Cunderdin grain receival point.

The Wheatbelt is a region of Western Australia

Many visitors can choose to drive hastily through the Wheatbelt region from Perth to the Goldfields and the Nullarbor or vice versa, but this region has a range of highlights of its own.

The region covers almost 155,000 square kilometres and is bordered in the west by the Indian Ocean and Perth, in the Southwest by — unsurprisingly — the South West region in the South and in the east by the Goldfields-Esperance region and in the north by the Mid West.

It is common in the Western Australian media and online to find the wheatbelt divided into internal regions. Eastern, northern and southern wheatbelt are often heard or seen. The coastal part of the wheatbelt is often called other names.

Cities

• Cervantes - A coastal town with the otherworldly Pinnacles Desert as its backyard, and Lesueur National Park full of wildflowers.
• 🌍 Jurien Bay - A relaxed coastal town with some good beach fishing.
• Lancelin - The sheltered bay lined with pristine sand dunes draws windsurfers, divers and sand boarders.
• 🌍 New Norcia is Australia's only monastic town.
• 🌍 Northam - The region's largest town, on the banks of the Avon River.
• 🌍 Clackline has a haunting derelict brickworks.
• 🌍 Toodyay - Filled with historical buildings and surrounded by forest and granite outcrops.
• 🌍 York - The first established inland town, with many well-preserved buildings.
• 🌍 Merredin is a good midway break on the way to Kalgoorlie.
• 🌍 Hyden is the usual base for visiting Wave Rock.

Other destinations

• 🌍 Nambung National Park contains Pinnacles Desert, with thousands of limestone formations.

Understand

The wheatbelt region is a vast tract of south western Western Australia where large spaces of land were converted to wheat and sheep agriculture in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. With the advance across the landscape, railway lines, and small communities on the side of the railway developed. With the rise of the technology, bulk wheat silos were built, and the railway system stayed more or less intact until the 1960s (in 1965 305 wheat silos or depots were in action). With the demise of steam locomotive power in 1971, and the railways new focus on bulk transport in the 1980s, a lot of the wheatbelt has changed.

By the 2010s the wheatbelt has a vast range of small one shop towns, and in some places there are museums to explain what had happened in the region. The remnants of the former prosperous region are a fascinating collection of towns along the old railway routes. There are many ways to venture into the wheatbelt and get glimpses of what is happening now.

There are scattered throughout the wheatbelt small nature reserves where remnant vegetation has been spared. And a large range of small lakes, and also granite rock outcrops.

Wildflowers are in full bloom during August to September

Get in

Get around

See

Much of the terrain is cultivated and monotonous, but inland are contorted granite outcrops, dazzling salt lakes and fleeting carpets of wild flowers.

• Lake Campion northeast of Nungarin is a great salt-encrusted lake. Its fringes come to life with a ring of pink everlastings during the wildflower season.
• New Norcia has a 19th century Benedictine abbey, still active. You can vist the abbey church.
• The Pinnacles are eerie limestone pillars in the dunes of Nambung National Park, near Cervantes.
• Wave Rock is a remarkable 15 m smooth breaker wind-carved into the rock, and striped by mineral run off.

Do

Eat

Most cafes and restaurants in the Wheatbelt region mostly serve Australian cuisine, but mostly a mix of European-Australian cuisines. Asian cuisines are not found here.

Almost all towns here have at least around two restaurants, but that's not always the case.

Drink

Sleep

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