THE BEST PLACES FOR FAMILIES TO STAY IN WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Planning a family holiday to WESTERN AUSTRALIA and wondering where to stay with your children? The following list of our favourite places to stay with kids includes waterfront hotels, clifftop cabins and villas on the edge of the Indian Ocean. Accommodation can fill up fast during school holidays, particularly if you’re looking for a family room, so make sure you book well in advance.

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Enjoying a prime position overlooking Perth’s iconic Swan River, comfortable DOUBLETREE BY HILTON PERTH WATERFRONT is many families’ first impression of Western Australia. And it’s an ideal introduction to both the state and its capital city. After a warm cookie on arrival – a welcome touch – you can settle into your spacious room. King Rooms come with an L-shaped sofa and panoramic river or city views, and can sleep up to 3 people with a trundle bed [AU$60 per night] in the “lounge” half of the room. Connecting rooms, combining a King Room and a Twin Room, also a decent size, are available for families of up to 5 people. King Rooms have a standalone bath and rain shower; both rooms have big flat-screen TVs. Room rates include a very good buffet breakfast in the 2nd-floor Reel Kitchen, with options including cereals, fruit, omelettes and pastries, a full English spread, and Asian staples such as steamed pork buns, Miso soup and congee rice porridge. The restaurant is also worth visiting at dinnertime, when you can tuck into seafood and grills from the open kitchen whilst enjoying big-window views over the widest part of the Swan River. More fine river views are to be had from the outdoor rooftop pool. Perhaps best of all, though, is the hotel’s waterfront location. Elizabeth Quay, an entertainment hub of cafés, restaurants and shops, is just a few minutes’ walk away, while focal Yangan Square and the captivating WA Museum Boola Bardip are a few blocks further north. You’re also a short bus ride from Kings Park and Botanic Garden, with its 3,000 species of native flora and bushland trails, while the Barrack Street Jetty is literally just outside the door, handy for catching an early ferry to historic Fremantle or wonderful Rottnest Island. From Perth International Airport, it’s 20 minutes by underground train on the Airport Line to Perth Station, which is half a dozen blocks up Barrack Street from the hotel.

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Views don’t come much better than the panoramic Indian Ocean vistas at KALBARRI RED BLUFF TOURIST PARK, set just back from rust-coloured coastal cliffs at the southern end of Kalbarri town. The well laid-out site’s Two-Bedroom Premium Holiday Units – some with their own heated Jacuzzis – overlook Red Bluff Beach and come with guaranteed sensational sunsets from their wooden decks. Humpback whales migrate along the coast from June to November, when you’ve got a very good chance of spotting them breaching or spouting from your cabin; pods of dolphins are common sights at anytime of year. The modern, spacious units sleep up to 5 people, in a master bedroom with a king bed and a second bedroom with bunk beds and a single bed, and feature an open-plan kitchen and lounge area with dining table, plus a shower room. The larger beachfront Wittecarra Beach House can sleep up to 6 people in two double beds and a twin room. Campers have powered en-suite sites, a large camp kitchen, and a grassy BBQ area that is often frequented by kangaroos; everyone has access to the sparkling swimming pool. A sheltered lookout just in front of the site offers lovely views along the coast, and there are several public cliff-top viewpoints within a short drive, including Red Bluff itself, where noticeboards give insight into the area’s shipwrecks. Slightly further south, a boardwalk links Natural Bridge and Island Rock. The major sight around these parts, however, is magnificent Kalbarri National Park, a 15-minute drive from the tourist park, where you can venture out onto the gravity-defying Kalbarri Skywalk and embark on any number of exciting bushwalks. The town of Kalbarri itself has some great eating options, including quirky Finlay’s Kalbarri, an outdoor restaurant that does a mean line in burgers and brews its own beer, and Little Leaf Kalbarri, which serves takeaway burritos, Korean chicken, poké bowls and the like.

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RAC MONKEY MIA DOLPHIN RESORT enjoys a beautiful setting on a long stretch of white-sand beach backed by rust-red dunes, on the east coast of the Peron Peninsula. But it’s the wildlife that steals the show here, particularly the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins that famously visit the beach nearly every day – and give the resort its name. Dolphins have been coming into the shallows of what is now the Monkey Mia Conservation Park for over half a century, originally drawn in by hand-outs from local fishermen; today, the remarkable Dolphin Experience is carried out by the Western Australia Parks and Wildlife Service to ensure the dolphins continue to hunt naturally. The Dolphin Experience takes place on the beach in front of the resort’s Boughshed Restaurant, so you might end up watching a pod race through the shallows while you’re tucking into breakfast. Behind the restaurant spreads a huge variety of accommodation, from Superior Beach View Rooms (sleeping 3 people in a king bed and a single) through to Family Garden View Rooms (sleeping up to 8 people in interconnecting rooms with additional trundle beds). Pick of the bunch, though, are the light, bright, whitewashed two- and three-bedroom Beachfront Villas, which have a lovely location just behind the beach and feature a large lounge area with plenty of seating and a fully equipped kitchen including gas hob, microwave, dishwasher and washing machine. The villas sleep 6 and 8 people respectively, in a double bedroom (or bedrooms) and two sets of bunk beds in a separate room. Elsewhere in the resort, you’ll find two swimming pools, the larger one heated and mini golf and large chess; pedalos, paddleboards and kayaks are available for hire on the beach. Emus can regularly be seen wandering through the resort, and there’s more birdlife on the nearby Wulyibidi Yaninyina Trail, which starts near the Monkey Mia Conservation Park visitor centre. Allow plenty of time to explore the rest of the fabulous Shark Bay World Heritage Site, including Shell Beach, Hamelin Pool and Francois Peron National Park, 15 minutes’ drive west of the resort, where you’ll see kangaroos and echidnas on land and sharks, rays and maybe even dugongs in the turquoise waters. As the resort is part of the Monkey Mia Conservation Park, guests will need to pay a park permit ($15, $5 for under-16s; free for under-6s, $35 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children) for every day of their stay.

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The cute self-contained cabins at DISCOVERY PARKS – CARNARVON, offer some of the best-value accommodation in town. And with a variety of Economy, Standard and Superior categories, this welcoming and well-maintained park has something for everyone. Families of 3 or 4 will fit into the One-Bedroom Cabins, while larger families should opt for a Two-Bedroom Cabin, which have a smart double bedroom and a separate room with either a bunk bed and a single bed or two bunk beds (sleeping 5 or 6 in total, respectively), a comfy lounge-diner and a compact kitchen with all the essentials, including gas hob, microwave and fridge. Thoughtful Welcome Packs include drinks coolers, playing cards, a beach ball and a Kids’ Activity booklet. There’s plenty to keep your children entertained on the site itself, which has a small swimming pool with a shaded shallow end that’s perfect for young families, a kids’ playground, a bouncing pillow and a games room; giant outdoor games (think oversized Connect 4 and the like) are also available from Reception. Campers have access to a large kitchen, and there are plenty of BBQ areas spread around the site, but most guests take advantage of the food trucks that visit the site at the weekend, serving up pizza (on Friday nights) and fish and chips (Saturdays). Carnarvon is a convenient stop-off between Shark Bay and Exmouth, although the town has plenty of attractions in its own right, not least the interactive Carnarvon Space and Technology Museum, which celebrates the town’s role in the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landings – the antenna here made the first live telecast into Western Australia when it relayed Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for man” speech to TV viewers in Perth. You also shouldn’t leave Carnarvon without sampling the Fruit Loop Drive Trail, which threads together a number of farms and plantations either side of the Gascoyne River: stop at Morel’s Orchard to try black sapote (aka the chocolate pudding fruit) and Bumbak’s, which is famous for its mango smoothies and chocolate-coated bananas.

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Exmouth is the gateway to the wonderful Ningaloo Reef, and 4.5-star EXMOUTH ESCAPE RESORT provides the perfect base for exploring this wildlife-rich World Heritage Site. Set amid tropical gardens, the resort’s stylish air-conditioned villas and apartments offer the plushest accommodation in town. Two-Bedroom Apartments sleep up to 4 people in an en-suite master bedroom and a second bedroom with two singles, while high-ceilinged Deluxe Villas sleep up to 6 people with a queen bed in the additional room and two singles up in the lofty mezzanine level, looking down onto a huge open-plan lounge-dinner. Both have an extra bathroom. They’re well set up for self-contained stays, the Deluxe Villas in particular, with their full-size fridge-freezers in the sleek modern kitchen, laundry area with washing machine and tumble dryer, and private BBQ space for outdoor dining. The big swimming pool, with adjoining children’s pool, is a welcome relief from the heat and a lovely place to relax after a day out adventuring. The poolside restaurant, Whalers, has a seafood-heavy menu featuring pan-seared local goldband snapper, grilled Exmouth tiger prawns and whole Moreton Bay bugs, a tasty kind of local rock lobster. Exmouth centre is a five-minute drive away, Town Beach is walkable in ten minutes, while the myriad attractions of Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range National Park lie further around the peninsula. You can spend your days snorkelling with rays, turtles and countless tropical fish at Lakeside, Oyster Stacks and the aptly named Turquoise Bay. You can spend a morning taking a boat tour up Yardie Creek or an afternoon hiking along its clifftops. But if there’s one thing can’t leave Exmouth without experiencing, it’s the unforgettable feeling of swimming alongside one of the gentle giants of the ocean: whale sharks, if you’re here between mid-March and mid-October, or humpback whales. The resort has its own on-site tour desk and car-hire service, so can help with organising any of these activities or can provide you with your own wheels if you’d rather take it all in under your own steam.

To reserve your stay at Exmouth Escape Resort, click here

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