If you are hoping to see the endangered Western Ground Parrot, Cape Arid is one of two places they have been seen historically albeit with extreme difficulty.  It’s always best to check with Friends of the Western Ground Parrot before heading out there.

The park is accessed via Esperance, Western Australia which is pretty easy to get to by either a long road trip from Perth or short flight with SkyWest.

Skywest

Esperance

ESPERANCE

Although there are two hotel chains represented here (Best Western & Choice), using them is not the best use of your points.  If you have points burning a hole in your pocket:

Comfort Inn Bay of Isles – CHOICE – 25,000 points.

Best Western Hospitaity Inn Esperance – BEST WESTERN – 16,000 points.

Personally, I think Esperance has better options if you go indie and earn points with Pointshound.  Save your Choice points for Europe and earn some airline miles with United or another program of your choice.

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More options are available on Wotif.com.

Wotif snippet

VISITING CAPE ARID

No matter how you get to Esperance, you will need a 4WD vehicle to visit Cape Arid and drive on any of its tracks.

Cape Arid

You can download the whole park brochure PDF from DEC.  The only accommodation in the park is rough camping.  There are some gas BBQs but you will need to be self-sufficient.  If you don’t wish to camp, you can stay in Esperance and make an evening trip out to Cape Arid.  The day trips cater for whale watchers so you would need to organize a special trip if you are hoping to see Western Ground Parrots which are most active at dusk.  This group camped out for a few days but managed to see a few Western Ground Parrots in Cape Arid.

According to Eremaea you can see these birds in Cape Arid:

Sooty Oyster-catcher, Pacific Gull, Great Crested Tern, Rock Parrot, Blue Breasted Fairy Wren, New Holland Honeyeater, White-browed scrub-wren, Welcome Swallow, Silver-eye.