Australia: Western Australia – One Mile Jetty Museum

🚂 The Mile Long Jetty Museum

The Mile Long Jetty Museum is precisely the sort of attraction that sounds, on paper, like the kind of thing you’d file under “maybe” and then forget about entirely. A museum. About a jetty. In a town of about five thousand people on the mid-coast of Western Australia. I can hear the excitement from here.

But here’s the thing: it was genuinely fascinating, and I say that as a man whose natural resting position on the subject of industrial maritime infrastructure is one of profound indifference.

The jetty itself was built in 1897, which puts it squarely in that period of Australian history when Western Australia was essentially a very large, very hot frontier — a place being yanked into economic existence by sheer colonial will, cattle stations the size of small European countries, and a great deal of optimism about what might be found in the ground or grown in the earth. By the 1890s, the colony had been in existence for around sixty years, having been officially established in 1829 when Captain James Stirling led the first settlers to the Swan River. But it remained, even by the late nineteenth century, an extraordinarily remote and sparsely populated place. Carnarvon itself sat on the Gascoyne River delta, about 900 kilometres north of Perth, which in those days was not a short trip by any measure.

The challenge that prompted the building of the jetty was a geological one, and it was not a small challenge. The waters around Carnarvon are extraordinarily shallow. Ships — proper ocean-going cargo ships — simply could not get anywhere near the shore. They had to anchor out in Shark Bay at a distance that made loading and unloading cargo by conventional means completely impractical. The solution, arrived at with the sort of cheerful bluntness that characterises a great deal of Australian engineering history, was to build a jetty long enough to reach them. So they built one 1,490 metres long. That’s just under a mile — which is, when you stand at the shore end and look out towards the horizon, a very long way indeed.

To service the jetty, they laid a small railway track along its entire length. A little train would trundle back and forth carrying cargo between the ships anchored at the far end and the warehouses on shore — wool bales heading out from the sheep stations of the inland, fruit crates coming back in, general supplies for a community that depended entirely on what ships could bring. For decades, this was Carnarvon’s lifeline to the outside world.

The museum does an excellent job of all this. There were photographs showing the jetty in its working prime — busy, purposeful, laden with the produce of a region that was slowly, doggedly finding its economic feet. Looking at those photographs, it struck me as both ingenious and quietly heroic. The men who worked it did so in temperatures that would make a Spaniard weep into his hat. The conditions were ones that would have a modern health and safety officer reaching for a cold compress and a long lie-down. There was no shade on a jetty. There was no air conditioning. There was just the work, the heat, the flies, and the relentless Western Australian sun bouncing off the water at you from every direction simultaneously.

The museum also covers, with some thoroughness, the industries that the jetty served. The banana trade gets a well-deserved section to itself. Carnarvon became known across Australia for its bananas — the Gascoyne River valley, fed by irrigation from the river, turned out to be peculiarly well-suited to growing them, and by the mid-twentieth century the town had built something of an identity around the fact. There were also exhibits on the pastoral trade — the vast sheep stations of the interior pushing enormous quantities of wool through this single narrow structure and out into the world — and on the fishing industry that worked the rich waters of Shark Bay and the coast beyond.

And then there were the cyclones. Carnarvon has been hit by them repeatedly, and the museum doesn’t gloss over this. Serious cyclones. Structural cyclones. The kind that remove roofs and take out infrastructure and generally indicate that nature has absolutely no interest in whatever plans you had for the weekend. The town has been damaged, rebuilt, damaged again, and rebuilt again, multiple times across its history. Cyclone Hazel in 1961. Cyclone Trixie in 1975. Others besides. Each time, the town got back up, swept up the mess, and got on with things. This strikes me as very Australian in the best possible way. You get the impression that if a cyclone demolished the pub on a Saturday night, they’d have a temporary bar running by Sunday lunchtime and someone would already be arguing about the cricket.

🔦 The Lightkeeper’s Cottage

Within the museum precinct sits the Lightkeeper’s Cottage, restored and fitted out as an exhibit in its own right, and it was well worth the extra time we spent on it.

Lightkeeping was a profession that sounded, from a distance, rather romantic — the solitary guardian of the light, standing watch against the darkness, keeping sailors safe. In practice, as the cottage made clear, it was mostly a life of considerable isolation, relentless routine, and meticulous record-keeping, conducted far from anywhere that might generously be described as civilisation.

The lighthouse on this stretch of coast was a critical piece of infrastructure. The waters off Carnarvon and along the broader mid-Western Australian coast are not forgiving. Shark Bay, for all its scenic qualities, has claimed ships, and the broader Indian Ocean off this coast has claimed rather more. The lightkeeper’s job was to keep the light burning, to maintain the equipment, and to log everything — weather, passing ships, incidents, observations — in the kind of precise, dispassionate detail that nineteenth and early twentieth century colonial record-keeping demanded.

The cottage itself is small. The rooms are modest. The furniture is period-appropriate and the domestic details have been thoughtfully assembled — kitchen equipment of the era, children’s things, a modest sitting room that speaks of a family making the best of a genuinely isolated existence. There was something in those details, in the smallness of the rooms and the quietness of it all, that conveyed what remote coastal life in this period actually required of the people who lived it. It required, more than anything else, a particular kind of patient endurance. The ability to simply get on with it, day after day, far from neighbours, far from news, far from the texture of ordinary social life.

It’s the sort of exhibit that repays proper attention rather than a quick scan-and-move-on, and we gave it proper attention. I’m glad we did.

⚓ The HMAS Sydney II

And then there was the documentary.

We had sat down in the small screening area with the intention of watching for ten minutes or so before moving on. We stayed for the whole thing. We came out rather subdued. My wife didn’t say much for a while, and neither did I, which if you know either of us is something of an event.

The HMAS Sydney was one of Australia’s most celebrated warships — a modified Leander-class light cruiser, commissioned in 1935, the second Royal Australian Navy vessel to carry the name. She had a distinguished record before the events that ended her. She had served in the Mediterranean in the early years of the Second World War, operating under British Admiralty control as part of the Royal Navy’s Mediterranean Fleet, and she had form — genuine, gun-smoke-and-glory form. In July 1940, off the coast of Crete near Cape Spada, she engaged and sank the Italian cruiser Bartolomeo Colleoni in an engagement that was sharp, decisive, and made headlines across the Allied world. The Sydney came home to Australia in early 1941 a celebrated ship, a morale-booster, a name that Australians were proud of. She had a crew of 645 men.

By November 1941 she was operating in home waters, doing the unglamorous but necessary work of escorting convoys and patrolling the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia. The war in the Pacific had not yet formally begun — Pearl Harbour was still three weeks away — but the Indian Ocean was not a safe place. German surface raiders, known as auxiliary cruisers or Hilfskreuzers, had been operating across it for months, disguised as civilian merchant vessels and hunting Allied shipping with considerable success.

On 19 November 1941, the Sydney encountered what appeared to be a Dutch merchant vessel called the Straat Malakka, sailing alone in the open ocean roughly 200 kilometres off Steep Point. The Sydney signalled her and moved in to inspect, closing to a range that many naval historians have since described as uncomfortably close for a warship approaching an unverified vessel.

It was not the Straat Malakka. It was the HSK Kormoran — a converted freighter of 8,736 tonnes, armed with six 15-centimetre guns concealed behind false hull panels, four torpedo tubes, and a crew of 400 experienced German naval personnel under the command of Kapitän zur See Theodor Detmers. The Kormoran had been operating in the Indian Ocean since early 1941, had already sunk or captured eleven Allied ships, and was very good at what she did.

What happened next has been argued over, reconstructed, and formally investigated multiple times across the decades since, and the documentary presented the competing accounts with considerable care. The Kormoran dropped her disguise and opened fire at almost point-blank range, the concealed guns swinging out from behind their false panels and firing before the Sydney’s crew had any real chance to respond to what was happening. Torpedoes were launched simultaneously. The Sydney was hit hard and hit fast.

She was not defenceless. She returned fire and hit the Kormoran with sufficient force that the German vessel was ultimately lost as well — Detmers eventually gave the order to scuttle, and the Kormoran sank that evening. But the damage to the Sydney was catastrophic. She was observed burning heavily and listing to the south as darkness fell on 19 November 1941. And then she was gone. All 645 men aboard were lost. Not one survived.

The Kormoran’s crew largely made it into lifeboats. Three hundred and seventeen of them were eventually rescued by Australian vessels and aircraft over the days that followed, and spent the remainder of the war as prisoners of war in Australia. It was from their accounts — and from the inconsistencies and consistencies between those accounts as they were interviewed separately over the years — that investigators attempted to reconstruct what had happened and, critically, where the ships had gone down.

Because for sixty-six years, nobody knew.

The location of the wrecks of the Sydney and the Kormoran was one of the great unsolved maritime mysteries of the Second World War. The Kormoran’s survivors had provided a position, but searches in subsequent decades found nothing, and the ocean off this coast is deep, cold, and in absolutely no hurry to give anything up. The families of the 645 men who died carried this absence for generations. There was no wreck to visit. There was no confirmed location to grieve over. There was just the knowledge that the ship and her crew had gone down somewhere out there, in that water, and that nobody knew precisely where.

Then, in March 2008, a privately funded search expedition — the Finding Sydney Foundation, backed by donations from across Australia — deployed modern deep-water sonar technology across the search area. They found both wrecks within a few hours of each other, lying approximately 2,500 metres below the surface, roughly 200 kilometres off Steep Point. Steep Point, for reference, is not far at all from where we were sitting in that museum in Carnarvon, watching the footage on a small screen.

That geographical fact, when it registered, landed rather heavily.

The remotely operated vehicles sent down to photograph the wrecks found them lying on the seabed in the deep, cold dark, together in death as they had been in that terrible engagement sixty-seven years earlier. The Sydney’s bell was recovered from the wreck and now sits in the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. The positions of both wrecks are formally registered. They are designated and protected as war graves under Australian law, which means they will not be disturbed.

The 645 men who died when the Sydney went down on 19 November 1941 finally had a confirmed resting place, sixty-seven years after the fact. The families who were still living to hear the news in 2008 had, in many cases, waited their entire adult lives for that answer.

💭 Reflections

We went to the museum because it was there and because we’d decided not to be the sort of travellers who drive past things. I expected a reasonable way to spend an hour.

I hadn’t expected to sit in a small room watching footage of two ships on the bottom of the ocean and feel the weight of what that meant. The jetty and the cottage were interesting. The HMAS Sydney was something else altogether.

There’s a particular kind of heaviness that comes with learning about events like this in the place where they are most keenly felt — not in a capital city museum, not at a national memorial, but in a small regional town on a coast that was part of the story. Carnarvon is close to where those ships went down. The men who were eventually rescued came ashore near here. The search that finally found the wrecks was launched, in part, because this community kept the story alive.

I didn’t know any of that before we stopped. I’m glad we stopped.

Planning Your Visit to the One Mile Jetty Museum

🏛️ One Mile Jetty Precinct, Carnarvon, Western Australia

The One Mile Jetty Precinct is one of Western Australia’s most significant heritage sites, bringing together Carnarvon’s rich coastal, pastoral, horticultural, and maritime history in a single, immersive location. Managed by the Carnarvon Heritage Group, the precinct sits on Babbage Island at the mouth of the Gascoyne River and offers a fascinating window into the region’s past through its collection of museums, restored locomotives, walking trails, a mangrove boardwalk, a licensed café, and a museum shop stocking local and handcrafted merchandise.

📖 History

As the pastoral industry grew in Carnarvon during the late 1800s, the local community lobbied the government to establish a port. By 1897 the jetty had been constructed, and from 1898 wool, livestock, and essential goods began moving between Carnarvon and Fremantle via state shipping. Carnarvon holds the distinction of being the first port in Western Australia to load livestock onto ships for transport to market.

By the 1920s, up to a third of the state’s entire wool clip was being exported across the jetty. The tramway linking the town to the jetty head transported goods, produce, and even schoolchildren. The jetty transport system ceased operation in 1966 when state ships stopped calling, and road trains gradually took over. In 1998, the community rallied to preserve what was then the longest jetty in the north of the state.

In April 2021, Cyclone Seroja caused serious damage to the seaward section of the jetty, which has been closed to the public ever since. The Western Australian Government has committed $4.5 million toward restoring the remaining approximately 650 metres of structure, with works due to commence shortly. Visitors can view the remains of the jetty from within the precinct and explore its full story in the One Mile Jetty Museum.

🏟️ What to See and Do

One Mile Jetty Museum

The centrepiece of the precinct, this museum tells the story of one of Australia’s greatest maritime tragedies. In November 1941, the HMAS Sydney II engaged the German raider HSK Kormoran off the Carnarvon coast. All 645 crew aboard the Sydney were lost — Australia’s worst naval disaster. At the heart of the gallery is the preserved lifeboat from the Kormoran, which brought 46 survivors ashore. Immersive exhibits, interpretive panels, and a scale model of the largest shore-based whaling station in the southern hemisphere bring the story vividly to life. Daily film screenings in the onsite theatre recount the dramatic 2008 discovery of both wrecks on the ocean floor. A restored wooden passenger carriage — used on the Tramway for 53 years, including for the transport of Kormoran survivors to a prisoner-of-war camp — will soon join the permanent collection.

Babbage Island Rail Museum

This hands-on museum celebrates Carnarvon’s railway heritage through an impressive collection of locomotives, wagons, and historical artefacts. The standout exhibit is the Kimberley steam train, brought down from Broome in the 1950s and believed to be the only surviving example of its kind in the world. The museum explores how the jetty tramway once connected the town to the jetty head and includes shearing and pastoral exhibits, vintage vehicles, a full-sized naval cutter, and a broad range of heritage items from across the Gascoyne region.

Lighthouse Head and Lighthouse Keepers’ Cottage

Built around 1898 to house the lighthouse keeper and his family, this beautifully restored four-room timber and reed board cottage offers a fascinating glimpse into domestic life in early Carnarvon. The interior is filled with original items — from kitchen tools and handmade clothing to everyday household objects — that reflect the social fabric of the Gascoyne community. In the cottage yard stands the fully restored original lighthouse head, once again flashing in its original sequence, along with a restored chain pump used in remote pastoral water supply.

Walking Trails

Scenic walking trails extend from the precinct along the Gascoyne river mouth, through the mangrove boardwalk, across the Fascine, and toward significant cultural and natural landmarks. The trail passes the ‘Don’t Look at the Islands’ statue, which acknowledges the Aboriginal people who were confined to Lock Hospitals on Bernier and Dorre Islands, some 50 kilometres to the west. With over 140 species of birdlife, tidal flats teeming with crabs and fish, and sweeping river and ocean views, the walkways offer a peaceful and thought-provoking experience.

Kestrel Café

The licensed Kestrel Café overlooks the jetty and the Indian Ocean and serves coffee, cold drinks, and light meals. Both indoor and outdoor seating is available.

📍 Location

Annear Place, Babbage Island, Carnarvon WA 6701

The precinct is situated on Babbage Island, a five-minute drive from the centre of Carnarvon. It is easily reached via the Tramway Bridge Walk on foot or by car, with ample parking available on site.

🚗 Getting There

From central Carnarvon, head west along Robinson Street and cross the Tramway Bridge onto Babbage Island Road. Follow Babbage Island Road to the western end of the island, where the precinct is signposted. Alternatively, the Tramway Bridge Walk offers a scenic approach on foot along the historic tramway route, with views across the mangroves and the Gascoyne River mouth.

🎟️ Entry Fees

Entry tickets are valid for two days and include access to all museums. Tickets are purchased on site at the heritage carriage.

Adults: $15 Children (school age): $8 Family pass (2 adults + up to 3 children): $38 Concession: $10

Guided tours are available on request and can be arranged in advance by contacting the precinct directly.

🕘 Opening Times

Open seven days a week, 9:00am – 4:00pm

🌐 Website

onemilejettyprecinct.com.au

📞 Contact

Phone: 0429 412 421 or 0417 389 798 Email: info@onemilejettyprecinct.com.au

Best Time to Visit the Northern Coasts of Western Australia

The northern coasts of Western Australia span an extraordinary stretch of coastline running from Kalbarri and Shark Bay in the south through the Coral Coast, Ningaloo Reef, and Exmouth, all the way north to the Pilbara and the Kimberley. This is a region of enormous geographical variety — from the Mediterranean-tinged climate of Kalbarri’s red-gorge coast to the full tropical drama of Broome and the Kimberley — and no single set of rules applies uniformly across the whole stretch. What they share, however, is a broad seasonal logic: the further north you travel, the more sharply the Wet and Dry seasons dominate; the further south, the more the climate modulates into something warmer and drier, but more manageable year-round. Understanding how each season plays across these different areas is the key to planning a well-timed journey.

🌧️ Wet Season — Summer (November to April)

Summer brings the full force of the tropics to the upper northern coasts. Across Broome, the Kimberley, and the Pilbara, temperatures regularly exceed 35°C and can climb well into the low 40s, accompanied by high humidity, monsoonal downpours, and the genuine threat of cyclones from December through to March. Many unsealed roads, including those accessing remote gorges and coastal areas, become impassable. Some resorts and tour operators in the remote Kimberley close entirely.

Further south, Kalbarri and Shark Bay feel the summer heat differently. Kalbarri sits in a warm Mediterranean climate and experiences its hottest, driest months from November through February, with temperatures regularly exceeding 35°C and occasionally touching 40°C, particularly inland and within the gorges of Kalbarri National Park. Hiking the Loop, Z-Bend Gorge, or visiting the Kalbarri Skywalk in full summer is inadvisable — gorge temperatures can be brutal and dangerous. The beach and snorkelling at Blue Holes Marine Sanctuary remain accessible, and the town maintains a lively summer holiday atmosphere during school breaks. Shark Bay is similarly hot and dry in summer, with Monkey Mia’s famous wild dolphin encounters continuing year-round regardless of season. The heat can make daytime exploration of the peninsula’s more exposed areas uncomfortable, and the Francois Peron National Park’s unsealed tracks require a high-clearance 4WD at all times.

Across the full northern coastal stretch, stinger (jellyfish) season is active from October through May, significantly restricting safe ocean swimming in many locations. Turtle nesting at Ningaloo peaks between November and February, and whale shark activity at Ningaloo can begin as early as mid-March.

What to pack: Lightweight, moisture-wicking clothing, a waterproof rain jacket or poncho, SPF 50+ sunscreen and SPF lip balm, DEET insect repellent, a wide-brimmed hat, waterproof sandals or quick-dry footwear, a dry bag for electronics, rehydration sachets, a stinger suit if swimming, and a cyclone-tracking app for travel north of Exmouth.

🍂 Dry Season — Autumn (March to May)

April and May are among the most rewarding months to visit the northern coasts, striking the ideal balance between warmth, accessibility, and wildlife spectacle. The rains ease from March onwards, humidity drops markedly, and the landscape remains lush from the wet season — particularly in the Kimberley, where waterfalls are still flowing strongly and the red-rock country is at its most vivid.

Kalbarri is at its absolute best in autumn. Locals and experienced visitors consistently cite April as the sweet spot: temperatures of 26–30°C with little wind, calm waters on the Murchison River ideal for kayaking and paddleboarding, and the gorge trails of Kalbarri National Park comfortably walkable again. Wildflowers begin their season in the surrounding countryside from around late June, but even in April the Kalbarri area offers exceptional birdlife and a noticeably relaxed, uncrowded atmosphere. Accommodation is easier to book than in peak winter, and prices are more competitive.

Shark Bay in autumn is similarly excellent. April and May bring warm, manageable days with temperatures between 24°C and 30°C, perfect for kayaking the turquoise shallows of Denham, visiting the ancient stromatolites at Hamelin Pool, and watching the bottlenose dolphins wade ashore at Monkey Mia. The seagrass beds that sustain Shark Bay’s enormous dugong population — thought to number around 10,000 individuals, the largest concentration in the world — are best explored by boat or kayak in the calm autumn conditions. Humpback whale migration passes through Shark Bay from around May as whales begin tracking northward.

Further up the coast, whale shark season at Ningaloo hits full stride from mid-March through to late July, with guided snorkel tours from Exmouth and Coral Bay filling rapidly. Booking well in advance is essential.

What to pack: Light cotton or linen clothing for warm days, a warmer layer for cool evenings, sunscreen, a hat, polarised sunglasses, reef-safe sunscreen for Ningaloo snorkelling, a rash vest or stinger suit, sturdy hiking shoes for gorge walks, a portable water supply for remote areas, and a camera with underwater housing.

❄️ Dry Season — Winter (June to August)

Winter is the undisputed peak season across the full length of the northern coast, and with good reason. From Kalbarri in the south to Broome in the north, conditions during these months are warm, reliably sunny, and almost entirely rain-free — the very definition of ideal travelling weather.

Kalbarri in winter settles into days of around 20–24°C with cool evenings and nights that can dip towards 10°C — considerably cooler than the tropical north, but perfectly comfortable for gorge walking, coastal exploration, and camping. The wildflower season, which runs from late June through October, adds extraordinary colour to the surrounding landscape. Humpback whales migrate along the coast from June through November, and spotters on Kalbarri’s clifftops regularly sight them from June onwards. The Kalbarri Skywalk — a cantilevered viewing platform extending 100 metres over the gorge — is best experienced in the comfortable winter temperatures.

Shark Bay in winter can be notably cooler than the tropical north, with daytime temperatures of around 20–25°C and nights that occasionally fall below 15°C — warmer clothing is worth packing. The Monkey Mia dolphin encounters continue daily. The World Heritage-listed area’s birdlife reaches its peak diversity in these months, with over a third of Australia’s total bird species represented in the region. Dugong boat tours from Monkey Mia and Denham operate reliably. The main concern in winter is the wind: Shark Bay can experience strong southerly winds in June and July, which makes some water activities uncomfortable and choppy.

Further north, the entire Kimberley coast, Ningaloo Reef, Exmouth, and the Pilbara are all open, accessible, and operating at full capacity. Whale sharks continue at Ningaloo into late July. Karijini National Park — one of Australia’s most dramatic gorge systems — offers cool swimming holes and comfortable hiking. Broome’s famous Cable Beach and the Kimberley’s gorge country draw large crowds in July, which is Western Australia’s main school holiday month.

What to pack: Light daytime clothing (shorts, T-shirts, light shirts), a fleece or lightweight down jacket for cool evenings and Shark Bay nights, long trousers for cooler nights and gorge walks, sturdy closed-toe walking shoes, sandals, sunscreen, polarised sunglasses, swimwear, a dry bag, binoculars for whale watching, a headtorch for gorge exploration, and any prescription medication (pharmacies are limited in remote areas).

🌸 Shoulder Season — Spring (September to November)

Spring is a tale of two halves across the northern coast. September and early October offer some of the most enjoyable travelling conditions of the year: warm but not brutal temperatures, open roads, continued wildflower displays, active wildlife, and noticeably thinning crowds following the July–August peak.

In Kalbarri, spring is the second-best period for a visit. Wildflowers are at their most spectacular throughout September and into October, with the surrounding Kalbarri National Park and the roadsides of the Midwest blanketed in everlarts, banksias, and dozens of endemic species. Whale watching from the cliffs continues until November. Temperatures climb through October, and by late October the heat begins to reassert itself; the flies also return in force. The gorge trails become increasingly uncomfortable as the month progresses, and most experienced hikers finish major walks by morning to avoid the worst of the afternoon heat.

Shark Bay in spring is lively and scenic. September through October sees warm, pleasant conditions for water activities, and the area’s turtles — green turtles and loggerhead turtles both nest in the region — begin their season from around November. Monkey Mia’s dolphins are reliably active, and dugong boat tours continue throughout. October can still be excellent, but November marks the beginning of the heat build-up that makes summer here less comfortable.

Further north, the tropical build-up arrives earlier and more aggressively. By November, humidity is rising sharply across Broome and the Kimberley, and the pre-wet-season atmosphere — known locally as “the Build-up” — can be wearing. Cyclone risk increases from November. September is the last truly ideal month for the northern Kimberley, while October is still manageable in the Pilbara and Coral Coast areas with the right preparation and heat tolerance.

What to pack: Light breathable clothing, heavy-duty SPF 50+ sunscreen, a hat, polarised sunglasses, light rain protection from October onwards, insect repellent (flies are persistent in spring), swimwear, reef-safe sunscreen, a cooling towel, electrolyte supplements, a stinger suit from November, and flexible travel insurance covering weather disruption.

🌟 Overall Best Time to Visit

For travellers covering the full sweep of the northern coast — from Kalbarri and Shark Bay through the Coral Coast and Ningaloo to the Kimberley — the window from late April through to August represents the strongest overall recommendation, with June and July standing out as the definitive sweet spot. During these months, every destination along this extraordinary coastline is open and performing at its peak: Kalbarri’s gorges are walkable and wildflower-fringed, Shark Bay’s waters are calm and its wildlife abundant, Ningaloo’s whale sharks and humpbacks are both in residence, and the remote northern reaches of the Kimberley and Karijini are fully accessible under brilliant, rain-free skies. Those who can avoid the July school holiday peak — travelling in May, June, or the first half of August — will encounter the same remarkable conditions with fewer fellow visitors, lower accommodation prices, and a little more of the vast, unhurried solitude that makes this coastline one of the finest in the world.