Cable Beach

Cable Beach is arguably Australia's most spectacular beach, and it has a claim on the most dramatic sunset scene of any beach on Earth. Located 7 km north of Broome in Western Australia's remote Kimberley region, it stretches for 22 magnificent kilometres of smooth, brilliantly white sand fronting the warm turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. The beach takes its name from the 19th-century telegraph cable that connected Broome to Java under the sea.

What makes Cable Beach unlike any other in Australia is the combination of its pure scale and its geological setting — at its southern end, vivid red pindan (iron-rich laterite) cliffs rise from the beach, creating a colour contrast of extraordinary intensity against the white sand and blue ocean. Sunset here transforms these colours into shades of crimson and gold that have to be seen to be believed. Camel trains — an absolute Cable Beach institution — file along the shoreline in the late afternoon, their silhouettes burned against the sunset sky, in what has become one of Australia's most recognisable images.

Broome is a genuinely remote town — the nearest city is Perth, 2,200 km to the south — which gives Cable Beach a frontier-edge feel. The Cable Beach Club Resort is the main accommodation option on the beach itself. Stinger season (October–April) requires the use of a full-body stinger suit as box jellyfish and irukandji are prevalent. The dry season (April–October) is the ideal time to visit.