Best Things to Do in The Kimberley: The Experiences Worth the Distance

If you do one thing in the Kimberley, make it the Bungle Bungles. The orange-and-grey banded sandstone domes of the Bungle Bungle Range, in World Heritage-listed Purnululu National Park, are unlike anything else on Earth — one of the world's finest examples of cone karst, 360-million-year-old sandstone weathered into beehive towers. The southern trails walk you in among the domes to Cathedral Gorge, a vast natural amphitheatre of red rock where a single voice carries; the northern end holds Echidna Chasm, a sliver of a gorge barely a metre wide in places with walls up to 200 metres high, lined with Livistona palms.

The catch is access, and it's a real one. Purnululu sits about 300 kilometres south of Kununurra, and the final 53-kilometre Spring Creek Track in from the highway is a slow, rough, creek-crossing 4WD route that takes one and a half to three hours and is off-limits to most hire and 2WD vehicles. If you don't have a high-clearance 4WD, the scenic flight from Kununurra or Halls Creek is the answer — and for the dome field itself, that aerial view is arguably the best perspective there is. Whichever way you come, stay overnight if you can: the domes at first and last light are the photograph everyone wants.

The Gibb River Road is the Kimberley road trip — 660 kilometres of gravel between Derby and the Kununurra–Wyndham junction, built as a cattle route and still rough enough to feel like one. Corrugations, bull dust, river crossings and long empty stretches are the price of admission; a high-clearance four-wheel drive with two spare tyres is the minimum kit, and a good number of travellers rate the drive itself as memorable as the stops. This is the route that connects the great inland gorges — Windjana and Tunnel Creek at the western end, Bell, Galvans, Adcock and Manning through the middle, and the turn north to the Mitchell Plateau.

Don't rush it. The Gibb rewards seven to fourteen days, not a two-day transit — the gorges and the swims are the experience, and the driving between them is slow. Fuel is available at a handful of stations and stations-turned-stays along the way (Imintji, Mount Barnett, Drysdale River), but you plan around them rather than assume them, and you carry recovery gear and the skills to use it. Check the road is open before you start, especially early and late in the Dry, and treat it as the genuine remote-touring undertaking it is rather than a scenic drive.

Horizontal Falls isn't a waterfall at all — it's a tidal phenomenon, where enormous Kimberley tides force seawater through two narrow gaps in the McLarty Range fast enough to create a churning, sideways 'waterfall' that reverses with the tide. David Attenborough called it one of the great natural wonders of the world, and seen from a seaplane banking over Talbot Bay and the maze of the Buccaneer Archipelago, it earns the billing. Most visitors reach it on a day trip by seaplane from Broome or Derby, often combined with a boat cruise of the bay.

There's an important change to know about. At the request of the Dambeemangaddee Traditional Owners, for whom this is a sacred place tied to the creator serpent Woongudd, tour boats are being phased out of running through the gaps — most operators by the end of 2026 and the main seaplane operator by 2028. Boats will still cruise Talbot Bay for a close view, and the scenic flight over the falls and the archipelago is spectacular regardless. Check the current arrangements when you book, and treat the cultural significance of the place with the respect the change reflects.

Mitchell Falls — Punamii-Uunpuu to the Wunambal people, for whom it is a place of deep cultural and spiritual significance — is the most photographed waterfall in the Kimberley and one of the hardest to reach. The Mitchell River drops over four tiers into a chain of emerald pools, and the classic view comes at the end of an 8.6-kilometre return walk that takes four to six hours, passing rock art, Little Mertens Falls and Mertens Gorge on the way. Many walkers take a helicopter back one way to save their legs and get the aerial view of the tiers.

Getting to the trailhead is the real expedition. The Mitchell Plateau is reached via the Kalumburu Road and the rough Mitchell Plateau track north of the Gibb River Road — corrugated, slow, fuel-and-water-serious 4WD country that's among the most remote driving in the region. Many travellers skip the drive and reach the falls by scenic flight or as a fly-in walk. However you come, treat the site as the sacred place it is — stay on the trail, follow any signage about restricted areas, and don't touch the rock art.

Lake Argyle is the surprise of the east Kimberley — a vast freshwater inland sea created by the damming of the Ord River, dotted with islands, ringed by red ranges, and home to freshwater crocodiles, a huge population of birds and rock wallabies on the islets. A sunset cruise on the lake is one of the most relaxed and accessible highlights in the whole region: you watch the ranges turn red as the sun drops, often with a swim off the boat in the open, croc-safe water of the main lake, well away from the shallows.

The appeal is partly that it's easy. Lake Argyle sits about 70 kilometres south-east of Kununurra on a sealed road, so you don't need a 4WD to reach it — a welcome break from the gravel, and a reason it suits families, less mobile travellers and anyone who wants a big Kimberley moment without an expedition. The cruises run through the Dry; book ahead in peak season, bring sun protection for the open boat, and take the operator's lead on exactly where it's safe to swim, because the rule about crocodiles applies even here.

El Questro Wilderness Park, near the eastern end of the Gibb River Road, packs a lot of the Kimberley into one accessible property — and offers a rare range of comfort, from campground to the cliff-top homestead. The standout is Zebedee Springs, a series of warm thermal pools shaded by Livistona palms that feel like a reward after dusty days on the road (it's open mornings only, to protect the site and to give homestead guests afternoon access, so plan around the hours). Emma Gorge nearby ends at a towering rock wall with a deep, cool pool and a thermal trickle down one side.

What makes El Questro work is the spread of options. There are easy walks and harder ones, gorge swims, river cruises on the Chamberlain Gorge, scenic 4WD tracks and sunset lookouts — so a family, a couple and a hard-core hiker can all find their level on the same property. It's busier and more managed than the wild gorges further west, which is exactly the appeal for some travellers and the drawback for others. A park pass is required; check current access, opening hours for the springs, and which tracks are open before you arrive.

At the western end of the Gibb River Road, Windjana Gorge (Bandilngan) cuts through the Napier Range — the fossilised remains of a 350-million-year-old Devonian reef, when this dry country was a tropical sea. The walk along the sandy gorge floor passes pools where freshwater crocodiles bask on the banks in numbers, generally undisturbed and watched from a respectful distance; it's one of the most reliable places in the Kimberley to see crocodiles in the wild on foot, in daylight, from solid ground.

A short drive away, Tunnel Creek (Dimalurru) is something else entirely — a 750-metre cave passage carved by the creek straight through the Napier Range, which you wade through in the dark by torchlight, emerging into daylight at the far end. It's flat and walkable but you'll get wet, you need a good torch, and it holds deep significance as a refuge connected to the resistance leader Jandamarra. Both parks are reached via the western Gibb and are doable as a day from Derby; check water levels at Tunnel Creek and never wade if the creek is high.

North of Broome, the Dampier Peninsula offers a gentler, more intimate side of the Kimberley — a coastline of vivid red pindan cliffs dropping to white sand and turquoise water, capped at its tip by Cape Leveque (Kooljaman). The drive up the Cape Leveque Road, sealed in recent years, has made this far more accessible than it once was, though side tracks to individual communities and beaches can still be soft sand requiring care. The contrast of red rock, white beach and blue sea here is among the most photographed in the whole region.

What makes the peninsula special is that it's living Bardi Jawi country, and the standout experiences are the cultural ones run by the communities themselves — mud-crabbing and fishing tours, bush-tucker walks, and stays at community-run camps where you learn the saltwater traditions from the people whose Country it is. Many communities welcome visitors but on their terms: some require permits or advance bookings, and access can change. Book community stays and tours ahead, check current access before you drive up, and travel with the respect the place asks for.

The Kimberley holds some of the oldest and most significant rock art on the planet, and seeing it well is one of the most profound things you can do here. Two styles dominate: the ancient Gwion Gwion (Bradshaw) figures — slender, elaborately adorned human forms thought to be among the oldest figurative art known, with likely more than 100,000 paintings across the region — and the later, striking Wandjina, the large mouthless ancestral beings central to the spiritual life of the groups who painted and still care for them.

This is not gallery art behind glass; it's living culture on Country, much of it on restricted land. The right way to see it is on a tour led by Traditional Owners or licensed operators who have the permissions and can explain what you're looking at — which transforms a set of figures on a rock into a story tens of thousands of years deep. Never touch the art, never visit restricted sites without permission, and follow every instruction about photography and access. Several gorge and plateau walks (including the Mitchell Falls trail) pass art sites; treat each as the sacred place it is.

Kununurra is the east Kimberley's most liveable base — a green irrigation town fed by the Ord River scheme, set among boab trees and red cliffs, and the launch point for Lake Argyle, the Bungles flights and the eastern Gibb. The Ord River itself is the quiet highlight here: the stretch between the Lake Argyle dam and Kununurra runs cool, clear and croc-managed enough for popular guided cruises and, for the confident, kayak and canoe trips that drift past sandstone cliffs, abundant birdlife and freshwater crocodiles basking on the banks.

Around town, Mirima National Park (the 'mini Bungles') puts banded sandstone formations and short walks within minutes of the centre, Ivanhoe Crossing offers a classic Kimberley photo (don't drive a flooded causeway), and the Hoochery and local produce trail reflect the surprising agriculture the Ord scheme supports. It's the part of a Kimberley trip where you can do a little less driving and a little more relaxing — a useful counterweight to the gorges and the gravel, and an easy place to base a family for a few days.