Travel the Indian Ocean Drive

Nestled on the edge of an impossibly blue bay, a two-hour drive north of Perth, Lancelin is famous for three things: delicious western rock lobsters, protected colonies of sea lions, and epic sand surfing on the highest dunes in the west.

Rent a sandboard to ride the sky-high dunes, then take your sandy pants to the sea to rinse off. While you’re there, launch your tinnie for offshore catches of pink snapper, yellowtail kingfish and baldchin groper, or dangle a line from the jetty to snare whiting, tailor and flathead. Off Lancelin, 14 shipwrecks create a challenging dive trail for experienced wreck explorers.

Pushing north to Cervantes, the Pinnacles Desert in Nambung National Park protects a sea of golden limestone spires that rise up to four metres high – a symbol of peace woven into Yued folklore. You can drive around the park, stopping to climb to lookouts and photograph the western grey kangaroos that emerge to graze at dawn.

Next, continue along the Indian Ocean Drive to Jurien Bay to launch your tinnie (or hire one for the day) and go fishing offshore.

Book a wildlife cruise to swim with Jurien Bay’s 800-strong breeding colony of Australian sea lions that haul out on the isolated Buller Island, North Fisherman Island and Essex Rocks.

The sea lions are protected so there’s no fishing here, but you can scuba dive underwater pinnacles and snorkel the shallow seagrass meadows off Boullanger Island that nurture western rock lobsters and a diverse range of sea life.

Step right off the sand at Jurien Bay’s Town Beach onto an interpretive snorkel trail that leads over a vibrant artificial reef. At day’s end, barbecue your catch on one of the bay’s beautiful beaches, or drive to the Lobster Shack in nearby Cervantes for a feast of locally caught rock lobsters.

Self-sufficient travellers park their rigs at Sandy Cape Recreation Park, 15km north of Jurien Bay, or alongside the bluest water on earth at Green Head’s Milligan Island campground.

Here you’ll find Dynamite Bay - a near-perfect arc of white sand and opalescent sea - named for 1960s-era treasure hunters whose dynamite unearthed a bounty of silver from the 1656 shipwreck Vergulde Draeck (the Gilt Dragon). It’s a heavenly place for swimming, snorkelling and stand-up paddleboarding, and one of the best surf breaks on the Coral Coast is just one headland north at Point Louise.

Head inland to spotlight your way through Stockyard Tunnel’s 300m-long cave, and go waterskiing at Lake Indoon when winter rains transform the salt pan into a vast watery playground.

Early European explorers who sailed too close to the Coral Coast in the 1600s littered the sea floor with their treasure-filled shipwrecks. Visit the world-class Museum of Geraldton for melancholy tales of survival, mutiny and murder, then climb to a memorial to the HMAS Sydney II and German raider HSK Kormoran, sunk off Geraldton in one of Australia’s worst naval tragedies.

The long empty coastline that stretches north of Geraldton bristles with more than 12,000 species of springtime wildflowers, triggered by Western Australia’s heavy wintertime rains. This brief, spectacular bloom spills onto the roadside and carpets every field.

Distracted by the vibrant verge, it’s easy to miss the turn-off to the famously breezy Coronation Beach - an excellent seaside camp and the best place in the west to go wind, kite or foil surfing. Campsites book out when ‘Coro’ hosts the Wave Rally World Championships in January each year, and there’s a gentle longboard break and good beach fishing, too.

Good catches of whiting and skipjack await just north at Horrocks Beach where you can cast off the old timber jetty, or take your tinnie to the outer reef for banquet-sized snapper and dhufish. You can camp nearby at the remote 4WD-only Little Bay ($15/night), or head beyond the lolly-pink lakes at Hutt Lagoon to any number of full-facility holiday parks in Kalbarri.

From pale lilac to strawberry milk and hot pink, Hutt Lagoon’s photogenic salt pans thrill onlookers with their beta-carotene-rich waters, waxing and waning in hue depending on how well the microalgae Dunaliella salina is blooming in these stunning pink lakes. Catch the colours before your road trip continues to Kalbarri where you can stop at wave-sculpted clifftop lookouts and spot cavernous amphitheatres and migratory humpback whales offshore.

Good catches of whiting and skipjack await just north at Horrocks Beach where you can cast off the old timber jetty, or take your tinnie to the outer reef for banquet-sized snapper and dhufish. You can camp nearby at the remote 4WD-only Little Bay ($15/night), or head beyond the lolly-pink lakes at Hutt Lagoon to any number of full-facility holiday parks in Kalbarri.

From pale lilac to strawberry milk and hot pink, Hutt Lagoon’s photogenic salt pans thrill onlookers with their beta-carotene-rich waters, waxing and waning in hue depending on how well the microalgae Dunaliella salina is blooming in these stunning pink lakes. Catch the colours before your road trip continues to Kalbarri where you can stop at wave-sculpted clifftop lookouts and spot cavernous amphitheatres and migratory humpback whales offshore.

• Australia's Coral Coast
• Western Australia recreational fishing rules
• Wild Travel Story