Kalbarri National Park

06 Mar (Day 40): As we proceeded north towards Kalbarri we passed the Pink Lake, which we also came back to later for us to see properly, and onto the rental property on the shore road at Kalbarri. This house faced west so we had a week of fantastic sunsets to watch. 

07 Mar (Day 41): I started the day with a walk to go and get some shopping for the week. Adrian appeared just as I was about to leave the house so he came with me. Interesting fact - we went to a small supermarket and I wanted to buy some yogurt. I opened the glass chiller cabinet door and realised that the yogurt pots were being pushed forward from the back as an assistant was in a cold room was re-stocking from the rear of the shelf. Brilliant idea! We then walked to the bakers and picked up huge wraps for lunch, which we took with us on our walk later, and some croissants and buns for breakfast. 

Adrian took us to explore the Kalbarri National Park and a walk within the fantastic rock formations there. It was 38C and Adrian had warned us to wear loads of sunscreen, long sleeves, a hat and take a gallon of water with us to ensure we didn't get dehydrated. We thought he was exaggerating a little so we wore Factor 50 sunscreen, felt really hot in long sleeves so wore short sleeves, wore a hat and took a water bottle with about a litre of water each. Adrian had to rescue me with water that he was carrying in his rucksack especially fitted with a tank and a drinking tube but otherwise we had a brilliant walk with staircases and huge rocks to climb in the heat but we had a real sense of achievement at the end and the incredible scenery was marvellous. So different from anything we have seen before.

To finish off the day we booked an evening boat trip along the Murchison River to see the various beasts and birds, finishing with the sunset. Very relaxing end to the day and we were informed about the local area and its fishing trades whilst we also spotted many birds (pelicans, cormorants, gulls, whistling kites, swans, egrets, white-chested eagle) and animals (feral goats, kangaroos). 

From the boat we saw a very funny altercation between a kangaroo and a feral goat. The kangaroo was in a hole it had dug to get to fresh water about six feet in from the saltwater riverbank. The goat wanted to drink the fresh water so was trying to get into the hole. The kangaroo got fed up of the goat trying to muscle in so got out of the hole, at which point the goat went to get in to it. The kangaroo belted the goat with a number of uppercut punches and the goat scarpered off very quickly. The kangaroo stood up really tall to threaten the goat further and then, once the goat had got the message, the kangaroo got back into the hole and carried on where it had left off. Hilarious! Photos of the altercation

The boat came back towards the harbour mouth for the sunset, another excellent rendering of colour. Just as the sun was going down the flock of cormorants took off from the harbour rocks to head back to their night-time roosts, lovely sight in the fading light. 

More photos from Tuesday 07 March

08 Mar (Day 42): We started today with a drive south, down the Indian Ocean Coast and walking at various places along it, working our way back to Kalbarri. The coast had many lookout posts along it from where you could walk along to the next one. We did some walking, some driving to see the various sights along the coastal road. The colours of the rocks and water were beautiful; such rugged scenery and crashing waves. We also saw a walleroo and youngster hopping along. Walleroos are not a cross between a kangaroo and a wallaby, which is what I assumed, but a separate species. They do look very similar though.

We went past the house and back through to the National Park to do a short walk in the cooler temperatures later in the day, we thought it would be good to see the sunset from Nature's Window or the Kalbarri Skywalk. We drove past the golf course in Kilbarri, with its cultivated grass, to see it smothered with kangaroos enjoying the lush vegetation. When we reached the depths of the National Park we walked to Nature's Window, a natural rock formation with a window, that we stayed at to see the sunset, deciding to do the skywalk on a different day. The gorge below us was very dry as there had been little rain for months and the river was a sandbed. We watched as the sun started to fade and we could see kangaroos coming out in the valley below. The colours of the day were fantastic as the sun faded from the cliffs and gorges. A 'gorge'ous evening. 

On the drive back to the house I was on 'kangaroo' watch in the deepening darkness so that we wouldn't end up with one on the bumper bar of the Defender. We saw a number of kangaroos on the edge of the road, even more than we see deer at home, but managed to avoid them all. As we got back to the edge of Kalbarri Harbour I almost said to Adrian that he was going to be ok now, we wouldn't see kangaroo there ------ just as three hopped across in front of us, making their way from the lush grass of the golf club to the lush grass of the coastal parkland! Missed those too!

More photos from Wednesday 08 March

09 Mar (Day 43): We started our day with an early walk to see the pelicans being fed on the edge of the Murchison River. Every morning a small group of volunteers in Kalbarri feed a small amount of fish to the pelicans on the river. Not enough fish for them to be reliant on them but enough for them to come and eat. The volunteers keep an eye on the pelicans that come, ensuring that they are healthy and using the funds raised to treat any that are not. There were a number of tourists there, many with small children, who enjoyed the sights and feeding the birds.

After seeing the pelicans we crossed the road to the Pelican Café for breakfast, again sitting outside in the great temperatures and under the shade of the awning. The food offered was wonderful for breakfast again, such a lovely range of food and the ambiance was very pleasant. We also purchased some nice cakes to take away with us and left to walk back to the house. 

We again went back to the National Park after the heat of midday had passed. Whilst it was still very hot we did a couple of drive/walks to go to lookouts and see places such as the Meanarra Hill Lookout and then the Warribanno Chimney, a smelter that was constructed in the 1850's and some of which still stands. We also saw two very tall black ostriches crossing the road in the park in front of us and disappearing into the bush, their heads bobbing away above the vegetation as they trotted away. A very hot morning as we walked around the smelter and looked out over the bush.

Insight: The extent of the national park was tremendous, huge distances of bush and brush for many, many miles stretch out below the viewpoints going out to the river and coast in some directions and across to just more bush and brush and bush and brush in other directions. It certainly gave a perspective of being a very small being in a vast world from which you can only see a speck of the limits. Very humbling. 

Late afternoon we did the Four Ways Trail in the Kilbarri National Park, a riverbed walk down to a meeting of four gorges. The trail itself was completely dried up due to the recent very dry months but when we reached the bottom, where the ways meet, there was a wonderful small lake there with black swans and fish to be seen. Idyllic site, very tranquil and so remote. We had not seen anybody on the entire walk. We did however see other things. I saw a medium sized spider scuttling away and we all saw a small snake that Ray spotted first crossing his path. Why he put his arms in the air when he saw it is still puzzling me :-)

After we clambered up the river gorge and back to the carpark we made our way round to the Kalbarri Skywalk so that we could watch the sunset from there. The Skywalk is a platform that loops twice out over one of the wide gorges from the top of the cliff. We could walk out over the gorge and look down to see the river (such as it was) and the sandbanks at the bottom of the gorge and the vast expanse of bush and rock that spread beneath us for miles. We arrived before sunset but the sun had already disappeared from the bottom of the gorge, although it was still warm and sunny from where we were. There was a group of people eating and drinking there and we saw a lot of telescopes and other equipment. These people were on a stargazing evening with experts to show them what they were seeing. It was a perfect night for this, a clear sky and the colours changing as the sun disappeared. The sunset brought a whole spectrum of colour from such a beautifully clear sky over about an hour in the still warm temperatures. We left there as the light had faded to late twilight and stars were beginning to come out. 

Adrian stopped on the way out of the national park itself and by this time the sky was a very clear deep navy blue. We clambered out in the warmth of the night with absolutely no light pollution at all and wondered at the magnitude of the universe. I didn't even try to take a photo as I didn't have a tripod with me and no experience of taking night skys like this. We could see so many stars and constellations and, very easily, the wash of the milky way. We just stared in wonder!

This completed the day of feeling very small in a vast universe, the like of which I had never experienced before.

More photos from Thursday 09 March

10 Mar (Day 44): Today we made our way back south a short distance to visit the Pink Lake, or Hutt Lagoon as it is also known, at Port Gregory. Hutt Lagoon is 245 acres as it is around 9 miles long by 1.4 miles wide. It has a pink colour that is created by the presence of carotenoid-producing algae, Dunaliella salina, which is a source of beta-carotene; a food-colouring agent; and a source of Vitamin A. This algae is harvested from here by BASF, an international company, and used as a colouring agent in various foods and cosmetics and also for vitamins. The water is extremely salty (6 times more than the Dead Sea) and the shoreline was encrusted with the salts due to the dry weather and the water being very low. This meant that the lake wasn't as pink as it might have been if the water had been higher but it was still an incredible expansive sight. The salts were more white with a pink tinge than the pink of the water might have suggested but it was still very pretty. You can't get a feel for the distances involved with the photos but this lake was absolutely huge. 

As we had driven to the lake there had been an echidna (bit like a hedgehog) in the centre of the road, slowly making its way across. Very pleased to see yet another typically Australian animal. No photo though, we couldn't stop where we saw it and I was too slow as we were driving.

Once we had exhausted our photo repertoire on the lake we drove into the tiny Port Gregory and towards the coastline where we stopped to have a picnic lunch under a tropical shelter. So pleasant eating outside in these conditions, lovely and warm but with a tiny breeze on the coast. The shore was so attractive and there was a reef a little way out to provide a sort of natural harbour. Pretty colours too. We also had a gecko sitting watching us from the seawall for a fair time. 

From Port Gregory we stopped at what had been a convict hiring depot, a place where convicts from Britain were brought to in the 1850's. Lynton Convict Hiring Depot would have been used to house men who were fit, able and maybe experienced in mining for labour at the Geraldine Lead Mine. There were just a few buildings or parts of buildings left here but what was interesting was that the staff of the depot included, for a time, Thomas Leonowens, the husband of Anna Leonowens, who would later become prominent as the author of a memoir regarding her career as a governess to the royal family of Siam (Thailand). The Leonowens' son, Louis was born at Lynton and was also featured in the film and play of the story of 'The King and I'. There was a small museum on the station estate that was interesting to see; how people on a cattle station would have lived and worked in those times and the hardships they had to endure. 

On the way back along the coast road we stopped at a few lookout points and then Adrian drove his Defender onto a 'beach' that was rock that looked as though it had flowed there originally. Off to one side there was a proper beach of white sand but in the rock there was a rockpool and an overhang with small crabs hiding under it. There was also a place where there was a 'hole' in the rock and the sea was sweeping in and out of it, quite fascinating. After this we travelled along to Wittegarra Creek, the site that is generally accepted to be the very first place white men landed in Australia when their ship 'Batavia' ran aground in 1629. Deep, deep white sand and even the Defender would have struggled to get up the track. 

For our last evening in Kalbarri we strolled down into the town and walked into a very nice restaurant, sitting at a table on a balcony over-looking the beach and coastline of the Kalbarri Harbour. Warm enough to sit in the gloaming with t-shirts and shorts for the men and a linen dress for me. Absolutely delightful. The food was excellent and we ended up chatting to a couple at the next table to us. The gent, in his 60's, had just returned home to Kalbarri from fire-fighting in the bush 6 hours drive further north than we were. The temperatures in the bush had been over 50C and his eyes looked so red around the inside edges, can't imaging what that heat does to your body. He said his van's air-conditioning had packed up as it was so hot and he showed us blisters on his hand where he had tried to pick up a dropped metal tool without his gloves on. Incredible tales, incredible country. As we were talking a whole family of kangaroo bounced past below us and this is where we learned from him that they come down every night, just after nightfall, from the lush grass at the golf club to the lush grass of the coastline. Every night he said they do it, so this is what we had seen before when they almost crossed right onto us as we drove back. 

We really enjoyed Kalbarri but tomorrow we are making our way back south to Perth before travelling further south the following day.

More photos from Friday 10 March

11 Mar (Day 45): We vacated the house in Kalbarri and returned the keys. Making our way south back to Perth and Adrian's apartment, the first time I had been there. We stopped several times for food and drinks as we travelled but the most momentous stop was where we could see those huge white sand dunes, so big and fluffy that from a distance they just looked like clouds. Difficult to again get the scale of these dunes and just how very, very white they were. Another incredible sight, so many incredible sights and experiences on this grand adventure and yet more to come. We got to Adrian's apartment about 19:00 and it's a great place in a fairly quiet area of Perth with views of the skyscrapers in the CBD. Very nice.

More photos from Saturday 11 March