10 under-the-radar outback destinations to visit

Megan Arkinstall Megan Arkinstall
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Draw your attention to this new wave of outback icons that you’ll want to add to your bucket list.

You’ve heard of the big ticket outback destinations but there are a variety of places that have managed to fly under the radar of most Aussie’s bucket lists. It’s time to put the spotlight firmly on these incredible outback places.

1. Karijini National Park, WA

An oasis deep in the Pilbara, some 1400 kilometres from Perth, Karijini’s ancient landscape was carved out over billions of years. Covering more than half a million hectares, this natural wonderland comprises layered ochre-coloured rocks and sheer gorges, interspersed by fern-fringed, emerald-hued waterholes and cascading waterfalls. Hike to the summit of Punurrunha (Mt Bruce) for views of mulga flats or go gorge-hopping to see sunken gardens and deep, cold pools. During the winter months, wildflowers add bursts of colour to the rugged landscape.

a red and dusty road in Pilbara Karijin National Park
Drive to the red, dusty road in Karijini National Park. (Image: Tourism Australia)

2. Purnululu National Park, WA

At the end of the remote Gibb River Road (and then another five hours’ drive), this UNESCO-listed park is worth the detour for the enigmatic Bungle Bungle Ranges, a maze of 250-million-year-old orange-and-black-striped sandstone domes that rise 300 metres out of grassy plains. The supporting acts are just as wondrous, however, including Cathedral Gorge, a natural amphitheatre with euphonious acoustics, and Echidna Chasm, a narrow and steep gorge that you can walk through. It’s best seen at noon when light floods in and illuminates the rocks red and orange.

the Bungle Bungle Ranges in Purnululu National Park
Marvel at the enigmatic Bungle Bungle Ranges. (Image: Tourism Australia)

3. Northeast Arnhem Land, NT

At the tip of the Northern Territory, Northeast Arnhem Land is a vast and isolated region located on Yolu Country. The region has entered the national psyche, thanks to the annual Garma Festival that is attended by movers and shakers such as current and former PMs. But just off the coast, tropical Bremer Island flies under the radar. Home to a small Indigenous community, the island is fringed by empty white-sand beaches where sea turtles nest. Visit on a day tour via fast boat from Nhulunbuy or stay overnight at eco-resort Banubanu Beach Retreat. When in Nhulunbuy, art collectors should make the pilgrimage to Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre for the opportunity to purchase Yolu art.

Garma Festival in Northeast Arnhem Land
Garma Festival celebrates Yolngu life and culture in Northeast Arnhem Land. (Image: Tourism Australia)

4. Mary River, NT

Twitchers and fishermen are in on this secret. One of eight rivers in the Top End with seemingly endless floodplains, the Mary River comprises billabongs, woodlands, paperbark and monsoon forests and is teeming with wildlife, such as brolgas, egrets, sea eagles, monstrous saltwater crocs and wild buffalo. Visitors can explore this lush wetland system by scenic cruise, take a fishing charter in search of barramundi, or amp up the adventure on an airboat. 

An air-boat adventure in Mary River National Park
Hop on an airboat adventure in Mary River National Park. (Image: Tourism Australia)

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5. Wilpena Pound/Ikara, SA

Known as Ikara to the local Adnyamathanha people, Wilpena Pound covers eight times the area of Uluru yet is still relatively unknown to many Aussies.

clouds covering Wilpena Pound Flinders Ranges National Park
The stratified rim of Wilpena Pound, a natural amphitheatre of mountains. (Image: Julie Fletcher)

This massive crater is a remnant valley floor from an ancient mountain range that eroded away over millennia; a lush carpet of native flora is cradled within its jagged peaks. Tie up your laces and hit one of the trails from Wilpena Pound Resort, such as a leisurely walk along Wilpena Creek into the Pound or a challenging hike to St Mary’s Peak.

a family relaxing at Wilpena Pound Resort
Relax around a fire at Wilpena Pound Resort, SA. (Image: Julie Fletcher)

6. Arkaroola, SA

In the northern Flinders Ranges, 600 kilometres from Adelaide, Arkaroola was established as a private wildlife sanctuary in 1968. The 60,000-hectare property has extreme topographical diversity and rich geological significance. The jagged granite peaks, deep gorges and open woodlands cradle a plethora of native wildlife, notably the elusive yellow-footed rock wallaby.

the night sky filled with stars at Lake Mungo
Arkaroola is an International Dark Sky Reserve. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Experiences here include a four-wheel-drive Ridgetop Tour along steep mountainous terrain, where you can camp under the stars. Speaking of which, Arkaroola is one of four International Dark Sky Reserves in the country and has three astronomical observatories where you can learn more about the cosmos. 

7. Mungo National Park, NSW

Outback NSW or the surface of the moon? Squint your eyes and it’s hard to tell at Mungo. This surreal landscape, some 10 hours from Sydney and six hours from Melbourne, has been a place of mind-blowing archaeological discovery, including the oldest collection of fossilised footprints in the world, fossils of megafauna such as the giant short-faced kangaroo, and the remains of Mungo Lady and Mungo Man, which at 40,000 to 42,000 years old are the planet’s oldest ritual burials.

the stratified rim of Wilpena Pound
Lake Mungo’s lunar-like landscape. (Image: Tourism Australia/Time Out Australia)

Now a dry bed, Lake Mungo is fringed by the ethereal Walls of China, a 30-kilometre-long sand and clay lunette that is particularly spectacular to view at sunrise or sunset.

a desert landscape in Mungo National Park
Mungo National Park is home to some of the world’s oldest fossils. (Image: Tourism Australia/Time Out Australia)

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8. Lightning Ridge, NSW

Sure, Lightning Ridge is no secret. Its claim to fame is the elusive black opal, which has been mined here since the 1800s. But there’s more than these precious rainbow-hued gemstones under the surface (quite literally).

a hand holding opal stone from Lightning Ridge
Lightning Ridge is an opal mecca, where the rare black opal is mined. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Lightning Ridge sits on the Great Artesian Basin, which contains mineral-rich waters that are naturally heated at a toasty 41.5 degrees year-round. Soak in the therapeutic waters at the local bore bath, an idyllic experience under a star-filled outback sky.

rustic vehicles in Lightening Ridge
The town is full of rustic character. (Image: Tourism Australia)

9. Winton, Qld

Waltzing Matilda was written and first performed by Banjo Paterson in this outback Queensland town. Now Australia’s unofficial anthem, the poem is celebrated at the Waltzing Matilda Centre alongside other Australiana: the origins of Qantas, opal mining, the 1891 Shearers’ Strike, Australia’s war history and local Indigenous culture.

fossils inside the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum, Winton
Fossils and footprints can be seen at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum. (Image: Tourism Australia)

Winton is also the only place in the world that has evidence of a dinosaur stampede, with more than 3000 footprints discovered. See them and other fossils at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum.

a dinosaur display at Winton
Winton is famous for its dinosaur discoveries. (Image: Tourism Australia)

10. Boodjamulla National Park, Qld

Like a mirage on the epic Savannah Way, this national park is abound in lush vegetation and emerald waters, spectacular gorge country, rugged sandstone ranges and World Heritage fossil sites. The Traditional Owners are the Waanyi people who know this country as Boodjamulla – Rainbow Serpent Country.

a vehicle driving along the Savannah Way toward Boodjamulla National Park
The park is accessed via the Savannah Way. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland)

Paddle along creeks framed by sheer red sandstone cliffs, hike to see ancient rock carvings and visit the Riversleigh Fossil Site, which David Attenborough described as ‘extraordinary’.

a spectacular gorge in Boodjamulla National Park
Boodjamulla National Park possesses spectacular gorges. (Image: Tourism and Events Queensland)

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Megan Arkinstall
Megan Arkinstall is a freelance travel writer who you’ll often find at the beach, bushwalking or boating with her young family. She loves reliving travel memories through writing, whether that be sipping limoncello in a sun-drenched courtyard of Monterosso or swimming with green turtles in the aquamarine waters of Tropical North Queensland.
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This scenic Victorian region is the perfect antidote to city life

    Craig Tansley Craig Tansley
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    Video credit: Visit Victoria/Tourism Australia

    The Grampians just might be the ultimate antidote for the metropolis, writes one returning Aussie ready to disconnect from the modern world and reconnect to the Great outdoors.

    There are no kangaroos back in Chicago: they’re all here in the Grampians/Gariwerd. In the heart of the Grampians National Park’s main gateway town, Halls Gap, pods of eastern greys are eating grass beside my parked rental car beneath the stars. Next morning, when I see the backyard of my rented villa on the edge of town for the first time, there are kangaroos feeding beside a slow-moving creek, lined with river red gums.

    Five hundred metres up the road, 50 or so of them are eating by the side of the road in a paddock. I pull over to watch and spot three emus. Yellow-tailed black cockatoos fly overhead towards the tall green mountains just beyond town.

    ‘Kee-ow, keee-oww’… their calls fuse with the maniacal cackle of a kookaburra (or 10). Gawd, how I’ve missed the sound of them. Far above, a wedge-tailed eagle watches, and there you go: the ‘great birds of Australia’ trifecta, all half a kay from the town limits.

    Exchanging city chaos for country calm

    kangaroos near Halls Gap, Grampians National Park
    The park is renowned for its significant diversity of native fauna species. (Image: Visit Victoria/Robert Blackburn)

    I’ve come to the Grampians to disconnect, but the bush offers a connection of its own. This isn’t just any bush, mind you. The Grampians National Park is iconic for many reasons, mostly for its striking sandstone mountains – five ridges run north to south, with abrupt, orange slopes which tumble right into Halls Gap – and for the fact there’s 20,000 years of traditional rock art. Across these mountains there are more than 200 recorded sites to see, created by the Djab Wurrung, Jardwadjali and Gunditjmara peoples. It’s just like our outback… but three hours from Melbourne.

    I’ve come here for a chance at renewal after the chaos of my life in America’s third-largest city, Chicago, where I live for now, at the whim of a relative’s cancer journey. Flying into Melbourne’s airport, it only takes an hour’s drive to feel far away from any concept of suburbia. When I arrive in Halls Gap two hours later, the restaurant I’m eating at clears out entirely by 7:45pm; Chicago already feels a lifetime ago.

    The trails and treasures of the Grampians

    sunrise at Grampians National Park /Gariwerd
    Grampians National Park /Gariwerd covers almost 2000 square kilometres. (Image: Ben Savage)

    Though the national park covers almost 2000 square kilometres, its best-known landmarks are remarkably easy to access. From my carpark here, among the cockatoos and kangaroos on the fringe of Halls Gap, it only takes 60 seconds’ driving time before I’m winding my way up a steep road through rainforest, deep into the mountains.

    Then it’s five minutes more to a carpark that serves as a trailhead for a hike to one of the park’s best vantage points, The Pinnacles. I walk for an hour or so, reacquainting myself with the smells and the sounds of the Aussie bush, before I reach it: a sheer cliff’s edge lookout 500 metres up above Halls Gap.

    walking through a cave, Hollow Mountain
    Overlooking the vast Grampians landscape from Hollow Mountain. (Image: Robert Blackburn)

    There are hikes and there are lookouts and waterfalls all across this part of the park near town. Some are a short stroll from a carpark; others involve long, arduous hikes through forest. The longest is the Grampians Peaks Trail, Victoria’s newest and longest iconic walk, which runs 160 kilometres – the entire length of Grampians National Park.

    Local activities operator Absolute Outdoors shows me glimpses of the trail. The company’s owner, Adrian Manikas, says it’s the best walk he’s done in Australia. He says he’s worked in national parks across the world, but this was the one he wanted to bring his children up in.

    “There’s something about the Grampians,” he says, as he leads me up a path to where there’s wooden platforms for tents, beside a hut looking straight out across western Victoria from a kilometre up in the sky (these are part of the guided hiking options for the trail). “There are things out here that you won’t see anywhere else in Australia.” Last summer, 80 per cent of the park was damaged by bushfire, but Manikas shows me its regrowth, and tells me of the manic effort put in by volunteers from town – with firefighters from all over Australia – to help save Halls Gap.

    wildflowers in Grampians National Park
    Spot wildflowers. (Image: Visit Victoria)

    We drive back down to Halls Gap at dusk to abseil down a mountain under the stars, a few minutes’ walk off the main road into town. We have headlamps, but a full moon is enough to light my way down. It takes blind faith to walk backwards down a mountain into a black void, though the upside is I can’t see the extent of my descent.

    Grampians National Park at sunset
    Grampians National Park at sunset. (Image: Wine Australian)

    The stargazing is ruined by the moon, of course, but you should see how its glow lights up the orange of the sandstone, like in a theme park. When I’m done, I stand on a rocky plateau drinking hot chocolate and listening to the Aussie animals who prefer nighttime. I can see the streets of Halls Gap off in the distance on this Friday night. The restaurants may stay open until 8pm tonight.

    What else is on offer in The Grampians?

    a boat travelling along the Wimmera River inDimboola
    Travelling along the Wimmera River in Dimboola. (Image: Chris McConville)

    You’ll find all sorts of adventures out here – from rock climbing to canoeing to hiking – but there’s more to the Grampians than a couple of thousand square kilometres of trees and mountains. Halls Gap may be known to most people, but what of Pomonal, and Dimboola, and Horsham? Here in the shadow of those big sandstone mountains there are towns and communities most of us don’t know to visit.

    And who knew that the Grampians is home to Victoria’s most underrated wine region? My disconnection this morning comes not in a forest, but in the tasting rooms and winery restaurants of the district. Like Pomonal Estate, barely 10 minutes’ drive east of Halls Gap, where UK-born chef Dean Sibthorp prepares a locally caught barramundi with lentil, pumpkin and finger lime in a restaurant beside the vines at the base of the Grampians. Husband-and-wife team Pep and Adam Atchison tell me stories as they pour their prize wines (shiraz is the hero in these parts).

    dining at Pomonal Estate
    Dine in a restaurant beside vines at Pomonal Estate. (Image: Tourism Australia)

    Three minutes’ drive back down the road, long-time mates Hadyn Black and Darcy Naunton run an eclectic cellar door out of a corrugated iron shed, near downtown Pomonal. The Christmas before last, half the houses in Pomonal burnt down in a bushfire, but these locals are a resilient lot.

    The fires also didn’t stop the construction of the first art centre in Australia dedicated to environmental art in a nature-based precinct a little further down the road (that’s Wama – the National Centre for Environmental Arts), which opened in July. And some of the world’s oldest and rarest grape vines have survived 160 years at Best’s Wines, outside the heritage town of Great Western. There’s plantings here from the year 1868, and there’s wines stored in century-old barrels within 150-year-old tunnels beneath the tasting room. On the other side of town, Seppelt Wines’ roots go back to 1865. They’re both only a 30-minute drive from Halls Gap.

    Salingers of Great Western
    Great Western is a charming heritage town. (Image: Griffin Simm)

    There’s more to explore yet; I drive through tiny historic towns that barely make the map. Still part of the Grampians, they’re as pretty as the mountains behind them: full of late 19th-century/early 20th-century post offices, government offices and bank buildings, converted now to all manner of bric-a-brac stores and cafes.

    The Imaginarium is one, in quirky Dimboola, where I sleep in the manager’s residence of an old National Australia Bank after a gourmet dinner at the local golf club, run by noted chef and teacher, Cat Clarke – a pioneer of modern Indigenous Australian cooking. Just south, I spend an entire afternoon at a winery, Norton Estate Wines, set on rolling calico-coloured hills that make me think of Tuscany, chit-chatting with owners Chris and Sam Spence.

    Being here takes me back two decades, when I lived here for a time. It had all seemed as foreign as if I’d driven to another planet back then (from Sydney/Warrane), but there seemed something inherently and immediately good about this place, like I’d lived here before.

    And it’s the Australian small-town familiarity of the Grampians that offers me connection back to my own country. Even in the better-known Halls Gap, Liz from Kerrie’s Creations knows I like my lattes with soy milk and one sugar. And while I never do get the name of the lady at the local Ampol station, I sure know a lot about her life.

    Kookaburras on a tree
    Kookaburras are one of some 230 bird species. (Image: Darren Donlen)

    You can be a local here in a day; how good is that? In Chicago, I don’t even know who my neighbour is. Though each day at dusk – when the kangaroos gather outside my villa, and the kookaburras and the black cockatoos shout out loud before settling in to sleep – I prefer the quieter connection I get out there in the bush, beneath these orange mountains.

    A traveller’s checklist

    Staying there

    Sleep beside the wildlife on the edge of Halls Gap at Serenity.

    Playing there

    abseiling down Hollow Mountain
    Hollow Mountain is a popular abseiling site.

    Go abseiling under the stars or join a guided hike with Absolute Outdoors. Visit Wama, Australia’s first environmental art centre. Check out Dimboola’s eccentric Imaginarium.

    Eating there

    steak, naan bread and beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap
    Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap serves a great steak on naan bread.

    Eat world-class cuisine at Pomonal Estate. Dine and stay at much-revered icon Royal Mail Hotel in Dunkeld. The ‘steak on naan’ at Halls Gap brewhouse Paper Scissors Rock, can’t be beat.

    Dunkeld Arboretum in Grampians National Park
    The serene Dunkeld Arboretum.

    For Halls Gap’s best breakfasts head to Livefast Cafe. Sip local wines at Great Western’s historic wineries, Best’s Wines, Seppelt Wines and Norton Estate Wines.

    two glasses of beer at Paper Scissors Rock in Halls Gap
    Sink a cold one at Paper Scissors Rock.