Woorlba Rest Area
Our second nights stay from Perth to South Australia was at Woorlba Rest Area. We’d planned on staying at Newmans Rock, but with it still being early in the day and us still having some driving energy left we decided to push on and do a few more kilometres.
It’s a long drive across, and making use of the times when you feel like continuing makes sense, and it meant we got to spend an amazing night at the Bunda Cliffs the next day. We were very glad to arrive here though, after yet another long day in the car with two young kids (who travel fairly well overall, but its still hard!).
Where is Woorlba Rest Area?
You’ll find this place about a third of the way between Balladonia and Caiguna, or around 1000km from Perth, not following the Hyden Norseman Road.
What is at Woorlba Rest Area?
The rest area has a dump point, some picnic tables, rubbish bins and a toilet, along with plenty of firewood around for fires in season.
The rest area snakes its way well back off the road with a number of fairly private sites right at the back, which is where we stayed.
This helps to not disturb anyone else with the kids being loud, but keeps us away from the highway where the road trains make a solid chunk of noise when they drive past.
Is it any good?
For an overnighter, you can’t complain. There’s heaps of space to spread out, lots of firewood and some friendly birds around. There was a family of birds that landed right near us not long after we’d set up, and hung around for a long time after that. Two were magpies for sure, and then there were a number of much smaller ‘magpies’ and one brown one, but they all seemed to be a family. The kids loved having them call in, and walk within a few metres of our chairs!
We’d happily stay here again, and its obviously well used, with at least 20 others that we saw in the area, but still plenty of space between everyone.
In many ways, it reminded me of White Wells Rest area, which we stayed at on the way to Newman. It’s nothing fancy, but its free, a nice place to pull over and greatly appreciated after a long day on the road.
