Wildflowers & Natural Wonders of Western Australia’s Mid West

Your guide collects you from your Geraldton hotel or from Geraldton Airport in the morning and heads north. The first stop is Hutt Lagoon near Port Gregory, a little over an hour up the coast. The lake covers roughly 70 km² and most of it sits a few metres below sea level. The pink comes from Dunaliella salina, an alga that produces beta-carotene under salt stress, and it is harvested commercially at one end of the lagoon. The colour runs from red through bubblegum pink to lilac, depending on the light and is strongest in the middle of the day. North of the lagoon, the road runs above the Kalbarri cliffs, where the Indian Ocean has cut into the same sandstone you will see inland the following day. Humpbacks pass offshore on migration and dolphins are resident. Wildflower stops along the way are chosen on the day. The afternoon and evening are at Historic Murchison House Station on the Murchison River, where dinner is cooked over a campfire. Before dinner, you can take a canoe on the river or take a short walk to look for native orchids. Overnight: Kalbarri. Meals: Morning tea, lunch, dinner.

The morning is on the water — a nature cruise on the lower Murchison River, working the banks and the estuary for birdlife. The afternoon takes you inland to Kalbarri National Park, 1,830 km² of sandplain and gorge country gazetted in 1963. Nature’s Window is a short walk from the car park, a rock arch framing a bend in a gorge that runs for nearly 80 km. The Kalbarri Skywalk (Kaju Yatka) is a pair of platforms that project 25 m and 17 m past the rim, more than 100 m above the river. The rock beneath is Tumblagooda Sandstone, laid down around 440 million years ago; the arthropod trackways preserved in it are among the oldest evidence anywhere of animals moving on land. More than 800 wildflower species have been recorded in the park, and August and September are the peak. After dark, your guide runs a stargazing session inside the park, far enough from Kalbarri’s lights for the Milky Way to be visible to the naked eye. Overnight: Kalbarri. Meals: Breakfast, morning tea, dinner.

The return leg runs two ways, and you choose which when you book. Option A, the scenic flight. A 9am departure from Kalbarri, south over Hutt Lagoon and the coast to the Houtman Abrolhos. The morning is on East Wallabi Island: a guided nature walk, birdlife, limestone caves and snorkelling at Turtle Bay over the reef, with lunch on the island. The flight back passes over the site where the Dutch East India ship Batavia wrecked in 1629, landing at Geraldton Airport in the late afternoon. $790 per person (additional cost). Option B, the coastal and valley route. A drive south with wildflower stops, through the historic town of Northampton and inland through Chapman Valley, finishing on the Geraldton foreshore in time for the pelican feeding. Both routes end at The Gerald in Geraldton. Dinner is not included tonight, so the evening is yours. Overnight: The Gerald, Geraldton. Meals: Breakfast. Lunch is included for guests taking the scenic flight.

A full day inland, east of Geraldton. Coalseam Conservation Park is 754 ha on the Irwin River, about 115 km from the coast. In 1846, surveyor Augustus Gregory and his brothers found Western Australia’s first coal seam on the riverbank here, and the colony’s first coal mine followed, abandoned soon after because the coal was poor. The Johnson shaft is still visible, and the river section exposes the Irwin River Coal Measures, around 265 million years old. What brings people now is the flowers. In a good season the valley floor and terraces carry sheets of everlastings, and the surrounding sandplain is wreath flower country. The day is spent working the park and the roadsides around it with time to photograph at each stop. The tour returns to Geraldton for a farewell dinner, with a drive past the town’s landmarks on the way in. Overnight: The Gerald, Geraldton. Meals: Breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner.

Conclude your wildflower journey with breakfast at your leisure.