Hot Spot

Kimberley, Australia

Forget Kylie – the name on the lips of Aussie cruise fans this year is Kimberley, the remote, rugged northwest region that is best visited by ship. It’s as far as you can get from the perennially popular cities of Sydney and Melbourne, so it rarely makes it onto the radar of first-time travellers, but whether you’ve been Down Under before or you simply want to celebrate the long-awaited reopening of Australia’s national borders with a truly epic trip, Kimberley is one-of-a-kind. You’ll be well rewarded with vast tracts of red-rock terrain that hold some mind-boggling marvels of nature, from the beehive-shaped stacks of the Bungle Bungles in Purnululu National Park (pictured) to the giant dinosaur print still visible on the shores of Broome. There’s even the Horizontal Falls – described by Sir David Attenborough as one of the greatest wonders of the world – where enormous tidal currents squeeze through two impossibly narrow gorges to create the effect of a waterfall that flows horizontally. Add examples of Aboriginal rock art, some of it recent and some many thousands of years old, along with abundant wildlife and endless wilderness, and interest in this sparsely populated region is set to soar.

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