Exploring Western Australia - Britz

Seven nights and 2,305 kilometres in a loop from Perth in a campervan, on sealed road throughout, down the south west and along the south coast.

Busselton and Margaret River come first, where the vineyards sit within a few minutes of the surf breaks and the limestone caves, then Denmark on the south coast, with the Valley of the Giants nearby, where a walkway runs forty metres up in the canopy of tingle trees that grow nowhere else in the world.

Esperance follows and is the point of the trip, with a coastline of white sand and water an improbable blue, and Cape Le Grand National Park holds the best of it, including a beach where kangaroos lie about on the sand. The Stirling Range comes next inland, a line of peaks rising out of flat farmland that holds well over a thousand plant species, many of them found only there, then Yallingup on the way back up to Perth.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Eight days for 2,305 kilometres means the Esperance leg is a long day in each direction, and distances in the south of this state are consistently further than they look on a map. Spring is the season, when the Stirling Range and the Wheatbelt are both in flower. Everything on this loop is sealed, so a standard camper handles it, and the only real decision is how long to spend at Esperance, which tends to absorb whatever time is left over.