No one really thinks about doing a tour in Australia. Get on board and look at tour comparison Australia to see all the fuss is about.
Visitors flock from across the globe for Australia tourism, taking advantage of the fabled almost-always blue skies, snap pictures of landmarks like the Sydney Opera House, and get up close and personal with the one-of-a-kind wildlife. But too often a visit to the land down under includes only certain hotspots, with tourists unabashedly showing heavy favouritism for the east coast ahead of any other area.
There is something for everyone to be found in the state that occupies the entire western third of Australia, which happens to be the second largest country subdivision in the world behind only the Sakha Republic in Russia. Western Australia is sparsely populated, offering open expanses of the famous Australian outback, a bustling capital city, over 12,000km of beautiful coastline, a thriving mining industry and a wine region that, although accounting for only a small percentage of the country’s wine production, is considered to be one of the best in Australia.
The coast: reefs, whale sharks and enticing beaches
WA has plenty to entice when it comes to the coast, whether you want to meet the wildlife or relax on white-sand beaches.
World Heritage Site, the Ningaloo Coast, is home to the Ningaloo Reef, a 260 kilometre long fringing reef that is both Australia’s largest fringing coral reef and the only reef of its size so close to a landmass. The reef is less than half a kilometre from shore in some places, such as the laidback beach own of Coral Bay – simply throw on your snorkel, wade out into the water and marvel at one of one of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world.
The Ningaloo Reef is a prime destination for swimming with whale sharks, the world’s largest – and completely harmless – fish, which can grow up to 16 metres in length. Whale sharks travel through Ningaloo Reef every year from around March to July, with tours that boast a 95% sighting rate leaving from Exmouth and Coral Bay.
A few hundred kilometres south, about 900km north of Perth, lies Monkey Mia – the go-to spot for encounters with the friendly bottlenose dolphins that have routinely visited the shore to the delight of visitors for more than 50 years.
Further south, a unique experience awaits 19km from Perth’s coast: Rottnest Island is an idyllic car-free island home to 63 beautiful beaches, 20 bays and several coral reefs, not to mention one of the cutest marsupial’s Australia’s got to offer – which is really saying something – the quokka.
The land: national parks and other-worldly landscapes
Western Australia boasts a number of incredible must-sees on land as well as by the sea. Karijini National Park is an awe-inspiring collection of 100m chasms, peaceful rock pools, waterfalls and hiking trails. Just two hours outside of Perth the eerie landscape of The Pinnacles rises from the ground. These tall limestone spires have been formed over millions of years to present a kind of forest protruding from the sandy landscape, making the area one of Australia’s most unique and fascinating to visit.
Yet another World and National Heritage listed area to be found in WA is Purnululu (Bungle Bungle) National Park, home to an alien-like landscape over 350 million years in the making. The richly coloured dome-shaped formations cover almost 240,000 hectares and, though they have been long known to the area’s Indigenous population, were only discovered by the outside world in 1983. This mystical landscape is best experienced from the air in an open-door helicopter or on a four-wheel safari adventure.
Margaret River and the south-west
The beautiful wine region of Margaret River lies about three and a half hours drive south from Perth. Rolling vineyards sit against a backdrop of ocean and tall forests, offering wine tastings galore, fine restaurants, boutique breweries, art galleries, and fine cheeses and chocolatiers. Food and wine festivals can be found in abundance in this region.
Unique city culture
Perth is Australia’s most isolated capital city, and as such boasts its own brand of charm unique from other major centres to be found in the country. There is plenty to experience in the city, from a thriving dining and nightlife scene, cultural spaces, the beautiful King’s Park and meandering Swan River, shopping, wineries and beaches.
Several hundred kilometres north lies the much smaller but popular destination that is Broome. Broome is famous for its pearling industry, as well as, strangely enough, its sunset camel rides. Many Australian visitors find watching the sun set on this side of the country to be quite a novelty given that 92% of the population does not see the sun dip below the horizon on a daily basis.
Courtney Gahan is a serial expat, traveller and freelance writer who has bartered with Moroccan marketeers, seen the sun rise at Angkor Wat and elbowed her way through crowds on NYE in NYC.
