Kalbarri National Park lies at the mouth of the Murchison River between Carnarvon and Geraldton. Its location on a gorgeous stretch of the Indian Pacific coastline is remote enough for your visit to feel like a real outback adventure, yet it is only a 6 to 7-hour drive north from Perth.

Of all the national parks we visited in Western Australia, this was the most accessible, with all roads sealed and suitable for 2WDs. When you’ve spent endless hours crawling along heavily corrugated gravel roads on your way to one national park or other, that’s certainly something you’ll appreciate. And the park doesn’t compromise on scenic beauty but offers an astonishing variety of landscapes in its two distinctly different sections.

In the inland section of the National Park, the Murchison River on its journey toward the ocean has carved out 80 kilometres of deep chasms that wind through the red sandstone in long wavy lines. Where the river meets the sea in the southern, Kalbarri Coastal Park section, the eroded coastal cliffs plummet vertically into the surging Indian Ocean.

As always, we thought the best way to explore the park was on one of the many walks that make this remote and ancient outback wilderness accessible to hikers. They range from lookouts beside the road with short strolls on custom-built boardwalks, tracks, and viewing platforms like the newly opened Kalbarri Skywalk to more challenging trails.

Our favourite walk in the park was the 8-kilometre Loop Walk with Nature’s Window that descends into the deep gorge cut out by the Murchison River. It’s not a challenging walk, but temperatures at the bottom of the gorge can reach 50°C in the summer months. I’d say skip this hike if you’re visiting on a hot day between December and February because the gorge will feel like a furnace. The best time to visit is in the wildflower season between July and October when more than a thousand varieties of wildflowers burst into bloom.