Broome and Cable Beach

Broome grew on pearling from the 1880s, drawing Japanese, Malay, Chinese and Filipino divers whose descendants shaped the town's mixed culture, recorded in Chinatown, the Japanese cemetery with its hundreds of divers' graves, and the pearl farms still operating. Cable Beach runs twenty-two kilometres of white sand facing west into the Indian Ocean, where camel trains carry riders along the tideline at sunset, an image that has become the town's signature. At Gantheaume Point, dinosaur footprints around 130 million years old are exposed on the reef at very low tide. The Staircase to the Moon, a reflection of the rising full moon on Roebuck Bay's tidal flats, occurs on certain nights from March to October.

What you actually see

• Cable Beach - twenty-two kilometres of sand with camel trains at sunset.
• The pearling heritage - Chinatown, the Japanese cemetery and pearl farm tours.
• The dinosaur footprints - tracks at Gantheaume Point, visible on very low tides.
• The Staircase to the Moon - the moon's reflection on Roebuck Bay's mudflats.

When to go

May to September for the dry season; the wet from November to March brings extreme humidity, cyclones and box jellyfish that close the water. The Staircase to the Moon runs on specific dates from March to October, published in advance.

Honest expectations

Dry season prices are high and accommodation books out. From November to May, marine stingers and crocodiles make swimming unsafe. The dinosaur footprints need a very low tide and are hard to find without a guide.

Nearby

Cape Leveque and the Dampier Peninsula lie north; Derby and the Gibb River Road are east.