Broome & Dampier Peninsula - Britz

Four nights and 440 kilometres in a loop out of Broome in a 4WD camper, up the Dampier Peninsula to Cape Leveque and back.

The peninsula is one red dirt road with turquoise bays off either side of it. Beagle Bay comes first, where the Sacred Heart church was built by Pallottine missionaries and local Nyul Nyul people in 1918 and the altar is inlaid with mother of pearl, which is worth the detour on its own account.

Middle Lagoon follows, a camp on a sheltered bay, then Lombadina, a Bardi community that runs its own camping, tours and arts, and Kooljaman at Cape Leveque, an Aboriginal-owned wilderness camp where the iron-red cliffs drop straight into the sea and the beach below them is white.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. The pindan road turns greasy after rain and the side tracks are rougher than the main one, which is why a 4WD is specified. The communities and camps need booking in advance rather than turning up, and some areas require a permit. Five days is a comfortable allowance for the peninsula and leaves time to sit still at Kooljaman, which is rather the point of going. The peninsula also has some of the best fishing in the north, and several of the camps sell permits and hire gear, which is worth arranging at the same time as the site.