WA trip--must see

It sort of depends on what you're driving and what, or whether, you're towing.
Whatever you're in stop in at Lake Argyle for a night or two at least.
A couple of nights at Broome will give a taste. Go to Matsos Brewery for a taste of good food and beer too.

You'll find six weeks isn't very long for a trip of that length.
If you haven't already, work out how many kilometres you'll be doing to work out what your average per day would be.
On the big roads up north it's not hard to knock over 500 or 600 kilometres in a day (or more if need be) but in the more populated areas that'd be a struggle to enjoy.

Have fun,
Steve

Hi Geoff, on the way west from Katherine to Kununurra don't miss the Zebra Rock Mine. Pretty basic park but they run a fantastic Lake Argyle trip and their fish & chips [silver cobbler] are to die for.
About 10km down the Duncan Road off the Victoria Hwy, not far from the WA border.
Great people, great sunsets on the lake and if you have time excellent fishing trips.
Ken

Hi Geoff, starting from the top some of our favourites. Gibb River Road & Mitchel Falls (this can be a trip in itself), Bungles, Karajini, Exmouth Coast , Carrawine Gorge, would be our main "to go" places. South there is Albany to Esperance, also good camping east of Esperance (depending on weather). As far as security is concerned, take sensible precautions. Just depends on how many "K's" you want to do in the 6 weeks.
Cheers David

Hi Jeff

Are you saying you intend to drive from Katherine, around to Western Australia, and in to Victoria all in six weeks Geoff? Best you will see will be the white line down the road and the trees rushing by.

Bearing in mind what we want to see and do are all different, my best spots in WA would have to include the Gibb River Road and off shoots in the Kimberley. Aside from travelling to get there, that deals with two to three weeks for a basic look.

My next favourite is Karijini in the Pilbara; three days minimum to see and walk into the gorges.

Getting home in two weeks will not allow for much more sightseeing.

My personal opinion is that it would be a waste of fuel and a stress to travel so far and bypass so much. Pick a smaller target, enjoy sightseeing and have a real holiday. Next time pick another area to see and enjoy.

If you are that keen to get to Victoria and back in that time frame, just fly.

Alice Springs to Darwin and Jabiru and across to the Kimberley and down the west coast took us from May 5th in Alice to Dec 15th in Adelaide.
Cant even imagine how you would see ANYTHING in that time except the white line.
A much shorter trip this time and leave the distant parts for a good look later.

Our whole trip right around took over a year and 51,000km

GK4

Top end of WA...
spare yourself the GRR mid section, just do east & western ends & negate the angst of the GRR middle section. One red gorge is the same as the next, and even less memorable if there's no water & it preserves the rig.

In the time you've allocated, you need to consider what risk/angst you are likely to encounter by driving to all the remote "go to spots" verses selectively picking the best accessable locations..no point in doing GRR & then spending 3-4 days waiting to repair your rig..strike a balance - experience a diversity of Kimberley features .

Fly over Lake Argyle/Bungles & do the day flight to Kalumburu around the Timor Sea

Do eastern end of GRR to El Equestro / Emma Grg, Home Valley ( pushes you into GRR but worth it) backtrack & go south to Bungles, Halls Ck, (Wolfe Ck - optional, but well worth the effort ), back up to Tunnel & Windjana Grg, western end of GRR- Lennard Grg, Derby, Broome &........ did I say Broome !!..a must do..give yourself a week there.
Fly out on a 3-4 day trip to Cape Leveque, Horizontal Falls..& again it saves the rig but provides a great touch of the Kimberley features.

happy travels

Hi Geoff. As for must see places, agree with what everyone else said. Also just do some Google research of your own. We are heading off in May from Geelong up to the Kimberley, and we only have six weeks. We have been there before but did not see it all and you can't do it all in that time and don't have to. We knew we would be back one day to see places we couldn't on our first trip. Retirement is over 10 years away for us so why wait, we want to do it now while we are able to, who knows what's around the corner! Once you have made a list of must see places, get the map out and do an itinerary, that will give you an idea of the time you have. Safe travels....
Amanda

It always astounds me that when somebody seeks advice about travelling and what to see, the enquirer often gets bagged by what they want to see in the little time available. Often it's the older fraternity that give them the most grief, we don't all have the luxury of being retired and have extended timeframes.
Off my soap box now.
Geoff what I've done twice on our half block trips is use a bit of string that will measure 400km (based on the map legend), and use that as a guide to the distance travelled on average per day (5 hrs of travel at 90km/hr). Mark out a rough track of where you wish to travel ie Katherine to Vic and with that work out the absolute minimum days to get from A to B . In theory your 6wks is 42 days so with that work out how many free days you have that won't be driving days. We found that with the 400k's per day we could do a heck of a lot of on the surface sight seeing and discovered places that we'd gladly go back to at a later date when more time permitted.
As to places to see:
Gregory NP
Timber Creek for theVictoria River boat trip at sunset
Keep Rv NP for the walks, tours, ranger talks and the art
Kununurra (at least 2-3 days so much to see and do)
El Questro (2 days min)
Purnululu (2 days min) you can't take your van in though
Halls Creek (the Old bit)
Fitzroy Crossing & Geiki Gorge & Mimbi Caves
Cut up to Tunnel Creek and out to Derby via the end of the GRR
Derby and a day trip out to the horizontal Falls (expensive but fantastic and you'll talk about it for years)
Broome (I didn't like Broome but that's just me) 2 days minimum
80 Mile Beach
Karratha
Option now is inland to Karijini or follow the coast to Exmouth and Coral Bay
Coastal Run:
If your van is Off Road to semi off road do the run past Gnarloo stn, Quobba and then to Carnarvon. The coastal views are fantastic and if your van is fully self contained you can camp.
Denham for Monkey Mia & the dolphins also easy access to Steep Point.
Kalbarri (2 days) gorges, fishing and great coastal scenery.
From Geraldton you basically have 3 routes down to Perth if by this time your sick of the coast take the inland route via all the "M" towns (look at your map and you'll se what I mean)
Or the Brand (or Bland as we call it) Hwy
Or the new(ish) Coastal Hwy from just south of Dongara (this road has some steep hills)
Cervantes for the Pinnacles and Stromolites
Perth
leave the Sth West and high-tail it home via the Nullarbor.
Enjoy your trip and I wish it was me.
cheers
Dunc

In Kununara the tour taking in a boat trip on Lake Argyle and the back to Katherine by anther boat.
Personally I would give Broome a miss. Bit like an expensive Bali to me.
Mill stream (2 nights) and Karajini is a must see for 3 full days minimum. Should be getting some wild flowers at your time frame in Pilbara.
With your time frame I would stay inland from Karajin, and end up in Kalgoolie, Norsman then home. Bit risky with the weather doing SW and Esperance in June July. leave that for another trip.
enjoy
Neil

Hi Geoff!
"Basic tours" are better than "no tours"!
I'm a "greying" nomad with another 15-20 years to go. We only get so many weeks' holidays/long service leave, don't we!
When it comes to travelling, do what you can when you can. Doing bigger days' drives and having to go faster than the grey nomads is better than sitting at home, eh?
As a thought...skim past the stuff closer to home if there's "too much" on your list. See the further away things in more detail. The closer-to-home things can be covered in smaller trips. That's why we skim past a lot of Qld now-we've done it so many times and it's almost our back yard.
We did the Kimberley last year (a 4-5 week round trip from the Gold Coast) and I told hubby to miss Broome (I've been before but he hasn't). I knew it was a week to itself and in the future we could fly over and do it in a separate trip.
I have a colleague who flew to Darwin and hired a camper to travel the Kimberley for 3 weeks. Perhaps that's a thought? Skim past that part and come back?
I love talking to grey nomads when we are out and about. I don't think I particularly remember any that I wouldn't happily say hi to when our paths crossed again a few camp grounds later. One day we'll be the grey nomads with other travellers envying our lifestyle.
In the meantime, we get out and do something with the time we have!
Have a wonderful trip!
:)

Geoff, when taking time off for short holidays with a finite return to work date, rather than have a tight schedule (enough of that at work and a holiday is to escape from that) we would look at the directions, what we could see along the way, and set out in the general direction. No problems if we only a few of our wants in; we would enjoy them and the holiday. Half way through the time, we'd look at an alternative route to tour towards home, with real planning only for the last three days to ensure we got back to our jobs in time.

As an example, one holiday during a hot January (the only time I could get away) was planned for the south coast of Western Australia, but I had researched the Eyre Peninsula with members here 'just in case'. With peak holiday time on the south coast, it was hard to get into the campgrounds so we moved on more rapidly than expected. We managed to spend half our time on the Eyre Peninsula and loved it. If you have to rush and have the pressure of tight schedules, you will get back to work even more in need of a holiday.

Hi Geoff,

In that time frame I would be looking at the websites for Outback Spirit and APT tours while planning my trip.

These guys have sorted out the most popular places and how to fit them in to a tight itinerary, usually no more than 21 days up north.

When working, I used to basically copy Outback Spirit trips but in my car at my own pace, I found that when talking to friends about my travels they were impressed that we had managed to see all the places they had heard about down south.

They also have a brief description of what to expect at each place, all this info can be found online, add that to the far more detailed info available on here about the places that you particularly like and I am sure you will enjoy it.

I would be taking a short cut in south WA, probably turn at Geraldton across to Kalgoorlie then home, the south of WA has too many places to see.

It does make a nice one month trip from Vic across to Norseman, take a left and do a big circle back to Norseman then home.

You can also do what myself and the better half did 22 years ago, when we were still working full time - and we only had a month to see the other side of Oz.

We live in Perth and wanted to see FNQ - so we chucked the HDJ80 Cruiser on a truck and backloaded it to Adelaide from Perth.

I seem to recall it cost less than $300, about a third of the going rate back then, and lots cheaper than driving.

We flew to Adelaide on the cheapest fare available (and they're a LOT cheaper today!) - then picked up the 'Cruiser in Adelaide, and drove Adelaide to Cairns.

We stayed in cheap motels (I've done my time camping!) and we went via Eastern S.A., through Northern VIC., and up the Newell through inland NSW.

We did stop and stay with rellies at a farm at Baradine for 3 days (they were actually living in Eric Rolls house!) - then we drove up the Newell and Cunningham Hwys, through Brizzy, and up the Bruce Hwy to Cairns.

We stayed at a beaut waterfront apartment in Clifton Beach, North of Cairns, for a week, which enabled us to visit the Daintree as well.

When we'd cut out our time in Cairns, we loaded the 'Cruiser on a truck again, and sent it back to Adelaide - on another cheap backload!
Can't recall the exact transport cost now, but it wasn't much different to the cost of backloading the 'Cruiser from Perth to Adelaide.
Once again, the transport cost was far cheaper than driving.

As soon as the 'Cruiser was on its way, we hopped on the big silver bird and flew Cairns to Adelaide.
When we got to Adelaide, we stayed overnight and picked up the 'Cruiser next day - then we set off on the drive to Perth.

We spent a full 31 days away, we drove 9000kms - averaging around about 300kms a day - but we only drove the entire road route, once!

We enjoyed the trip immensely - and in the intervening years since '94, we have been back to individual areas quite often, to explore them in more detail.

There's nothing to stop you doing the same today - working out where the backloads are cheap, and flying between them while your rig is carried.

Air fares are much cheaper today, and trucking costs are also quite reasonable if you hunt down the best deals on the transport websites such as U-Ship, Movingcars.com.au, and FreightSeek.

Cheers, Ron.