Where better to start ones tour of Western Australia than its capital, Perth. You can quite comfortably spend four or five days here taking in Rottnest Island, Cottesloe, Freemantle, Kings Park and the city-centre itself before hiring a car and moving on.
Head south down the coastal road towards Margaret River. A pleasant place for a stop-off and lunch is at Bussleton where there’s a good beach, a long pier to walk along and stretch the legs plus a number of pleasant café’s looking over it. Continue going down the highway as it passes through harsh dry scrubland until it finally gives way into lush tree-lined roads and the wine-making fertile region of Margaret River. There are plenty of caravan parks, motels and hotels one can choose to stay that will suit any holiday-makers budget. You can easily spend two or three days here exploring local attractions such as the impressive and aptly named, Lake and Mammoth Caves; go cycling, walking or fishing along the Margaret River itself or alternatively, and this will appeal to most of us who have never visited a wine region before, simply get in your car and drive take in some of the many wineries that lie within the surrounding valleys. Where better to get your wine recommended than straight from the horses mouth so to speak, and another big plus for the independent traveler is there are quite dauntingly so many to choose from.
A lot of these establishments welcome any number of tour groups per day, ardent and enthusiastic samplers all keen to quaff a glass or two of free wine before splashing out on a case or two to take home. Consequently, most wineries now have pleasant areas to sit and sample the wine whilst taking in a great view of the grounds, the peace, tranquility and almost eerie silence of these lush green grounds is almost mystical.
As for the town of Margaret River itself, its become quite a little tourist trap with its outward bound appeal and many quaint little shops, popular restaurants and inns that line the town’s main street, but that shouldn’t deter you, quite the opposite if the truth be known.
From Margaret River you can continue further south till you finally reach the isolated village of Augusta, Australia’s most south westerly point and a place where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean’s meet, a rocky, rustic and foreboding coastline will greet you here.
Now change direction and head east towards Pemberton, and just outside of this small and non-descript little village lies the immense grounds of Gloucester National Park, which just happen to contain one helluva huge tree called, the Gloucester Tree. Now this one really isn’t for the faint-hearted, a 60metre climb up Western Australia’s most famous karri tree. There are no actual steps to this one, just long metal pegs driven into the huge tree’s trunk that form a kind of step which one can climb, if brave enough, to a small decked area at the top for a fantastic view across the park. With trembling legs and quivering feet finally back on terra-firma, but no doubt shaking for quite some time, there are any number of walks one can take. They range from 400metre loops to 10km walks but there is a lot of interesting fauna, great views and colourful wild parrots to see. A nearby rose and lavender garden serving afternoon teas makes another interesting and pleasant stop off.
From here continue east towards Walpole and the Valley of the Giants in Walpole/Nornalup National Park, another popular but not overtly crowded tourist destination. Here you can complete what will be your first ever treetop walk, aided by a suspension-bridge type structure that hangs 60metres above the ground, again offering more great views and wonderful photo opportunities across the region. Back on ground you can stroll along a decked walkway around, and sometimes quite literally through, a grove of ancient tingle trees, some nearly 16metres in circumference, a truly rare and unusual sight to behold.
The final destination for our tour of south of Perth was Albany, but before reaching this quiet coastal town we decided to make an unscheduled stop-off at Williams Bay; a real rugged, un-spoilt, windswept and somewhat wildly picturesque and sprawling bay that perhaps captures the real essence of what Australia is truly about. The beach was empty, not another living soul to be seen, a tad disconcerting at first, but I’d recommend, if not for the elephant backed rocks and the waves that pounded upon them then for the actual sense of  being lost in time.
As for Albany itself, it doesn’t have a great lot to offer but provide the basic requirements for passing visitors, most making their way to Torndirrup National Park or other nearby attractions. Within the town are a number of hotels and motels where one can stay, a few restaurants and bars where one can unwind after another long days driving or pounding the trails, what more does one need. These small provincial towns and villages are a million light-years from Australia’s cities, and whilst one can appreciate them on a pass through, one will quickly appreciate why Australia’s younger and more rural generations are a migrant group.
Torndirrup National Park offers one of the most scenic and interesting walks in all of Australia, and with over a quarter of a million visitors each year, it doesn’t disappoint. Key features along this brash and blustery cliff-top walk are the Gap, a huge cleft in the cliff-line over 30metres deep, a place where the sea rushes in and pounds against the rock producing thunderous claps and colossal sprays of white foam. Then there’s the bridge, a natural phenomenon caused by the seas erosion of rocks over millions of years, blow-holes where air is forced at great pressure through cracks in the rocks as the waves roll in well as numerous coastal walks around a piece of pristine coastline as one can get.
It’s a magnificent place to end ones tour of Australia’s Western coast before beginning the 500km drive back to Perth, but our journey wasn’t quite over yet, we had one more place to visit along this marauding stretch of coastline, but this one lies some 240kilometres north of Perth in the Nambung National Park, an unforgiving and particularly arid region where one wouldn’t want to be caught without a good supply of water, let alone an unreliable car. Hot desert winds, over the course of millions of years, have slowly blown the sand eastwards, exposing hundreds of limestone pillars varying in size from a few inches to a couple of metres tall, these have been aptly named the pinnacles. It’s a curious looking landscape, and one that would perhaps better suit the planet of Mars. However, it’s a photographers dream, and a fitting place to end our astonishing tour of a land rich in natural beauty, Western Australia.