Adventure Tours Darwin to Perth Tour with Ningaloo Reef, Exmouth, Karijini & The Kimberley - Including Broome accommodation

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DAY 1: DARWIN TO KATHERINE

An early start from Darwin, rebuilt twice after Japanese bombing in 1942 and Cyclone Tracy in 1974, then south down the Stuart Highway. Nitmiluk National Park belongs to the Jawoyn people, who received it back in 1989. Katherine Gorge is really thirteen gorges cut by the Katherine River, and Edith Falls (Leliyn) has a big swimming pool at the foot of the falls. Today you swim at Edith Falls or spend time at the gorge, your guide's choice on the day, before camp just outside the park.

Overnight: Near Nitmiluk National Park, Katherine (permanent tent)

DAY 2: KATHERINE HOT SPRINGS TO LAKE ARGYLE

Start with a morning dip at Katherine Hot Springs, where the water stays warm all year. Then it's west across the border into Western Australia, putting your watch back. Lake Argyle filled after the Ord River dam was finished in 1971, and at normal level it holds about 18 times the water of Sydney Harbour, with islands that were once hilltops. For about $100 extra you can take a sunset cruise. Tonight's camp is on the Ord River.

Overnight: Ord River (camping)

DAY 3: INTO PURNULULU AND ECHIDNA CHASM

Head south past the Carr Boyd Ranges and the Durack Ranges, named after the pioneering Durack family who drove cattle here in the 1880s, then take the slow 4WD track into the park. Purnululu National Park was hardly known outside the Kimberley until the 1980s and became World Heritage-listed in 2003. Its Bungle Bungle domes are striped orange and black, the orange from iron oxide and the black from cyanobacteria living in the layers that hold more water. Echidna Chasm is a crack in the conglomerate rock, in places less than a metre wide, with walls up to 180 metres high that glow orange when the midday sun reaches the bottom.

Overnight: Bush camp near Purnululu (basic, no showers)

DAY 4: THE BEEHIVE DOMES AND CATHEDRAL GORGE

A full day among the domes. The walk to Cathedral Gorge follows a creek bed between the domes to a huge curved amphitheatre with a pool at its foot, so big and quiet it carries a whisper. The domes are crumbly sandstone, so the paths keep to the creek beds. Want the whole range at once? For an extra cost, from around $350, a helicopter flight shows you hundreds of domes in one sweep.

Overnight: Bush camp near Purnululu (basic, no showers)

DAY 5: EL QUESTRO AND EMMA GORGE

North into the East Kimberley. El Questro Station covers about 280,000 hectares of the East Kimberley. Emma Gorge is a walk of about 1.6 km each way over boulders to a pool under a waterfall, ringed by tall cliffs. A cool swim under the falls, then back to camp on the Ord River.

Overnight: Ord River camp (camping)

DAY 6: KUNUNURRA AND THE ORD

A day around Kununurra. Kununurra was built in the 1960s for the Ord River irrigation scheme, which turned the dry valley green with crops. Mirima National Park, on the edge of town, is called the mini Bungle Bungles for its striped sandstone ridges, and the Hoochery Distillery makes rum from the valley's sugar cane. Late in the day a short hike takes you up to a 360-degree lookout over the Ord and the ranges of the East Kimberley.

Overnight: Kununurra area (camping)

DAY 7: THE GIBB RIVER ROAD TO MOUNT BARNETT

The big Gibb day, about 600 km. The Gibb River Road runs about 660 km across the Kimberley, built in the 1960s to truck cattle to port. Corrugations, river crossings and red dust are part of the deal. At the Pentecost River crossing, the cliffs of the Cockburn Range rise straight behind the water, the most photographed view on the road. By evening you reach Mount Barnett, run by the Kupungarri community, to camp by a freshwater river.

Overnight: Mount Barnett (camping)

DAY 8: MANNING GORGE AND GALVANS GORGE

At Manning Gorge, by Mount Barnett Roadhouse, the walk starts with a swim or float across the river, then crosses open country to a waterfall and a pool deep enough to jump into. Galvans Gorge is small and shaded, with a boab growing above the falls and a Wandjina figure painted on the rock. Galvans is seasonal, so your guide checks it's open.

Overnight: Mount Barnett (camping)

DAY 9: BELL GORGE AND WINDJANA GORGE

At Bell Gorge the creek drops over a series of rock steps into a deep pool, one of the best swims on the Gibb. It opens only when conditions allow. Then you leave the King Leopold Ranges and drop down to the Lennard River. Windjana Gorge has walls up to 100 metres high, part of the same ancient reef, with fossil fish in the rock. Freshwater crocodiles bask on the sand along the Lennard River; they're shy, but keep your distance.

Overnight: Near Windjana Gorge (camping)

DAY 10: TUNNEL CREEK TO BROOME

Tunnel Creek (Dimalurru) runs about 750 metres right through the Napier Range, part of a reef that grew in a tropical sea about 350 million years ago. You wade through cool water in the dark, under roosting bats, with a torch. This is where the Bunuba resistance fighter Jandamarra hid from police in the 1890s. Then it's west across the Fitzroy River, whose wet-season floods are among the biggest in Australia, to Broome and the sea. This version of the trip includes your Broome accommodation.

Overnight: Broome

DAYS 11 TO 14: FREE DAYS IN BROOME

Four days off the road to do Broome your way. Broome grew up in the 1880s as the pearling capital of the world, and its Japanese cemetery holds more than 900 graves of pearl divers. Cable Beach runs 22 km, and camel trains walk it at sunset. You can ride a camel at sunset or learn the pearling story at a pearl farm. If you're here around a full moon between March and October, watch the Staircase to the Moon, the moonlight laddering across the mudflats of Roebuck Bay. Meals and activities are yours to choose.

Overnight: Broome

DAY 15: BROOME TO EIGHTY MILE BEACH AND THE PILBARA

South along the edge of the Great Sandy Desert, Australia's second-largest desert, to Eighty Mile Beach, which is actually about 220 km long. It's one of the world's most important stops for migrating shorebirds, which fly in from as far as Siberia. Stretch your legs on the sand, then carry on to a station in the Pilbara for the night.

Overnight: Pilbara station (swag)

DAY 16: PORT HEDLAND TO KARIJINI

A stop at Port Hedland, one of the biggest bulk export ports in the world, where iron ore trains more than 2 km long roll in from the mines. Then it's inland into the ranges. Karijini National Park in the Hamersley Range is Western Australia's second-largest national park, and its gorges are cut through banded iron rock about 2.5 billion years old. If time allows, you'll see your first gorge this afternoon.

Overnight: Karijini (camping)

DAY 17: THE GORGES OF KARIJINI

At Oxers Lookout, four gorges meet a hundred metres below your feet. In Weano Gorge and Hancock Gorge you edge along the Spider Walk, hands and feet on both walls, to Kermits Pool. In Dales Gorge, Fortescue Falls is the park's only waterfall that runs all year, stepping down terraces of red rock. Expect wet feet, cold water and some scrambling.

Overnight: Karijini (camping)

DAY 18: MORE OF KARIJINI

A second full day in the park, and your guide plans it around what's open, how the water is and how the group is feeling, with swims, walks and waterfalls. The gorge walls are layered like a stack of red and blue-grey pages, iron laid down on the floor of an ancient sea. Look for rock wallabies on the cliffs and the white trunks of snappy gums glowing in the last light.

Overnight: Karijini (camping)

DAY 19: KARIJINI TO EXMOUTH

A long driving day, about 750 km, from red rock back to the sea. You pass Tom Price, at 747 metres the highest town in Western Australia, and then the land flattens out towards the coast. Exmouth was built in 1967 to support a naval communications station and is now the gateway to the northern Ningaloo.

Overnight: Exmouth (hostel)

DAY 20: CAPE RANGE TO CORAL BAY

Cape Range National Park is limestone range on one side and reef on the other. At Turquoise Bay a gentle current carries snorkellers along over the coral, and the Vlamingh Head Lighthouse of 1912, named after the Dutch navigator who passed in 1697, gives the best view up and down the cape. From about April to July, you can swim with whale sharks, the biggest fish in the sea, at extra cost. Snorkel gear hire, boat tours and dives are also extra. In the afternoon you head south to Coral Bay.

Overnight: Coral Bay (hostel)

DAY 21: FREE DAY IN CORAL BAY

Ningaloo Reef runs 260 km along the coast, World Heritage-listed since 2011, and at Coral Bay the coral starts a few steps from the beach, so you can snorkel straight off the sand. The day is yours. For an extra cost you can join a half-day snorkel with manta rays, which feed off Coral Bay all year, go whale watching in season, or ride a glass-bottom boat.

Overnight: Coral Bay (hostel)

DAY 22: CORAL BAY TO SHARK BAY

South over the Tropic of Capricorn and on to the shell coast. Shell Beach is made not of sand but of billions of tiny cockle shells, piled up to 10 metres deep. Shark Bay was World Heritage-listed in 1991 for its seagrass, dugongs and stromatolites. Tonight you stay right by the beach at Monkey Mia.

Overnight: Monkey Mia (hostel)

DAY 23: MONKEY MIA TO KALBARRI

Start on the beach. At Monkey Mia wild bottlenose dolphins have been swimming into the shallows to meet people since the 1960s, and rangers now run the morning visit so it stays good for the dolphins. At Hamelin Pool, where the water is about twice as salty as the open sea, the stromatolites are rock-like mounds built by microbes, a form of life that goes back about 3.5 billion years. Then on to Kalbarri. In Kalbarri National Park the Murchison River has cut a gorge 80 km long through red and white banded sandstone about 400 million years old. Time permitting, you'll visit Nature's Window, a natural rock arch framing the river, and the Kalbarri Skywalk, opened in 2020, whose platforms reach out 100 metres above the water.

Overnight: Kalbarri (hostel)

DAY 24: PINK LAKE AND THE PINNACLES TO PERTH

The last day runs south down the coast. At Port Gregory, Hutt Lagoon is coloured pink by an alga, Dunaliella salina, that makes beta-carotene, and the shade shifts from bubblegum to lilac with the time of day and the cloud. In Nambung National Park the Pinnacles rise out of yellow sand by the thousand, limestone pillars up to 3.5 metres tall, formed over tens of thousands of years from seashells broken down and cemented by rain. Then the final run into Perth, arriving in the city centre at about 6pm.

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• Luggage limit of 15 kg in a soft bag or backpack, plus a day pack; no hard suitcases
• An all-season sleeping bag (or buy one for $75)
• 2 litre water bottle
• Lightweight, breathable clothing
• Long-sleeved shirts and long pants for sun protection
• Warm layers, puffer jacket, gloves and beanie for winter nights — temperatures can drop to 0°C in June to August
• Comfortable closed-in hiking shoes
• Hat, sunglasses and sunscreen
• Torch or headlamp
• Power bank and chargers
• Toiletries, insect repellent and personal medication
• Towel
• Optional: a sleep sheet for warmer nights, ear plugs

• 18 breakfasts, 20 lunches and 18 dinners
• All-terrain 4WD vehicle
• Camping and multishare hostel accommodation, including Broome
• Experienced tour guide
• Activities as detailed in the itinerary
• National park entry fees
• Pick-up from selected Darwin accommodation and drop-off at central Perth accommodation

Not included

• Sleeping bag — bring your own or buy one for $75
• Optional activities, such as the Purnululu helicopter flight and whale shark or manta ray swims

Preparing for the trip

Private tours and families

Booking the trip

Who travels with us

Cost and Fees

Whilst on tour