Highway One: remote Western Australia

Catherine Lawson and David Bristow, along with baby Maya, are doing a lap of Highway One, the road that circles Australia. Find a new video update from them every two weeks.

IT'S AMAZING WHAT HAPPENS when people become travellers. Those of us who may never get to know our neighbours at home, seek each other out in a campground, sharing stories and travel advice with a friendliness you rarely find amongst strangers.

Perhaps this is because the highway is a great leveller, providing common ground for travellers, regardless of your rig, age or travel budget.

And there is much generosity in Australia's remote places. When we met our campground neighbours Marg and Peter from Melbourne in Purnululu National Park, about 300km south of Kununurra in Western Australia, they shared with us with the 'Highway One' song - catch it on our video blog, above.

Kindergarten teacher Marg was a great sport and this infectious song is bound to be a big hit with future 'Big Lappers'. 

Purnululu by 4WD

To reach Purnululu National Park, you'll need a 4WD vehicle and about two hours to tackle the 52kms of corrugated track that leads into the park.

If you set out early, head for Echidna Chasm where, just before noon, the blazing Kimberley sun appears overhead, sending shafts of light into Echidna's narrow chasm that dance seductively across flaring 200m-high walls of sandstone and speckled conglomerate rock.

At day's end, the lookout above Piccaninny Creek is one of the best spots to watch the sun set over the Bungle Bungle's tiger-striped 'beehives' and scorched spinifex plains.

Read the full story about Catherine and David's adventure in #106 of Australian Geographic - and follow the next five installments that will feature in the print edition of the journal throughout 2012. Online we will be posting a video blog update from Catherine and David every two weeks.

From the spellbinding sandstone beehives of Purnululu in the Kimberley, to the rugged isolation of the Baxter cliffs and the Southern Ocean, the spectacular scenery in WA is as vast as the state is large. The Cape to Cape track, the arid central deserts of the Nullarbor Plain, the Stirling Range, and the remote Buccaneer Archipelago are just some of the unique sights this state of immense contrasts has to offer.