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Published: April 26th 2011
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Our Easter Travels Perth to Carnarvon
Easter Friday
On our drive north amongst all the city slickers who were trying to escape the hustle and bustle for Easter, we decided to stop near Cervantes at Nambung National Park to see the amazing Pinnacles. Hundreds of these sand and limestone formations could be found within this desert landscape despite its’ coastal location.
We continued along the coast passing Jurien Bay and Coolimba. The roads were packed with many Aussies and tourists in a rush to get somewhere special this weekend, so to avoid the coastal cities and the sound of generators running all night, we headed to a place just north of Port Denison – here we set up camp at Dongara East Rest Stop for the evening.
Easter Saturday
We made an early start setting out for Geraldton where we visited the memorial to HMAS Sydney II. Here was a beautiful wall of remembrance alongside a granite podium with 645 stainless steel gulls that represent our men lost at sea on this particular ship. Interestingly, HMAS Sydney was built in Newcastle-on-Tyne, originally named HMS Phaeton, however once purchased by the Commonwealth of Australia
was renamed HMAS Sydney. They clearly did not believe in the superstition of bad luck associated with changing a vessel’s name. We could only imaging how fantastic an ANZAC dawn service would have been in this location.
After fuelling up at Caltex 105L @ 147.5c/L, we set off for Kalbarri National Park.
Here we ventured on several nature walks, first the Z-bend. Not far from the car park we found a massive bend in the Murchison River far down below us, here the majestic river red gums provided lush contrast to the red sandstone cliffs. A further couple of kilometres down a more challenging track, we found a lovely spot to escape the 35 degree heat, and enjoyed the cooler temperatures the Murchison River had to offer (and croc-free too!).
We drove to The Loop, where another short walk brought us to ‘Nature’s Window’. Here a natural rock arch framed the view upstream – just magnificent, but difficult to photograph its’ brilliance.
Feeling the temperature from walking in the heat of the day, we stayed at Galena Bridge on the Murchison River to rest our legs and get us out of the sun for an evening.
Easter Sunday We continued north but got a little distracted by the beauty of Eagle’s Bluff and in the end couldn’t resist staying here for the night.
Our camp was a few metres from the ocean’s edge, where we enjoyed a lazy day of snorkelling, fishing and consuming whatever chocolate easter eggs we had in the fridge.
Sheree spotted a sandy-coloured sea snake around 1.7m long, as well as numerous fish. While out of the water we were visited by numerous dolphins, dugong and sea turtles.
Enjoyed a bottle of wine while reeling in around 30 bait fish (trumpeters), a couple of parrotfish and Sheree managed to get a little reef tip shark.
Easter Monday/ANZAC Day An early morning start led us to Monkey Mia where we watched on at the oceans edge to see dolphins at their morning feed. Here a selection of 5 female dolphins are hand fed (as the males tend to get a bit bossy), and are only fed a total of 1/3 of their daily intake over the 3 feedings – promoting them to hunt in the wild. They came amazing close to shore and tended to roll on their sides to check
us all out! What a fantastic start to the day!
Not far down the road we visited Shell Beach, where hundreds and thousands of white shells are washed up along the bay. No sand, just shells – and some more crystal turquoise water.
Headed back to the main road where we fuelled up at Overlander Roadhouse 26.5L @ 169.9c/L – just enough to get us to Carnarvon after having discovered a bit of a fuel leakage from one of our jerry cans stored in the tub of the ute. Not happy Jan!
Narrowly missed an emu on our way to Carnarvon, so maybe our luck is changing! We found a brush mark on our bullbar from where is rear feathers managed to touch, took us a bit to stop when you travel at 100km with a camper and running emu infront!
Km’s this Easter Weekend 1327 Km’s so far this 8281.2km
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