Western Australia

Home to truly magnificent landscapes and rich in history and culture,Western Australia is a vast state well worthy of deeper exploration. Discover world-class beaches and ancient landmarks showcasing nature at its finest, all while enjoying some of the best fresh produce and wine in the country. It’s time to find out why everyone raves about the wild west.

PERTH

The capital, Perth, is the perfect place to begin Western Australia adventures both great and small, but it’s also a wonderful destination in its own right. The pictureperfect city, sitting where the Swan River meets the southwest coast, is known for its relaxed atmosphere, elite hospitality, and pristine beaches lining the suburbs. A trip to Perth gives your members a chance to put their feet up and enjoy the good life before hitting the road.

Unwind around the waters of Perth

You haven’t been to Perth until you’ve spent time relaxing on or by the water. Perth City Beach offers a delightful day out by the azure waters of the Indian Ocean. Alternatively, why not indulge with a lunch or dinner cruise on the Swan River? Or enjoy waterside entertainment, art, shopping and museums at Elizabeth Quay, where you can even learn how local oysters produce the world’s most valuable pearls.

Discover historic Fremantle

Your Club will no doubt appreciate a leisurely afternoon in the port city of Fremantle, which is famous for its Victorian architecture as well as its rich maritime and penal history. Take a guided submarine tour at WA Maritime Museum (visit.museum.wa.gov.au/maritime) or go behind bars in the recreated cellblocks at Fremantle Prison, which housed convicts from the 1850s (fremantleprison.com.au).

Ferry to Rottnest Island

Sitting just offshore from the city of Perth is Rottnest Island, a protected nature reserve where white-sand beaches and secluded coves play home to an impressive population of the much-loved quokka, a small wallabylike marsupial known for its distinctive facial feature that makes it look like it’s smiling. From Thomson Bay, the main hub and ferry port, head inland to see Wadjemup Lighthouse and Oliver Hill Gun & Tunnel, a significant defence heritage site featuring military remnants from World War II (rottnestisland.com/see-and-do/ island-tours/oliver-hill). You can travel to and from Rottnest Island via a SeaLink ferry – modern, fast and eco-friendly vessels departing daily from Fremantle (sealinkrottnest.com.au).

Make your way to Mandurah & Peel

For a short break from the city, take the journey down to Perth’s aquatic playground, the city of Mandurah, and the Peel region. Here you can visit wonderful wineries, explore vast waterways and national parks, spot black swans and pelicans in the wetlands, or enjoy a picnic by the Mandurah foreshore. Follow the Mandurah Art Trail (visitmandurah.com/art-trails) to find public art in hidden locations around the city.

1. Wave Rock is over 100 metres long and rises 15 metres from the ground

2. Explore the haunting and storied tiers of Fremantle Prison

3. Hop on board a SeaLink ferry to unlock Rottnest Island and meet the quokkas

4. Emus roam freely in Nambung National Park, home of the Pinnacles

WHEATBELT

Wrapping around Perth and Peel, the Wheatbelt region spans 150,000 square kilometres and features a few must-see WA attractions. The landscape is scattered with diverse native wildlife, colourful wildflowers in bloom, and mind-blowing natural rock formations like Wave Rock and Elachbutting Rock. From March to November the Wheatbelt comes alive with markets, community fairs, agricultural shows, bush sporting events and plenty of other entertainment.

Go to Wave Rock

You won’t want to miss Wave Rock, one of Australia’s most recognisable landforms (waverock.com.au). Located near the Wheatbelt town of Hyden, a four-hour drive southeast from Perth through picturesque farmland, Wave Rock is a natural, multi-coloured granite cliff shaped remarkably like a huge ocean wave about to break on the bush below. Formed over centuries of buffeting by wind

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and water, the 110-metre long ‘wave’ stands a massive 15 metres high. Time to take out those cameras!

Visit the Pinnacles

Walk on the moonscape of the Pinnacles, one of Australia’s most unique and fascinating natural landmarks. Formed over millions of years, thousands of tall limestone pillars rise up from the shifting yellow desert sands in the Nambung National Park. Visit the state-of-the-art Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre to see the story of the lunar-like Pinnacles revealed in interpretive displays (parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/ site/pinnacles-desert-discovery-centre).

AAT Kings (aatkings.com/tours) offers a brilliant 5-day, 4-night Monkey Mia Dolphins & West Coast tour starting in Fremantle and returning to Perth. This tour takes in not only the ancient limestone pires of the Pinnacles, but also heads further north for dolphin watching in Monkey Mia, cleaving gorges and seasonal wildflowers in Kalbarri National Park, and eye-popping stromatolites in Hamelin Pool – all of which you can read more about in the ‘Midwest & Gascoyne’ section on page 71.

AT A GLANCE

WA Maritime Museum

1300 134 081 visit.museum.wa.gov.au/ maritime

Fremantle Prison

08 9336 9200 fremantleprison.com.au

Wave Rock

waverock.com.au

SeaLink Rottnest Island tours

1300 786 552 sealinkrottnest.com.au

Pinnacles Desert Discovery Centre

08 9652 7913 parks.dpaw.wa.gov.au/ site/pinnacles-desertdiscovery-centre

Mandurah Art Trail

08 9550 3999 visitmandurah.com/ art-trails

AAT Kings 5-day, 4-night Monkey Mia Dolphins & West Coast tour

1300 300 911 aatkings.com/tours

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SOUTH WEST & GREAT SOUTHERN

Take your Club for an invigorating tour of the South West and Great Southern regions, where you’ll be surrounded by ocean and forest while gorging on gastronomic delights.

Escape to Margaret River

Margaret River is a small town with a massive reputation. Visitors to this popular destination enjoy gourmet food, craft breweries, and above all its surrounding world-class wineries. The whole Margaret River Region is renowned for its unique natural beauty defined by an unspoilt coastline, sea cliffs, underground caves, inland rivers and timber forests.

Trade Travel (tradetravel.com.au) offer a splendid 4-day, 3-night tour of Margaret River including trips to Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse and the Underwater Observatory at Busselton Jetty, an iconic wooden pier stretching 1.8 kilometres (busseltonjetty.com.au/attraction/underwaterobservatory). Throughout this magical escape, your Club

1. The Busselton Jetty is the longest timber piled jetty in the Southern Hemisphere

2. Enjoy endless gourmet delights amid the vines of the Margaret River region

3. Learn more about Carnarvon’s role in the 1969 moon landing at the Carnarvon Space & Technology Museum

4. Kalgoorlie’s ‘Super Pit’ mine is about 3.7km long, 1.5km wide and 480 metres deep

5. Admire glassware over 2,000 years old at Coolgardie’s Waghorn Bottle Collection and its members will feast on local delicacies including truffle, chocolate, and of course some of the finest wine made anywhere in Australia.

Explore the coast

Heading south-east from Margaret River, you’ll continue exploring rugged coastlines and gazing out over the Southern Ocean all the way to Bremer Bay via Greens Pool and Elephant Rocks. Watch powerful waves crashing against the cliff faces from the Natural Bridge viewing platform in Torndirrup National Park.

Soak up history and culture in Albany

Make a stopover at Albany to board the Brig Amity, a land-mounted replica of the 19th century merchant ship (visit.museum.wa.gov.au/greatsouthern/brig-amity), or visit the National Anzac Centre, an immersive World War I history museum (nationalanzaccentre.com.au). While you’re in the area, make sure you check out the giant wind turbines at Albany Wind Farm and the large grain silos painted with murals by internationally renowned artists as part of the PUBLIC Silo Trail (publicsilotrail.com).

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GOLDFIELDS-ESPERANCE

Bottle it in Coolgardie

Drive 30 minutes south-west from Kalgoorlie to Coolgardie, a small tourist town and mining ghost town. At the Goldfields Exhibition Museum you’ll see the award-winning Waghorn Bottle Collection, one of the largest and most comprehensive antique bottle displays in Australia featuring bottles and glassware from 300 BC to the present day (ourgems.com.au/ directory/waghorn-bottle-collection).

MID WEST & GASCOYNE

The Mid West and Gascoyne region covers around onethird of Western Australia. The area is home to rich Aboriginal culture, an immense coastline, fabulous national parks and the oldest rocks in the world.

Learn what put Carnarvon on the map

Sitting on the banks of the powerful Gascoyne River, the subtropical coastal town of Carnarvon gained international recognition when the Carnarvon Tracking Station provided crucial support to the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969. Today the Carnarvon Space & Technology Museum celebrates this little-known history (carnarvonmuseum.org.au).

Discover Kalbarri National Park

The relatively secluded Kalbarri National Park, which is set between the cities of Carnarvon and Geraldton, attracts thousands of visitors each year for its ancient rock formations, inland river gorges and coastal cliffs. Members will be wowed by the views from the easily accessible Kalbarri Skywalk, a pair of 100-metre-high lookouts jutting out from the edge of Murchison Gorge, which runs for nearly 80km.

As the largest region of Western Australia, vast GoldfieldsEsperance is packed with natural diversity – from rich red deserts and secret bays to the 16-million-hectare Great Western Woodlands, the healthiest temperate woodland remaining on Earth. But as the name suggests, this is also historic goldfields country.

Strike gold in Kalgoorlie-Boulder

In Kalgoorlie-Boulder, 595km inland from Perth, you’ll discover the 600-metre-deep ‘Super Pit’ – the biggest gold mine in Australia and one of the largest open-cut mines in the world. To tour this enormous site, Club members can either get down and dirty with a high-vis vest and hard hat or take to the sky on a scenic flight (goldfieldsairservices.com/kalgoorlie-scenic-flights). You can also pan for gold at Hannans North Tourist Mine (hannansnorth.com.au). For the slightly less adventurous, visit the Museum of the Goldfields to see the state’s largest display of gold bars and nuggets (museum.wa.gov.au/ museums/museum-of-the-goldfields).

AT A GLANCE

Trade Travel 4-day, 3-night Margaret River tour

1800 034 439 tradetravel.com.au

Busselton Jetty

08 9754 0900 busseltonjetty.com.au/ attraction/underwaterobservatory

Brig Amity

1300 134 081 visit.museum.wa.gov.au/ greatsouthern/brig-amity

National Anzac Centre

08 6820 3500 nationalanzaccentre. com.au

PUBLIC Silo Trail publicsilotrail.com

‘Super Pit’ Flights

1800 359 427 goldfieldsairservices.com/ kalgoorlie-scenic-flights

Hannans North Tourist Mine

08 9022 1664 hannansnorth.com.au

Museum of the Goldfields

08 9021 8533 museum.wa.gov.au/ museums/museum-ofthe-goldfields

Goldfields Exhibition Museum

08 9026 6090 ourgems.com.au/ directory/waghornbottle-collection

Carnarvon Space & Technology Musem

08 9941 9901 carnarvonmuseum.org.au

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See Shark Bay

Head to breathtaking Shark Bay, a 23,000-square-kilometre area in the Gascoyne region known for its pearling history. Here you’ll find Hamelin Pool, home to the most diverse and abundant examples of stromatolites in the world. Check out the nearby Old Hamelin Pool Telegraph Station, built in 1884 as part of the communication line between Perth and Roebourne. At Monkey Mia, surrounded by rusty red sand dunes, your tour might be lucky enough to see not only dolphins but also dugongs, sharks, turtles, pelicans and emus.

THE KIMBERLEY & PILBARA

A journey to Australia’s north-west will take you through the diverse landscapes of the Kimberley and Pilbara – regions like nowhere else on Earth. Ancient gorges and ranges are just the beginning as your tour embarks on the wilderness adventure of a lifetime.

Venture to the Pilbara

The Pilbara is home to magnificent Karijini National Park, a vast wilderness area featuring highlights like Fortescue Falls, Handrail Pool, and the Oxer Lookout with views of

1. The boab tree is an iconic symbol of the Kimberley region

2. The town of Marble Bar in the Pilbara is known for its extremely hot weather

3. Witness the World Heritage listed Bungle Bungles in the Kimberley’s Purnululu National Park the Weano, Red, Hancock and Joffre gorges. Few national parks in Australia can compete with Karijini for sheer splendour. Explore the Burrup Peninsula to discover over 700 historic Indigenous archaeological sites and one million rock engravings, many dating back some 30,000 years. Travel further inland to experience life among outback communities like Tom Price, the highest town above sea level in WA, and Marble Bar, which welcomes visitors as ‘Australia’s Hottest Town’.

Continue up to the Kimberley

At the beach resort town of Broome, gateway to the Kimberley, Club members can take a tour of thriving pearl farms, enjoy a sunset camel ride on Cable Beach, or explore historic Chinatown overlooking Roebuck Bay. Travel to Purnululu National Park to see the spectacular Bungle Bungles – orange and black sandstone domes rising 300 metres above grass-covered plains. Take a wildlife cruise or scenic flight over Lake Argyle, one of the largest manmade lakes in the Southern Hemisphere and home to more than 70 islands. Last but by no means least, discover a truly intriguing natural phenomenon at the Horizontal Falls, which flow to their side and even change direction twice a day. ■