Coral Coast Self-Guided Motorcycle Tour

Western Australia’s Coral Coast is a long way from anywhere and all the better for it. Twelve days self-guided from Perth, eleven nights and 3,075 kilometres north along a coast where the reef comes to the beach.

The Pinnacles come first, only a few hours out of Perth: thousands of limestone spires standing in yellow sand, looking like nothing else anywhere in Australia. Then the road runs north to Kalbarri, where the Murchison River has cut gorges into red rock a short ride inland from the sea cliffs.

Shark Bay follows, a World Heritage area of seagrass meadows and improbably pale water, and then the trip reaches the thing it came north for. Ningaloo Reef runs for hundreds of kilometres along the coast at Coral Bay and Exmouth, close enough to the shore to swim straight out to it, and whale sharks pass through the area between March and July. The return leg then retraces the coast south to Perth.

BikeRoundOz provides the bike of your choice, eleven nights in three and a half to four star hotels, a detailed itinerary document, digital maps and pre-tour route advice. A pillion stays free on the accommodation. Fuel, meals, excursions and insurance are arranged separately, and the season runs March to November, which matters here because the summer heat is serious. Distances between towns are long and services are sparse, so this is a trip that rewards planning the fuel stops properly, which is precisely what the route notes are there for.