The best falls are less than half an hour walk from the campground. Enjoy the view over the gorge from Crawford’s Lookout.

Where South Cape Rivulet emerges from the forest and flows into the cold Southern Ocean is a campsite of extraordinary beauty and serenity. Choose between the larger more open site on the eastern side or the smaller and more sheltered western edge. Get up just before dawn to witness a glorious, colour-splashed sunrise.

Yes, it was a real volcano once, but no, it hasn’t erupted in a few thousand years, so your chances of instant annihilation are slender. What the old eruption did leave, though, was a charming crater lake and several quite spooky lava tunnels you can explore, including the extensive (right) Byaduk Caves (bring a torch; it gets pitch black in there really fast). It takes around 90min to walk around Lake Surprise, enjoying the dense forest, the wildflowers and the odd koala fast asleep in the branches.

Mt Buffalo’s beautiful Lake Catani is the setting for more than 50 sites catering to every style of camping from single tents to caravans and campervans. Several are walk-in sites for maximum peace and quiet. At Lake Catani you can light a BBQ near the shoreline and watch the youngsters glide past in canoes. Mt Buffalo NP was badly scorched by bushfires a couple of years back, but the lakeside is looking good now, plus it serves as a great base for exploring park features like The Horn and masses of alpine daisies on the walk to Dicksons Falls.

And it’s not just coral you come to Ningaloo to enjoy. The park boasts tranquil and deserted beaches, rugged ranges and magnificent canyons. The Cape Range, backbone of the cape, is a huge upward fold of limestone originally formed below the sea. Erosion has gouged vast canyons in the sides of the range, which for some reason provide a perfect habitat for WA’s famed wildflowers in massive profusion. Pick up a map and do a couple of the short and easy canyon walks. You can drive to your campsite from Exmouth, around 40km away, depending on how far down the coast you choose to camp. With 112 sites available, it’s unlikely you’ll need to book.

Emerge from your tent after midnight, look up and witness the heavens strewn with light. It’s a land of rugged mountains, towering granite peaks and attractive little waterholes with plenty of desert wildlife (like the yellow-footed rock wallaby and around 150 species of birds). But you also come here for an almost mystical experience of the ancient centre of our nation. An award-winning private wilderness sanctuary, parts of Arkaroola were once a uranium mine. Today you can explore it in your own 4WD or take a tour, with champagne and chicken on a mountaintop just after sunrise. The sanctuary is 130km east of Leigh Creek and, besides 300ha of bush campsites, they also provide motel-style lodgings, a restaurant, lounge bar and shop. Not far away is a delightful alternative: the campsite at Weetootla Gorge in Gammon Ranges National Park. Much of what you’ll like about Arkaroola is there, too, but without the extras.

He’s a whopping big ’roo that shows up at your campsite at the appointed hour, either looking for a handout or just company. Sometimes the family comes along, too. Charlie is just one of the species wandering around this park on the western tip of KI, a list that also includes wombats and Cape Barren geese. A short walk from the campsite takes you through heathlands to an almost unimaginably lovely blue/green cove. November, with its profusion of wildflowers, might just be this park’s most colour-drenched month.

You’ve got several sites along the bay to choose from, Cosy Corner just has the cutest name. Intelligently, the campground is split: tents on one side, campervans the other. Close by is a fairly easy three-day track through nearby Mt William NP to the northeast tip of the state. Along the way, spot mobs of Forester Kangaroos, Tasmania’s only native ’roo.

This one, and nearby Shadow Lake, were glacially carved a zillion years ago and today provide a quiet and blissful retreat from the rest of the world. The lake is ringed by shady eucalypts and in the late afternoons you’ll hear the cries of myriad parrots and currawongs. It’s an easy walk from the lakes to Mt Rufus’ summit, the track to which includes delights like tall stands of pandanus, gurgling underground streams and blazing red waratahs. From the summit, gaze south to the peaks of the wild southwest wilderness, or north to the splendour of Mt Ossa and the Cradle massif.

The folks at Barambah Bush have been raising a channel-billed cuckoo and in the next cage a female king parrot is feeding its adopted young red wing parrot. The ugliest baby in the park is a young wedge-tailed eagle, which thankfully is starting to look more attractive. Give him another year and he’ll be majestic . . . and released back to the wild. All in a day’s work at this caravan park-slash-wildlife rescue centre that also boasts a large goanna, a bearded dragon and some kookaburras. Small and secluded, quiet and friendly, the park is set in natural bush.

With its weird and wonderful vegetation (check out the massive and garishly coloured royal hakea), it’s no wonder this place looks like a relic from ten thousand centuries ago. It’s one of the last great wilderness areas of the south, home to nearly 20 percent of WA’s native plant species (oh, and 209 bird types and some migrating and breeding whales from June to October). Beaches here are deserted and blindingly white, but the water is seriously chilly. You can climb three mountains, too. For ease of recollection, they’re all called Mt Barren and are quite effortless to conquer.

Most of the winter the park is green, but the occasional dusting of snow transforms it into an icy fairyland. Sawpit Creek is halfway between Perisher Valley and Jindabyne at the doorstep of Australia’s magnificent alpine wilderness. We used the site as a base for three late January walks along the high ridgelines, past glacial lakes, little flowing streams and weathered boulders, accompanied by about four trillion flies, each of which attempted a landing in my nose. If you’re the skiing type, use this privately run retreat as a cheap alternative to the ritzy lodges of Thredbo and Perisher.

Imagine a natural sculpture park, with volcanic-created shapes appearing everywhere among the rugged coastal headlands, cliffs and rock stacks. We spent a camping weekend here exploring the rockpools for squishy critters, then rented a couple of kayaks on a calm day and paddled from cove to cove. There’s even a bit of rainforest if you get tired of the coastal stuff.

The 140 or so residents enjoy sharing their heritage during cultural and tucker tours that often include witchetty grubs, kangaroo tail and damper. You’re also not far from Ellery Creek Big Hole, Serpentine Gorge, Standley Chasm, Ochre Pits and Ormiston Gorge and Pound. You can also have a traditional owners’ guided tour, see their famous rock art and enjoy the life of an Aboriginal community in the bush, a place so clean it’s been a repeat Tidy Town winner.

Consider its myriad attractions: a long, gorgeous beach with dozens of little rocky coves, a dark, wet coastal forest perfect for dreamy walks, productive fishing spots and safe river swimming. All four major campgrounds within the park are fine – but Thurra River, with 46 sites, is the biggest and best. And you’ve got the river right there for summer splashing.