups, while the shell is perforated with the prints of pea crabs that live inside oyster shells. “They are representations of our social structure, which binds us as a community and links us to our environment,” he says. “Also about the only two things I carry in my bag.”
On my final morning I find a tiny “ta ta” lizard waving its hand under a flowering frangipani, as if bidding me farewell. Its skin glistens; it looks hot but happy. A lizard – like Broome itself – for all seasons.
Checklist
Getting there: Qantas and Virgin fly daily to Broome via Perth during the wet season.
Stay: Moonlight Bay Suites (moonlightbaysuites.com.au) has 49 fully self-contained suites. Two-bedroom Bay View suites overlook Roebuck Bay and sleep up to five; one-bedroom Pool View suites are spacious and stylish, and all suites have a full kitchen and a washer drier combo. Rates from $220. A two-night wet season deal includes a $50 dinner voucher for Matso’s Brewery or Cable Beach House (valid until April 30).
Do: An airconditioned bus tour with Broome and Around is a great way to get oriented with the town. Take a morning stroll to the revitalised Town Beach precinct and check out a new public artwork commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Japanese bombing of Broome. Head to Willie Creek Pearl Farm for an immersion in pearl production, including a creek cruise and pearling masterclass. Visit the ladies at Nagula Jarndu (meaning “saltwater woman”) to buy beautiful aboriginal art, textiles and clothing.
Eat: For breakfast, Haven café in Chinatown has cool vibes and creative dishes. Zookeepers café near the beach sells the stickiest, most scrumptious cinnamon scrolls. The revamped Broome Golf Club has sprouted a surprisingly excellent restaurant, perched on the closest thing to a hill in town. Cable Beach House (previously Zanders) serves sensational seafood. For casual cocktails and a yarn with the locals call into the surf club next door, or hit up the gorgeous garden bar at the Mangrove Hotel.