There is no place like Broome - the locals sip mango beer, decorate with pearls and watch their movies outdoors. The only thing not cool about Broome is the weather.
Here are our COOL facts about Broome
1. The houses in Broome do not have letterboxes. Residents collect their mail from banks of post boxes at five locations around the town.
2. Pearl meat is a delicacy in Broome and retails for up to $200 per kilo.
3. Sun Pictures is the world’s oldest open-air outdoor picture gardens where you can watch a film on deck chairs under the stars.
4. The world’s largest, finest quality, round pearl was harvested by Cygnet Bay Pearls and is on display at their showroom in Broome. The pearl measures 22.24mm. Cygnet Bay Pearls were offered more than $1million for the gem but they say they will never sell it.
5. Broome Time is a term regularly used by residents of Broome to describe the unhurried atmosphere of the town. Visitors relax, unwind and “slip into Broome Time”.
6. Flatback turtles on Cable and Eco Beach can lay up to 50 eggs per nest. Hatchlings weigh about 43 grams while an adult can weigh up to 90kg.
Turtle hatching from its shell at Eco Beach Wilderness Retreat Broome.
Turtle hatching from its shell at Eco Beach Wilderness Retreat Broome.
7. Cable Beach is 22km long and is named after the telegraph cable laid between Broome and Java in 1889.
8.There are no traffic lights in Broome.
9. The Sacred Heart Church at Beagle Bay on the Dampier Peninsula has a mosaic altar made from pearl shell.
Pearl shell decorated altar at the Sacred Heart Church in Beagle Bay
Pearl shell decorated altar at the Sacred Heart Church in Beagle Bay
10. The townsite of Broome was proclaimed in 1883 and named after the colony's Governor, Frederick Napier Broome.
11. Before the levee bank was built in 1974, cinema-goers at Sun Pictures would lift their feet as the tide came in. Rumour has it that you could catch a fish during a screening!
12. The Broome region is home to more than 300 species of birds. There is more than one-third of Australia’s total species and includes 50 species of shorebirds which is nearly a quarter of the world’s total.
Birds in flight at the shoreline in Roebuck Bay Broome
Birds in flight at the shoreline in Roebuck Bay Broome
13. Broome is the fat bike capital of Australia, with more of these sturdy fat-tyred bicycles being sold per capita than anywhere else in the country.
14. Three different types of dinosaur tracks occur in the 130 million year old rocks on the beaches around Broome. The most common are those of giant, four-legged, plant-eating sauropods. Rarer are the tracks of two-legged, three-toed meat-eating theropods and plant-eating ornithopods. The tracks are best seen when tides are below 2m.
15. Matso’s Broome Brewery is Australia’s most remote microbrewery and creates not only traditional beer but mango, ginger and chilli beers.
Tasting paddles at Matso's Broome Bewery.
Tasting paddles at Matso's Broome Bewery.
16. Gubinge, a bush fruit found in Broome and on the Dampier Peninsula is known to have the highest vitamin c of any fruit in the world.
17. The population of Broome was 14,660 in the 2021 Census.
18. The Pinctada maxima oyster shell, from which Broome pearls are obtained, can grow up to the size of a dinner plate.
Pinctada Maxima oyster shell in Broome Western Australia.
A large Pinctada Maxima oyster shell being held by a woman in Broome Western Australia.
19. The Aboriginal Yawuru (pronounced Yah – roo) people are the Traditional Owners of the town of Broome, including pockets of land and sea in and around the townsite.
20. Did you know that Aboriginal cultures have their own seasons? In Broome Yawuru people have six seasons and read the changing signs in the wangal (winds) the wula (rainfall) the temperature, the plants and animals.
21. In the mid-1800s Broome was originally renown for its mother-of-pearl shell which was used around the world for buttons. When plastic buttons replaced mother-of-pearl in the 1950s, Broome developed its pearling industry.
22. Documentary maker Sir David Attenborough calls the Horizontal Falls in Talbot Bay “Australia’s most unusual wonder.”
23. Broome can have massive tidal movements twice a day. At its highest, these can be almost 10m. Coastal landscapes look completely different depending on whether the tide is in or out.
24. There are no gutters on the buildings in Broome as they can’t contain the water from the infrequent downpours during the wet season.
25. On very low tides in Broome, visitors are able to walk out from Town Beach on Roebuck Bay and see the remains of Dutch Catalina flying boats, which were sunk during WWII in March 1942.
Catalina Flying Boat wreckage in Roebuck Bay Broome
The wrecks of WWII Flying Catalinas at low tide in Roebuck Bay Broome
26. More than 35,000 humpback embark on an annual migration to Broome.
27. Staircase to the Moon is a natural phenomenon created by the full moon reflecting off the exposed mudflats creating an optical illusion of glowing orange stairs reaching the moon.
28. The Australian snubfin dolphin found in Roebuck Bay has a melon-shaped head and a wobbly smile and was named as a separate species in 2005.
29. Cable Beach is one of the only beaches in the world where polo on horses has been played.
30. Each year around 100,000 shorebirds migrate from Roebuck Bay to their Northern Hemisphere breeding grounds, before returning to Broome a few months later. For many of these birds, this migration is a 20,000 km round trip, which they will undertake every year of their adult lives.