Cue to Perth road trip: Distance, drive time & stops
The Mount Magnet to Perth drive covers a distance of 642km in a driving time or around 6h48m. The best road trip stops to add to your itinerary are the Paynes Find Gold Battery, monastic town New Norcia and the Swan Valley wineries.
The drive from Cue to Perth takes you from a heritagee gold mining town in the Mid West to the Western Australian capital. Few people come through this part of WA for fun, but the Cue to Perth drive does form part of the quickest route from Broome to Perth or Darwin to Perth.
Once in Perth, highlights include Rottnest Island day trips, Swan Valley food and wine tours and dinner cruises on the Swan River. To book Perth tours and experiences, head here. For Perth accommodation deals, book here.
Cue to Perth distance and driving time
By car, the distance from Cue to Perth is 642km. You can expect a driving time of around six hours and 48 minutes.
5 great day trips from Perth – make your visit special
- Rottnest Island ferry transfer – with bike hire and snorkelling gear. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- The Pinnacles desert – with koalas 🐨 and sandboarding.
- Wave Rock day tour – with wildflowers & Aboriginal culture.
- Margaret River wineries experience 🍷 – with tastings, caves & Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse.
- Full day Swan Valley wine tour 🍷– with lunch.
For most part, this is a lonely drive down the Great Northern Highway – aka National Route 95.
Before leaving Cue, you may wish to try your hand at fossicking for gold, or taking in the town’s handsome old buildings. You can also make a detour to Walga Rock, an enormous monolith around 48km to the west. There’s a cave here, plus plenty of Aboriginal rock art.
Cue to Perth road trip: Day Dawn and Mount Magnet
Otherwise, the first real sight on the drive south is ghost town Day Dawn. All that remains is the impressive Mine Office of the Great Fingall Mine, although annoyingly it is behind a fence.
Further along, you can check out the cattle sculptures just before the crossing of Lake Austin.
Then, just before coming to Mount Magnet, there’s the Granites. This collection of giant granite boulders is a hugely significant rock art site, with Indigenous paintings thought to be 9,000 years old.
Mount Magnet is another old gold mining town and, again, there are some handsome heritage buildings. The Mining and Pastoral Museum is essentially a hoard of old equipment, but the views from the top of Warrmboo Hill are splendid.
Come during the summer months, and you can catch a movie at the old-fashioned open air cinema. Come during spring, and the town is surrounded by a blanket of wildflowers.
The Mount Magnet Caravan Park is the main place to stay here.
Click through to the next section: Paynes Find, Wubin and Dalwallinu.