Kalbarri

Thursday 8^th September

Kalbarri

As usual the day started with School Work, and we also made use of the wind and did a load of washing.  Brochures about Kalbarri had shown several scenic lookouts along the coast to the south of town, with names like Natural Bridge, Island Rock, and Shellhouse Grandstand.  We decided to spend the rest of the day checking them out. The furthest out was the Natural Bridge, about 12 km from town, so we decided to start there, and call in at the others on our way back. 

We got to the Natural Bridge car park and parked the car. When we hopped out of the car to walk down to the cliff top lookout, we were nearly blown over by the wind, but that was the least of our worries.

Outback Australia is well known for its flies, and at some time or other, we have all seen photographs of outback people with their faces covered in them.  We had been lucky, and although we had occasionally run across them in our travels, they had never been a bother.  Every sports shop we had been in, and a lot of the visitor’s centres up through the outback, had fly nets for sale, but so far, cross fingers, we had no need of them.  All that was about to change...

Today we were going to experience them for the first time.  The minute we stepped out of the car they invaded.  Thousands of the little bastards.  They are about half the size of our field flies, but unlike them, they don’t fly away when you brush them off.  They just fly around your hand and land again.  Talk about annoying. 

The worst thing for me was that they would land in behind my glasses and crawl into my eyes.  Waving my hand in front of my glasses had no effect.  I had to take my glasses off, brush the flies out of my eyes, and put my glasses back on.  Within 30 seconds they were back.  Within a very short time we were all very expert at the ‘Aussie Wave’, and all getting very annoyed with the persistent little buggers.

From the look out at the top of the cliff we could see up and down the coastline for miles.  Just below us was the Natural Bridge formed when the sea had eroded the cliffs forming a bridge in the cliff face.  Nothing overly spectacular but the cliffs themselves were quite impressive.

Out to sea we could see whales spouting everywhere, and right under the cliffs a pod of dolphins played in the beautifully clear water. Unfortunately the flies made it too unpleasant to linger and enjoy the views.

From the Natural Bridge we visited Island Rock, then Shellhouse Grandstand, Eagle Gorge and Red Bluff.  All very similar with great views of the cliffs and coastline, and all with millions of flies.

As soon as we got back into town we bought three fly nets to wear over our hats.  We looked even more like dorks than usual, but the relief they bring from the flies means we don’t give a shit how we look.  In the next few days we would receive many comments along the lines of “Gee I wish we had one of those fly nets”, and, “How much do you want for your fly net, these flies are driving us crazy.”

Friday 9^th September

Kalbarri

After School Work we paid a visit to Rainbow Jungle which was listed as Australia’s most beautiful parrot habitat.  We could well believe it. 

Dozens of different kinds of beautifully coloured parrots, some of them flying around our heads as we walked through their huge free flight area.  The centre successfully breeds some of Australia’s rarest parrots, in lovely natural settings.  A great experience for all of us.  Cameron took all the photos of the birds with his camera.

We then had a round of Mini Golf before trying our hand at fishing again.  This time we joined about a dozen other fishermen near the river mouth, fishing from the beach.  After a couple of hours and no fish we gave up again.  At least we weren’t the only ones not catching anything.  Cameron rode his bike from our camp right through town and down to the river mouth where we were fishing, and then back again.

Saturday 10^th September

Kalbarri National Park

This morning we headed out to visit Nature’s Window and the Z-Bend on the Murchison River in Kalbarri National Park. 

Nature’s Window is a hole in the rocks formed by wind erosion, high on a narrow ridge where the Murchison River formed a huge horse shoe bend as it carved its way through the rocks of Kalbarri National Park on its way to the sea. 

 

It features on just about every brochure there is about Kalbarri, so it was a must see. 

To get to it we had to drive about 30km along a dusty sandy road through the park, but the views when we got there were worth it.

From there we drove another 12 km to Z-Bend, where the Murchison River followed an old geographic fault line forming an impressive gorge.  Again fantastic views and well worth the effort of bumping for over 30 km of corrugated roads to get there. 

An interesting sign on the walk down to the lookout informed us of some fossilised tracks in the rocks by the walk.

They had been made by a prehistoric scorpion about 400 million years ago as it walked across the then soft wet sandy mud. The mud dried and the tracks remained and eventually became fossilised. The scorpion grew to about 2 feet in length.  You wouldn’t want to wake up to find that little fella in your bed.

Back at camp we tried our hand at fishing again near the river mouth, but again no luck. Can’t wait to get back to New Zealand where they actually have fish in the sea.