During the time I served as a medical officer in the Australian Army, I found myself posted to some pretty strange places. Some of these were pleasant and enjoyable while others, I must confess, were unsavoury and downright scary.

It was on one of these postings, when I was sent to work for a spell with The Pilbara Regiment based in the town of Karratha in Australia’s northwest where the coast of Western Australia meets the Indian Ocean, that I serendipitously discovered the beauty of the Pilbara. Here, one could see at first hand evidence of Australia’s current mining boom (like huge mineral and liquified gas processing plants – and never-ending trains as long as two kilometres heavy laden with iron ore!). This is the region that mines and ships overseas much of the iron, liquid natural gas and minerals, contributing billions each year to Australia’s economy.

But to me, the attraction of the Pilbara was not the wealth it has created – but the rich beauty of the land itself, a land of vast space and isolated emptiness that has been a couple of billion years in the making.

Over a thousand kilometres north from the state capital Perth, the Pilbara occupies about half a million square kilometres. It has a sandy coastline on its western border which gives access to an ocean teeming with wildlife like humpback whales, bottlenose dolphins and ancient turtles. It has forbidding deserts brooding in eerie silence to the east – and in the middle between the seacoast and the desert, an awesome land of red earth and majestic gorges, created over many millenia by the passage of Time and the flow of ancient waters.

There are three national parks in the Pilbara. Closest to Karatha is the Millstream-Chichester Park, an oasis of rainforest that seems out of place in the middle of this harsh land of red earth and dust. Following the Fortescue River further inland takes you to the Karijini National Park, where you can literally camp by a picture-perfect billabong, swim in some of nature’s prettiest waterfall-fed swimming holes, take a trip to the top of a Mountain named Nameless or treat yourself at the Oxer Lookout to the breathtaking view of four magnificent gorges coming together. Both these Parks are accessible by car – whereas the third, Ruddall River Park in the eastern Pilbara between the Great Sandy and Little Sandy Deserts, is best explored on a 4WD tour with an experienced guide.

It is said the best time to visit the Pilbara is between April and September, which is the "non-cyclone" season. Temperatures then are not as hot as in summer, when it usually gets into the upper forties. Another bonus in going at this time is that you might get the chance of seeing (as I was lucky enough to do) the Staircase to the Moon. Although usually thought to be peculiar to the famous tourist town of Broome much further north, the phenomenon is just as impressive in the beaches near Karratha. The Staircase is formed when the full moon, rising over the beach at low tide, is reflected on the mudflats and creates the impression of a flight of silvery steps leading all the way to the moon.

The Pilbara is a part of Australia that is not usually on the conventional tourist routes - which is a pity because it certainly is a land of breathtaking natural beauty.