Scenic helicopters Broome: the Kimberley day, compared

Of the long Kimberley days sold out of Broome, scenic helicopters Broome flies exactly one route: the 11-hour day to Cygnet Bay, which takes in the Horizontal Waterfalls before landing at the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm. It costs $852 and holds a 5.0 rating across 6 reviews.

The other two long days are fixed-wing scenic flights, flown by aeroplane rather than helicopter. The Buccaneer Explorer is a 6-hour half-day at $625, rated 4.9 across 31 reviews, taking in the Horizontal Waterfalls and the Buccaneer Archipelago with a stop at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm for lunch and a swim. The Bungle Bungle Explorer is an 11-hour day at $1,348, rated 4.8 across 20 reviews, flying out to Purnululu National Park for a guided walk into Cathedral Gorge, with morning tea and lunch included.

It is worth being precise about this, because the two products get confused constantly: a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft are different machines with different views, and the listings themselves are clear about which is which. Cygnet Bay is the helicopter. Buccaneer and Bungle Bungle are the aeroplane, and neither operator’s own listing calls its aircraft a helicopter anywhere in the description.

Broome also sells three shorter helicopter flights that never leave the coast around town: a 30-minute flight over Cable Beach at $347, the Willie Creek pearl farm flight at $484 for four hours, and the Eco Beach flight with lunch at $852, also four hours. None of the three reach the Kimberley coast the way the Cygnet Bay flight does.

The distinction matters when comparing prices across the whole fleet: the Cygnet Bay flight costs $852 partly because it is doing eleven hours of flying rather than thirty minutes or four hours, over ground the shorter flights never reach. A traveller choosing between them is really choosing between a short highlight flight near town and a full Kimberley day, not between two versions of the same trip, and there is no reason to treat one as a cut-price substitute for the other.

As the only one of the scenic helicopters Broome sends into the Kimberley, the Cygnet Bay flight is built around the coastline itself: the operator describes it as a journey through the Kimberley Coast from the Horizontal Waterfalls to the historic Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm. At 11 hours it is a full day, with a meal included and a small group on board.

It is also the least reviewed of the four listings on this page, at 6 reviews, which is worth knowing plainly rather than glossing over: the rating is a perfect 5.0, but it is a perfect 5.0 on a small number of trips so far.

What sets it apart from the two fixed-wing options is the aircraft itself. A helicopter flies lower and slower than a fixed-wing plane, which is why the coastal scenery — the waterfalls, the tidal creeks, the pearl farm below — is the focus of this particular day rather than the wider Kimberley interior the aeroplane flights reach.

The Buccaneer Explorer and the two 11-hour days are not the same shape of trip, and the gap is not just price. At $625 for six hours, the Buccaneer Explorer covers the Horizontal Waterfalls and the Buccaneer Archipelago with a stop at Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm for lunch and a swim, and gets you back to Broome with most of the evening still ahead of you.

The two 11-hour days — the Cygnet Bay helicopter flight and the Bungle Bungle Explorer — use the extra five hours differently. The helicopter day spends it on the coastline and the pearl farm at a slower pace; the Bungle Bungle day spends it reaching Purnululu National Park and walking into Cathedral Gorge, which is simply too far from Broome to fit into a half-day.

Neither extra length is padding. It is what each destination costs in flying time from Broome, and it is the reason the Bungle Bungle Explorer, reaching the furthest point of the three, is also the most expensive listing on this page at $1,348.

Review counts tell a similar story to price. The Buccaneer Explorer, the shortest and cheapest of the three, has the most reviews at 31, rated 4.9. The Bungle Bungle Explorer, the most expensive and tied for the longest at 11 hours, has 20 reviews at 4.8. The Cygnet Bay helicopter flight, priced between the two and also 11 hours, has the fewest at 6, though its rating is a perfect 5.0.

That pattern holds across the wider Broome fleet as well: shorter, cheaper listings tend to collect more reviews simply by running more often and reaching more travellers, while the longer Kimberley days are booked by fewer people in absolute terms even when the experience itself rates just as well. The Dampier Peninsula ground day, at $244, has the most reviews of any listing on this page — 60 — despite being the only one that is not a flight at all.