Broome, at the northern end

The depot at Farrell Street

The Broome depot is at Unit 3, 3 Farrell Street, in the light-industrial part of town near the airport. Office hours are 09:00 to 15:00 Monday to Friday, and 09:00 to 11:00 on Saturday. The office is closed on Sunday.

Farrell Street is a short drive from the town centre and closer still to the airport, which makes this the easiest depot on the list to reach from a flight. The trade-off is that the beach is on the other side of town. The season shapes those hours, and campervan hire Broome covers the depot on Farrell Street and the town around it.

The depot lists after-hours collection and return as available. Confirm the arrangement when you book, and note that Broome's season changes the town's opening hours more than any other place on this list.

What this depot is for

This is a collection and return point for trips that start in the Kimberley. The short version is the peninsula: Cable Beach, the pearl farms, and the red cliffs north of town. The long version is the run south down the coast towards Exmouth, which is the route this site is built around.

That run is the Pilbara corridor, and it is long. The stage between Broome and the next substantial town is measured in hundreds of kilometres, and the services along it thin out rather than accumulate. Thin services are also a reason to settle the vehicle here, and for the peninsula's side tracks, campervan hire locations down the coast is the category rather than a campervan.

Five things around Broome

Cable Beach. The beach the town is known for, and the one place where driving onto the sand is normal. The vehicle access point is at the northern end, and the sand is soft in places; a two-wheel-drive campervan should stay on the sealed car parks rather than test it.

Gantheaume Point. Red cliffs at the southern end of the beach, with dinosaur footprints in the rock below the lighthouse. The footprints are only visible at low tide, and the reef flat is exposed for a couple of hours either side of it.

Town Beach and the Staircase to the Moon. On the eastern side of the peninsula, facing Roebuck Bay. Between March and October, the full moon rising over the exposed mudflats produces the reflection the town markets around, and the night market runs on those evenings.

Willie Creek Pearl Farm. North of town on the peninsula road, and the working version of the pearling history the town is built on. The tour includes the creek by boat, which is the only way to see the farm lines.

Broome Bird Observatory. On Roebuck Bay, and one of the reasons the bay is a listed wetland: the mudflats hold tens of thousands of migratory shorebirds in the southern summer. The access road is unsealed and rough in places.

Where the seal ends

The Dampier Peninsula road north of Broome is sealed for a long way now, but the side tracks to the beaches and the communities are not. James Price Point, Coulomb Point and the beaches north of Willie Creek are unsealed, and the sand is the surface rather than a patch on it. The observatory is a morning rather than a day, and 4WD hire for the peninsula tracks shows the depots down the coast if the week is heading that way.

That is the line that decides the vehicle. If the plan is Cable Beach and the pearl farm, a two-wheel-drive campervan covers it.

Two checks belong in Broome. The first is the wet season: the peninsula tracks close after rain, and the Gibb River Road to the north-east closes entirely for the wet. The second is the tide, because the range here is large and a beach that is a car park at noon is water at four.