Australia’s west coast, from Perth to Exmouth

The Indian Ocean road

North of Perth, the Indian Ocean Drive, opened in 2010, runs along the sea between white dunes and rock lobster fishing villages. At Lancelin, the dunes are used for sandboarding. In Nambung National Park, thousands of limestone pillars rise out of the sand: these are the Pinnacles, best walked in the late afternoon.

After Geraldton, the North West Coastal Highway enters the red country. Petrol stations get further apart, road trains can be 53 metres long and kangaroos come out at dusk. At Kalbarri, the Murchison has cut a gorge nearly 80 kilometres long. At the Kalbarri Skywalk, opened in 2020, two platforms reach out about 100 metres above the floor.

Further north, the sea turns turquoise and the land empties. At Monkey Mia, bottlenose dolphins come to the edge of the beach almost every morning. Around the Tropic of Capricorn, Ningaloo Reef lies a few hundred metres from the sand: at Coral Bay, on Bills Bay beach, or at Turquoise Bay, you snorkel without a boat.

The stromatolite boardwalk, badly damaged by Cyclone Seroja in April 2021, has been under reconstruction since July 2026. The work will take about eleven months. In the meantime, you view them from a temporary fence, ideally at low tide. The Boolagoorda Trail, 1.4 kilometres long, stays open.

In the bay, Shell Beach is made not of sand but of tiny white shells. The seagrass beds cover more than 4,000 km² and feed about 10,000 dugongs, sometimes seen from the Eagle Bluff boardwalk. In the Malgana language, the bay is called Gathaagudu, “two waters”.

Dutch and French navigators

The first Europeans to sail along this coast were Dutch sailors on their way to Java. In 1616, Dirk Hartog landed at Shark Bay and nailed an engraved pewter plate to a post on the island that bears his name. In 1629, the Batavia was wrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos islands, off Geraldton, and mutineers massacred some of the survivors.

The Frenchman Saint-Aloüarn came by in 1772, but it was the Baudin expedition, in 1801, that left names on the map. Hamelin Pool is named after Emmanuel Hamelin, captain of the Naturaliste; Mount Lesueur, after the artist Charles-Alexandre Lesueur; Peron Peninsula, after the naturalist François Péron. In 1697, Willem de Vlamingh replaced Hartog’s plate with his own. In 1801, Hamelin’s men found Vlamingh’s plate and set it upright again. Taken to France in 1818, it is now in Fremantle.

What not to miss

1. 1The PinnaclesThousands of limestone pillars, in the evening light.
2. 2Hutt LagoonA pink lake near Port Gregory, coloured by an alga rich in beta-carotene.
3. 3The Kalbarri SkywalkTwo platforms jutting 25 and 17 metres out over the drop.
4. 4Monkey MiaBottlenose dolphins at the edge of the beach, in the morning, with the rangers.
5. 5Swimming with whale sharksOn a guided tour from Exmouth or Coral Bay, from about March to August.
6. 6Turquoise BayDrift snorkelling with the current, along Ningaloo Reef.

Australia’s west coast in pictures

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Nature’s Window, the sandstone arch above the Murchison gorge.

The west coast table

Western rock lobster is caught around Geraldton, Dongara and the Abrolhos. In Fremantle, you eat fish and chips at the fishing boat harbour, with a beer from the Little Creatures brewery.

Further north, Shark Bay serves its pink snapper. At Carnarvon, the Gascoyne plantations grow bananas, mangoes and vegetables, sold at the farm gate. At Exmouth, the prawns come from the gulf next door.