Housework mainly
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2007
1
104
131
Trip End
Jun 2009
Kalbarri,
Western Australia,
Australia
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The next morning we couldn't wait to get out of there, we didn't even bother with breakfast and that never happens! We continued the drive until we reached Kalbarri National Park, another gorge network but on a smaller scale than Karijini. Here the wildflowers were still in bloom and the colours were beautiful, so refreshing from the burnt red earth and green of the bush. We were the first there, so enjoyed breakfast overlooking the expansive gorge, but it was only 10 mins or so until the first of the flies started to join us - time to keep moving. We had a stroll around the rim but didn't have the energy to descend to the river in the bottom, we hoped to see a black footed rock wallaby but he seemed to continue to elude us and we weren't feeling patient enough to stay. After a few more photo opportunities we decided to leave the park and head to the town of Kalbarri where we decided to stay the night and spend the day relaxing. Although our plan to relax was superseded by the odd desire to clean the van - we pretty much removed everything, swept and wiped and washed then returned everything to its original place, a small space like this very easily gets claustrophobic, everything needs to be in its proper place dammit (a spot of cabin fever - maybe?).
The next day we left Kalbarri and stopped in at several places along the coast including Rainbow World - a sanctuary for Cockatoos, Parakeets, and Lorakeets. We were greeted by one friendly chap who had been taught to speak and continually called out after its mummy - sounding a lot like the freaky child character from Dr. Who "Are you my mummy?" We managed to get a few good shots of the cheeky birds as they flew overhead in the free flight area. We had picked up the local map and decided to stop in at some of the natural sights to be seen along the coast and in places the dramatic cliffs and coastline were impressive but at times spectacular names were given to rock formations that really didn't leave a great impression and felt like a whole lot of walking in the hot sun for a rather disappointing view. However, we did stop at one spot and prepared ourselves for what, by now, felt like an inevitable let down and were very surprised to see a pod of dolphins playing and frolicking in the water. We sat for ages just watching the impressive spectacle, as they jumped, dived and rode the waves.
We followed the coast road for a while until we crossed with Highway 1 again, which we followed for until we reached Geraldton. We stopped off at one campsite where a snotty woman wanted far too much money for a powered site as they didn't have unpowered sites, and as there had been a used sanitary towel that had greeted me as I stepped out of the van, we promptly got back in the van and left! We made it to the other end of town and here was a lovely campsite, we happily handed over the cash for the facilities on offer. That night we worked out how much time we had left and the mileage we still had to do, it worked out that time was in our favour so we decided to hang around another day to catch up on office jobs.
