Twelve parks that together tell the story of the continent — desert, reef, rainforest and alpine — and the season each one rewards most.
Australia protects more than 500 national parks, and they hold the best of what the continent does: the oldest rainforests, the reddest deserts, gorges carved over two billion years, and coastlines that stop you mid-sentence. This is a starting twelve — a spread across every state and territory and every landscape type.
Many of these parks are jointly managed with their Traditional Owners, and several ask visitors to respect specific cultural protocols. We've noted where that matters. Check park websites for fees, permits and seasonal closures before you go, and carry more water than you think you need.
The spiritual heart of the continent: a vast sandstone monolith and the domes of Kata Tjuta rising from the desert, jointly managed with the Anangu Traditional Owners. Walk the base circuit at dawn, when the rock glows and the crowds are thin.
Climbing Uluru is closed out of respect for its sacred significance — and the walks around it are far more rewarding anyway.
Australia's largest national park, a World Heritage area for both nature and culture, with 20,000-year-old rock art at Ubirr and Nourlangie, monsoon wetlands teeming with birds and crocodiles, and the Jim Jim and Twin Falls.
The Bininj and Mungguy peoples have lived here for tens of thousands of years. The dry season (May–October) is the easiest time to explore by road.
Ancient Wet Tropics rainforest meeting the Great Barrier Reef at Cape Tribulation — the only place on Earth two World Heritage areas adjoin. Boardwalks, river cruises and the chance to glimpse a cassowary.
North of the Daintree River by ferry from Cairns; some tracks need a 4WD beyond Cape Trib.
Pink-granite peaks, the perfect curve of Wineglass Bay, and quiet coastal walks on Tasmania's east coast. The Hazards lookout is a steady climb; longer circuits reach the sand and the wilder southern beaches.
Mild and walkable year-round, with summer best for swimming and autumn for soft light and solitude.
The jagged spires of Cradle Mountain reflected in Dove Lake, alpine moorland, wombats grazing at dusk, and the start of the celebrated six-day Overland Track. The Dove Lake circuit is an accessible taste of it all.
Weather changes fast here — come prepared for four seasons in a day, even in summer.
A vast plateau of eucalypt-hazed valleys, sandstone cliffs and the Three Sisters rock formation, all within day-trip range of Sydney. Clifftop lookouts, the Giant Stairway and the National Pass cliff walk are the highlights.
The eponymous blue haze comes from oils released by the forests of eucalypts below.
Rugged sandstone ranges rising from the Victorian plains, with the Pinnacle lookout, MacKenzie Falls, abundant wildlife and some of the richest Aboriginal rock art in south-eastern Australia.
Known as Gariwerd to its Traditional Owners. Spring brings wildflowers; autumn brings cool, clear walking weather.
The ancient amphitheatre of Wilpena Pound and rust-red ranges that glow at sunrise and sunset, in South Australia's outback. Emus, kangaroos and yellow-footed rock-wallabies are common, and the night skies are extraordinary.
Cooler months (April–October) are far more comfortable for walking and touring.
Deep, narrow gorges carved into two-billion-year-old rock in WA's Pilbara, with spring-fed pools, tiered waterfalls and tight chasms you scramble and swim through. Hancock and Hamersley gorges are unforgettable.
Remote and rugged — visit in the cooler dry season, carry plenty of water and respect the gorge difficulty ratings.
The orange-and-black banded sandstone domes of the Bungle Bungle Range, a World Heritage landscape in the remote Kimberley, hidden from the wider world until the 1980s. Walk into Cathedral Gorge and the narrow Echidna Chasm.
Access is by rough 4WD track or scenic flight, in the dry season only.
The world's second-oldest national park, on Sydney's southern edge, with the spectacular two-day Coast Track, the Figure Eight Pools, hidden beaches and wildflower heath.
An easy escape from the city — but check tide times before attempting the Figure Eight Pools, which are only safe at low tide.
Ancient Gondwana rainforest in the Scenic Rim, with waterfall walks, the canopy Tree Top Walk and some of the best subtropical birdwatching in the country, all within reach of Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
See our Scenic Rim guide for tracks, access and guided tours.
There is no such thing as an Australia-wide national parks pass. Parks are administered by the states and territories, each runs its own fee structure, and a pass bought in one state buys you nothing in the next. This catches out almost every first-time visitor planning a multi-state trip.
| State / territory | How entry works |
|---|---|
| New South Wales | The most aggressive fee regime. Vehicle entry charges apply to a number of parks — around $12 a day, or roughly $190 for an annual multi-park pass. You need one just to drive through parks like Kosciuszko |
| Victoria | Day entry is generally free. You pay to camp, booked through Parks Victoria |
| Queensland | No general park entry fee. Camping is charged per person per night, and vehicle access permits apply separately on the sand islands |
| Western Australia | Per-vehicle day entry at many parks, with holiday and annual passes available that pay for themselves quickly on a longer trip |
| South Australia | Free entry at most parks; a Desert Parks Pass is mandatory for the Simpson Desert and covers entry and camping across the desert parks for twelve months |
| Tasmania | Parks passes required, sold per vehicle or per person, in daily and holiday durations |
| Northern Territory | Territory parks are largely free. Kakadu and Uluru-Kata Tjuta are Commonwealth parks with their own separate entry passes |
The practical advice: work out your route first, then buy passes state by state. On a long Western Australian or Tasmanian trip a holiday pass is almost always worth it. In Queensland and Victoria you will mostly be paying for camping rather than entry.
More than anywhere else in this guide, timing decides whether a national park visit is magnificent or miserable. Australia's parks divide neatly into two opposing seasons, and getting it wrong means closed roads or dangerous heat.
| Park | Go | Avoid |
|---|---|---|
| Kakadu | May – October (dry). Early dry, May–June, still has waterfalls running | Wet season flooding closes Jim Jim, Twin Falls and most 4WD access |
| Purnululu (Bungle Bungles) | April – October | Closed entirely in the wet season |
| Karijini | April – October | Summer heat is genuinely dangerous in the gorges |
| Uluru-Kata Tjuta | April – September | Summer walks are restricted or closed in the heat of the day |
| Daintree | Year-round; May – September is most comfortable | Nothing closes, but the wet brings heavy rain and stingers offshore |
| Cradle Mountain & Freycinet | November – April | Winter is beautiful and cold; alpine tracks can be snowbound |
| Grampians (Gariwerd) | September – November, March – May | Summer fire risk; tracks and roads close on high-danger days |
| Flinders Ranges | April – October | Summer heat |
| Blue Mountains, Royal, Lamington | Year-round | Summer fire danger days in the Blue Mountains |
Two rules that follow from this. First, a single trip cannot do Kakadu and Cradle Mountain well — pick a half of the country. Second, the shoulder months of April–May and September–October are when the largest number of Australian parks are workable at once, which is why experienced travellers cluster there.
Many of Australia's most significant national parks are jointly managed with Traditional Owners, and several are leased back to the Commonwealth or a state by the Aboriginal people who hold them. That is not a footnote to the visit; it shapes what you can do and where.
Where a park offers a Traditional Owner-led walk or tour, take it. It is consistently the version of the place that visitors remember, and it puts money directly where the knowledge is. Our guide to the best Indigenous cultural experiences in Australia covers this in more depth.
The signs asking you not to climb, not to photograph, or not to enter are not restrictions on your visit. They are the reason there is still something here worth visiting.
Australian walking tracks are graded one to five under a national system, and the grades are more useful than they look once you know what they actually mean on the ground.
Two Australian-specific cautions. First, the times posted at the trailhead assume moderate conditions; in summer heat or after rain they can be optimistic by half again. Second, a grade 3 in the tropics is a different proposition from a grade 3 in Tasmania — humidity does a great deal of the work against you.
Cooee Tours has been running coaches out of Brisbane since 1974, family-owned with our own fleet and drivers. Queensland alone holds more than 1,000 protected areas, and a good few of the best are within a morning of the city — Lamington and Springbrook in the Scenic Rim, D'Aguilar on Brisbane's doorstep, Girraween on the Granite Belt, and Carnarvon Gorge a day inland.
Park roads are frequently narrow, winding and unsealed at the last stretch, and the car parks at the popular trailheads fill by mid-morning in season. We handle the driving, the timing and the permits for groups, whether that is a single day walk or a multi-day itinerary across several parks. Call 0409 661 342 or email contact@cooeetours.com.au.
Related reading: our guides to the best rainforest walks in Australia, the best camping spots and the best waterfalls in Australia.
Visitors arriving from North America or Europe usually expect something like Yosemite or the Lake District, and Australia does not quite work that way. The differences are worth knowing before you plan.
There are a great many of them, and most are small. Australia has well over 600 national parks and thousands of protected areas in total. Queensland alone has more than a thousand protected areas. Only a handful are the enormous wilderness reserves people picture; a great many are modest patches of bush at the edge of a town, and some of the best walking in the country is in those.
Facilities are lighter. Outside the flagship parks, expect a car park, a toilet block, a signboard and a track. Visitor centres, cafes, shuttle buses and ranger programmes are the exception rather than the rule, and many parks have no staff on site at all. This is part of the appeal and part of the risk — there is often nobody to tell you the creek is up.
The wildlife is nocturnal. Australia's mammals are overwhelmingly active at night, which is why day visitors so often see nothing but birds and conclude the bush is empty. Stay overnight, or take a dusk walk, and the same track becomes a different place.
Fire is a management tool, not just a threat. Planned burns close sections of parks regularly, and the mosaic of recently burnt and long-unburnt country you drive through is deliberate. Fire has shaped these ecosystems for tens of thousands of years, much of it under Aboriginal land management.
Dogs are almost universally prohibited. Not restricted — prohibited, including in the car park, because of the effect on native wildlife. Plan around it.
And the least-followed piece of advice, which is also the best: sit down somewhere for twenty minutes without walking anywhere. Australian bush rewards stillness more than movement, and almost nobody does it.
Provision has improved considerably and is now better than most visitors expect, though it is unevenly distributed. Nearly every flagship park has at least one grade 1 hardened track or boardwalk suitable for wheelchairs and prams, and several have far more.
Uluru's base walk includes long accessible sections and the Cultural Centre is fully accessible. Kakadu has accessible boardwalks at several of the main billabong and art sites. Freycinet's Wineglass Bay lookout is not accessible, but the Cape Tourville boardwalk nearby is, and the view is arguably better. In Queensland, Lamington and Springbrook both have short accessible circuits, and Carnarvon Gorge's first section is manageable for many.
Beach wheelchairs are increasingly available at coastal parks through local councils and surf clubs, usually free with advance booking. Some parks also hire all-terrain wheelchairs — worth asking the visitor centre directly rather than relying on the website, which is often out of date.
The general advice is to phone the park office. Australian park staff are generally very good at telling you precisely which 400 metres of a track will work and which will not, and that specific answer is worth more than any published grading.
From the Scenic Rim's Gondwana rainforest to Queensland's far north, Cooee Tours runs guided national-park touring — we handle the access, the permits and the long drives.
Browse Queensland park toursThere's no single answer — Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Kakadu are the cultural and natural icons, the Daintree holds the oldest rainforest, and Cradle Mountain and Freycinet are Tasmania's showpieces. The best one depends on the landscape you most want to experience.
It varies by state and park. Some charge a daily vehicle or entry fee, some require a parks pass, and a few (like Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Purnululu) have specific permits or access rules. Always check the relevant park authority's website before you go.
Northern and outback parks (Kakadu, Karijini, Purnululu, Flinders Ranges) are best in the cooler, drier months from roughly April to October. Southern and alpine parks are often best in spring through autumn, with summer suiting swimming and coastal walks.
Lamington and the wider Scenic Rim parks are within easy reach of Brisbane and the Gold Coast — see our Scenic Rim guide for tracks, access and guided day tours.
No. Climbing Uluru was permanently closed in 2019 out of respect for its deep cultural and spiritual significance to the Anangu Traditional Owners. The base walk and cultural tours are the recommended ways to experience it.
No. Parks are run by the states and territories and each has its own fee structure, so a pass bought in one state is not valid in another. New South Wales charges vehicle entry at many parks (around $12 a day or roughly $190 annually), Western Australia and Tasmania sell holiday passes worth buying on longer trips, and Victoria and Queensland are generally free to enter but charge for camping.
Purnululu closes entirely in the wet season. Kakadu's Jim Jim and Twin Falls and most 4WD access close with wet-season flooding. Karijini, Uluru and the Flinders Ranges are all effectively summer-restricted by heat, with walks closed during the hottest part of the day. Alpine tracks in Victoria and Tasmania can be snowbound in winter.
Grade 1 is flat and hardened, suitable for wheelchairs and prams. Grade 2 is a formed track with gentle gradient. Grade 3 has steep sections and steps and needs reasonable fitness — most good half-day walks sit here. Grade 4 is rough and possibly unmarked, and grade 5 requires navigation and experience. Posted times assume moderate conditions and can be optimistic in heat.
Two to three litres per person for a half-day walk in warm conditions, and more in the tropics or the Red Centre. Heat and dehydration are involved in most Australian walking incidents. Start early, check the fire danger rating each morning, and download offline maps because mobile coverage disappears quickly.
It depends on the season you are travelling in. For a dry-season trip, Uluru-Kata Tjuta and Kakadu between them show you the centre and the tropical north. For a southern summer trip, Freycinet and Cradle Mountain in Tasmania or the Grampians in Victoria are hard to beat. Close to Brisbane, Lamington in the Scenic Rim is the easiest introduction to Gondwana rainforest.
Cooee Tours acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Country throughout Australia and their continuing connection to land, sea and community. We pay our respects to Elders past and present, and recognise that the places described here hold deep cultural significance for the First Peoples who have cared for them for tens of thousands of years.