Wonderful Western Australia

* The stormy winter coast between Margaret River and Augusta.
* The Tree Top Walk in the Valley of the Giants and the scary 60m fire lookout, the Gloucester Tree.
* The stunning scenery of the Stirling Ranges and the never-ending expanses of cornfields on the drive between Albany and Perth.
* The handy, as well as interesting, stops of the Pinnacles Desert at Cervantes, the coastal and river gorges around Kalbarri, the curious Monkey Mia dolphins, and the stunning beaches and underwater world at Coral Bay.
* The Karinji/Hamersley Gorges.
* Cable Beach, Broome, after a long dusty bus journey up from Perth.

Quick Tips:

For those with limited time, the journey from Broome to Darwin contained our all-time Western Australian highlights.

1. A one day tour of Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek out of Fitzroy Crossing not only provided great scenery as well as our Derby school teacher guide provided a great insight into the local aboriginal culture.

2. A 2-day tour into Purnululu/Bungle Bungle National Park with Kununurra Backpackers. Our guide, Kenton, reached all the sites before the other tour groups, provided a 3 course dinner in the wilderness, and was a never ending mine of information and good humour. Sleeping out in swags round a fire under the stars was a highlight even for a paranoid arachnophobe. Be quick about visiting Purnululu. The park is being put forward as a World Heritage site which, if it succeeds, will not only will generate more interest but will seal the roads allowing bus loads to arrive at a time.

Best Way To Get Around:

Given the long distances, the Greyhound Bus proved a cheap and reliable alternative to driving. However, demand in peak backpacker season of June and July outweighs supply on the one bus a day, and booking ahead becomes a must. To make matters worse, the smaller capacity connecting buses to the main coastal stops of Cervantes, Kalbarri, Monkey Mia, Coral Bay, and Exmouth only run every 2 days. Having gotten to Coral Bay we found that although we could continue up to Exmouth, we couldn’t get a bus out again for a week. We ended up forgetting Exmouth and still having to backtrack to Carnavon on a different service to meet with the main North bound service, as the more convenient connecting bus to Minilya Roadhouse was full. We now consider ourselves lucky having subsequently met a couple who were stranded in Exmouth for 3 weeks!

This hostel came under new management in the first half of 1998. The new manager, Barry, is well aware of the hostel’s old reputation, and has gone out of his way to change it. The undesirable semi-permanents have been moved on, the place was in the process of being painted, and bikes were being salvaged to make up for the lack of public transport. Although we never experienced the hostel previously, it would appear that Barry has made a big difference. Unlike most managers, he lives in the hostel, constantly enquiring what travellers might suggest to make it better. He tirelessly greets the Greyhound at the ungodly hour it passes through; he gave us an impromptu ride to the enormous North West Gas Shelf operation in Dampier to prove it does look like fairyland at dusk. He took us to the pub (and showed great restraint for an Australian by not drinking and driving), he cooked a couple of fantastic dinners for the few of us that had braved the hostel, provided free tea and coffee in the impressively equipped caterer’s kitchen, and use of an incredible range of Asian chilli sauces. Essentially, he is not simply a good hostel manager, but a great host. Whilst nothing out of the ordinary in terms of location or dorms, this was the most hospitable hostel we came across in our circuit of Australia. Dorm beds in a collection of sizes are $15.

For those not visiting the Karinji/Hamersley Gorges, Karratha is still a great place to break the backbreaking journey between Coral Bay/Exmouth and Broome. Culturally there may not be a great deal to do (although Barry was trying to speak to an Aboriginal elder about touring the many Aboriginal carvings in the area), but it is a great chance to stock up in the impressive 24h shopping centres catering for the gas operation, catch up on emails at one of the cheapest rates we came across in Oz, and do a wash in something other than saline bore water (if you’re travelling up the coast). Or simply, you could visit to give Barry some company and a big hug. He deserves it.

The facilities in this 1930’s old wooden post office in the middle of nowhere were limited and nowhere near top of the range but the hostel came to be one of our favourites, primarily for the real Aussie characters that run it.

Peter bought the backpackers for the aboriginal community. A seventy year old of few words, he is a local legend having reputedly been shipped as an orphan to Australia after WW2, run away from his Freemantle orphanage at 15 to the Top End to become a stockman, eloped with a local aboriginal girl, becoming a highly respected figure in the mainly aboriginal community, and giving drunks short shrift to get off their backsides and make something of their lives as he had to. This solid weather beaten man in a well lived in oversize felt hat gruffly greets the Darwin bound Greyhound at 2am in an unmarked van with "You backpackers? Get in." It has apparently taken years to get him to drop his well intended "ya bastards" from the end of this greeting. Arriving in the hostel he limps heavily across the wooden floorboards, a bad hip apparently exacerbated by falling from the hostel’s windmill he was repairing a few years ago. In a booming whisper he announces the Ladies dorm and the Men’s dorm, crashing open the glass panelled doors onto the bunks behind. Much to the protesting sighs and pronounced tossing and turning from the dorms he insists on giving us the full hostel talk. At 2.30am we creep as best we can into the remaining top bunks, and sleep fully clothed for fear of causing any more of a disturbance.

In the morning we meet Rod, the hostel manager, one of the souls Peter has rescued...in this case from women. Rod is as gruff, has a bit of a hangover after the weekly barbecue attended by many of the local aboriginals, but is very chatty and gives us the second tour of the facilities. Behind his cheeky grin and endless Pom jokes, he wants us to enjoy our stay, and is hurt and astonished by the factually incorrect write-up in the Western Australia LP. Waiting for the early morning bus on the day we left he and a couple of wizen old would be fishermen sat up playing draughts with us and telling us the Peter’s and local history. On leaving, not letting truth stand in his way, he informed Peter that I called him ‘the bastard’ with full Australian drawl. I began to fear being stranded at best, but a deep belly laugh came forth and he grinned all the way to the bus stop. As if forewarned of the storytelling, he dropped us off saying "you don’t want believe everything Rod says". Dorm beds are $15 in this Outback experience.

On a bitterly cold winter’s night we found this a miserable neglected outhouse to a farm. The setting was wonderfully rural, but with poorly closing doors and windows the place was cold, damp, mouldy, and dirty. $12pp for single beds or doubles.

We booked up on a 4 day tour from Derby to Katherine, only to have it cancelled at the last minute as the vehicle was damaged hitting a cow!

We ended up on a one day tour of Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek out of Fitzroy Crossing which not only provided great scenery but our local school teacher guide provided a great insight into the local aboriginal culture.

Our 2-day tour into Purnululu, with Kununurra Backpackers and our guide Kenton, reached all the sites before the other tour groups, provided a 3 course dinner in the wilderness, and was a never ending mine of information and good humour. Sleeping out in swags round a fire under the stars was a highlight even for a paranoid arachnophobe.

Be quick about visiting Purnululu. The park is being put forward as a World Heritage site which, if it succeeds, will not only generate more interest but will seal the roads allowing bus loads to arrive at a time.