BEACHES OF BROOME

THE PEARL OF THE KIMBERLEY OFFERS PLENTY FOR THE OFF-ROAD TOURER, ESPECIALLY ITS FANTASTIC INDIAN OCEAN BEACHES AND COASTAL CAMPSITES ALONG THE PRISTINE DAMPIER PENINSULA

- ROB BOEGHEIM

I WILL never forget my first sunset in Broome. It was September 1994, with my wife on a ‘second honeymoon’ mapping trip to the Kimberley – the end of an arduous drive from Brisbane, running in a brand-new Land Rover Discovery. We’d been bogged out the back of Windorah (don’t ask!), bent a steering dampener on a jump-up on Mt Elizabeth Station, and travelled more than 5000km in less than a week.

Travel weary, we arrived at Cable Beach to the strum of a busker’s guitar, ordered our fish and chips and headed down to watch the fire-orange sunset across the pearlescent sand and silky blue ocean. The cool coastal breeze blew our cares away, with the long drive now a distant memory. It felt like we had been shipwrecked and washed up on a distant shore.

Not surprisingly, the serene stretch of coastline north of Broome is called Goolarabooloo – the coast where the sun goes down – a fitting name given the litany of open beaches, headlands and beachside bush campsites that frame this daily spectacle of colour as the tropical sun melts into the Indian Ocean.