Derby is a small town in the Kimberley just north of Broome.

Understand

Derby is a town with a huge Boab tree and the largest tides in Australia. Its popularity with visitors stems partly from its proximity to Broome, with Derby being the only town of any significance that is within a couple of hours drive from the resort town.

If you want to spend more than an hour or two in Derby, you must enjoy fishing, or just relaxing watching the tide come in.

Get in

Derby is around 2 hours drive north of Broome. The Greyhound coach service connecting Broome and Darwin passes through the town.

It is easy to find a tour to visit the town from Broome.

Get around

You can get around Derby town and out to the jetty by foot. If you don't have a car, it really is the only possibility.

See

• Boabs. The Boab Prison tree - a hollow Boab is just out of town. There are many Boabs around town, but if you have driven to Derby, you have probably seen enough along the road.
• The tide. Derby has the largest tide in Australia, with changes up to 12m in water height. The jetty is the place to see the effect - being particularly high above the mud-flats at low tide.

There are scenic flights from here (as well as Broome) to see the horizontal waterfalls - these "waterfalls" are actually just rapid flow of water in the narrow channels between islands caused by the large change in tide. There is no way to see them from land or from the water.

• 1 Norval Gallery, 1 Sutherland St, ☏ +61 458 110 816. Aboriginal art gallery. (updated Oct 2021)
• 2 Wharfinger's House Museum, 3 Loch St, ☏ +61 8 9191 1426. A local history museum about the telecommunications of Derby. (updated Oct 2021)

Eat

Take-away, cafe, Australian-Chinese, Barramundi and Chips.

• 1 Derby's Sakura Restaurant, Shop 3/23 Clarendon St, ☏ +61 8 9191 2170. (updated Oct 2021)

Sleep

• 1 Spinifex Hotel, 6 Clarendon St, ☏ +61 8 9191 1233. Check-in: 2PM, check-out: 10AM. (updated Oct 2021)

Go next

Doctors Creek, Airport Creek, King Sound, Mary Island, Mary Island South, May River, Butlers Lake, Fitzroy river