Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

Perth & Western Australia
by Lee Mylne
9
Many international visitors—and for
that matter, many east coast Australians—never
make the trek to Western
Australia. It’s too far away, expensive
to fly to, too big when you get there,
they say. That is all true, especially the
bit about it being big (it’s 2.5 million sq.
km, or 965,000 sq. miles) but don’t dismiss
a trip out of hand. Flights need not
be expensive (if you’re an international
traveler flying on air pass coupons—see
“Getting Around Australia” in chapter
2), and some of Australia’s best snorkeling
and diving, most historic
towns, splendid scenery, and fantastic
wine regions are here. Every spring
(Sept–Nov Down Under) the state
offers an unbelievable profusion of
wildflowers almost everywhere. The
capital, Perth, has great food, a fabulous
outdoor life of biking and
beaches, plenty of museums that are
well worth a look, and a beautiful historic
port called Fremantle.
The Southwest “hook” of the state,
below Perth, is thought by many to be
the loveliest part of Western Australia,
and also the easiest region to visit outside
Perth. Massive stands of karri and
jarrah trees stretch to the sky, the surf
is world-class, and the coastline wavesmashed
and rugged. The Southwest’s
Margaret River region is responsible
for turning out some of Australia’s
finest reds and whites.
Head east 644km (400 miles) inland
from Perth and you strike what, in the
1890s, was the richest square mile of
gold-bearing earth ever found in the
world. The mining town of Kalgoorlie,
Australia’s biggest gold producer, fuses
19th-century architecture with a zeal
for pumping out near 57kg (2,000 oz.)
of gold a day in the twenty-first century.
If Australia has an iconic country
town then Kalgoorlie is it.
Once you drive north of Perth past
Geraldton on the Midwest coast, you
know you’re in the Outback. Red sands,
scrubby trees, and spiky grass called
spinifex are all you see for hundreds of
miles. About 850km (531 miles) north
of Perth is a special phenomenon: daily
visits by wild dolphins to the shores of
Monkey Mia. Another 872km (545
miles) on is one of Australia’s best-kept
secrets, a 260km (163-mile) coral reef
called Ningaloo, stretching along the
isolated Outback shore. It’s a second
Great Barrier Reef, barely discovered by
world travelers or Aussies themselves.
The reef is making a name for itself as a
whale shark habitat, where you can
swim with these mysterious 12m (40-
ft.) fish-monsters every Aussie fall.
The rugged northwest portion of
Western Australia is known as the
Kimberley, where cattle farming, pearl
farming, and tourism thrive in a rocky
moonscape of red cliffs, waterfalls,
rivers, sparse gums, and wetland
lagoons. Here you can visit an over
400,000-hectare (1 million-acre) cattle
station rich in Aboriginal rock-art
sites, tour the world’s largest diamond
mine, cruise the lush Ord River to see
hundreds of native birds, ride a camel
on the beach, and shop for the world’s
biggest South Sea pearls.