Australia’s wild west

There are many reasons to love driving the Western Australian coast – feathery mulla-mulla flowers, pink-tongued dogs lolling at petrol stations, gum trees twisted like bonsai against a blue sky. In waters blue as a hip cocktail, you can swim with giant whale sharks. In gorges slashed with orange and purple, you can float in fern-lined pools where dragonflies dance.

The Coral Coast is road-trip heaven. For 1200 kilometres between Perth to Exmouth spectacular landscapes and shimmering turquoise ocean are never far beyond the windscreen. You’ll encounter strange rocks, the world’s biggest fish, empty beaches. You can eat prawns and lobster as sunset explodes orange over the Indian Ocean.

Get your motor running and the first big attraction is just over two hours north of Perth. The limestone outcrops of the Pinnacles stick up like worn-down teeth from the earth’s red gums of Nambung National Park. There are thousands of these rocks, some dwarves, others four metres tall, and in late afternoon they glow in the declining sun. It seems like a hostile desert environment, but emus and kangaroos roam and, between August and October, wildflowers bloom.

Further north – passing Green Head, where a colony of sea lions flops on the rocks – Geraldton is the Coral Coast’s only city, bright with street art. In the springtime wildflower season, you might be tempted to detour eastwards through rolling hills towards Mullewa, where everlastings create extravagant carpets of pink or yellow, and coneflowers explode like fireworks. 

To the northwest, meanwhile, lie the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, one of Australia’s unsung gems. The archipelago is ringed by the Indian Ocean’s most southerly coral reefs, has spectacular seabird colonies, and allows for some great fishing for coral trout, snapper and grouper.

Continue on your trajectory north, though, and you should now veer off Highway 1 and cling to the coast. The first showstopper is Pink Lake, more properly known as Hutt Lagoon. The water’s various pink hues are due to algae and change with the seasons and even time of day; mid-morning or sunset is best.

Your next treat is Kalbarri National Park. It’s hard to know what’s best here, the rust-red outback or the sapphire-skirted coastal cliffs. The wildflowers are magnificent here too: blood-red eucalypts, banksias and kangaroo paws. Get out and hike, quad bike, surf, swim, fish for tuna and coral trout, and admire the landscape from the Skywalk that juts out high above the Murchison River. Stay the night in Kalbarri, where pelicans flap on the waterfront and locally brewed beer flows at Finlay’s. Dine on fresh cockles to the scent of eucalyptus on the breeze and the rumble of improbable tales from outback travellers.

You’ll have to turn back inland and join Highway 1 to continue north. At Shark Bay, your first marvel is at Hamelin Pool, where stromatolites are ‘living fossils’ 3.5 billion years old. These are formed by the secretions of cyanophytes, among the most ancient of life forms, which create grey, spongy but rock-like tablets and columns. Meanwhile at Shell Beach, billions of crushed shells 10 metres deep run for 70 kilometres. Walk along the seashore and admire whorls of pure white, fragile pink chips, and pieces of black stone worn onyx-smooth by the waves.

A little further north is Monkey Mia, where you can meet the famously friendly bottlenose dolphins that turn up most mornings for a feed. The clear waters of Shark Bay also allow you to spot turtles, dugongs, manta rays and humpback whales, which makes it a prime spot for snorkelling or scuba diving. 

The cliffs at Steep Point are mainland Australia’s most westerly point, although accessible only by four-wheel drive, but anywhere around the bay is a bedazzlement of blue water against white sand and red earth, especially in Francois Peron National Park.

Back on the Coral Coast route north, Carnarvon is a centre for banana and avocado growing, but otherwise just a remote, outback town perched on the crumbling western edge of Australia. The highway is flat and the coastline ragged and dangerous, tumbled with great, flat shelves of rock battered by the Indian Ocean. Surly swells occasionally explode in blow-holes that fling up spouts of salt water. The shock rolls like cannon fire across the bleached scrubland.

Exmouth is the official end of the Coral Coast. You could save yourself plenty of driving by finishing at Shark Bay, but you have good reason to make it this far. On land, Cape Range National Park features ragged, fossil-imprinted gorges and an abundance of wildlife. Meanwhile Exmouth’s shallow waters are draped in Australia’s most extensive fringing reefs. They’re as easy to explore as wading into the shallow waters of Turquoise Bay, which is reckoned to have one of the continent’s best beaches. Scuba diving at Navy Pier is like plunging into a fish-filled aquarium. This is the only place in the world where you can dive in an operational defence base.

At Ningaloo Reef, turtles and manta rays drift over colourful coral. Between April and July whale sharks trundle past. These gentle giants of the ocean, the world’s largest fish, are up to eighteen metres long and weigh twenty tons. Swim with them to experience an amazing end to an outsized driving route, and an experience you won’t soon forget.