Coasting to Kalbarri...and beyond

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After a late departure from Margs on 6th June (aimed for 11am, left 2.30pm!) we hit the highway north and managed to find ourselves a nice little spot to have a fire & cook up some burgers just north of Harvey for our first night. Not the best sleep with trucks roaring by on the highway, nearby power plant going off, cats foofing around about where they wanted to sleep (how EVER will we cope without our wood-fire & comfy couches!)…never-the-less it was grand to be back on the road with only these small worries!

On to Perth, Jeff saw both his hip specialist & a new Doc to review his back/workcover situation, and although the hip doc would like to keep Jeffs case open until Oct/Nov, the back doc thinks Jeff “won’t get any worse”. He wouldn’t state whether any ongoing problems could be caused by the accident either, so in rather a cryptic appointment we left feeling a bit unsure about it all. So, knowing that his hip doc wants to make a decision later in the year, we won’t make any plans to wind up workcover until Jeff is 100% sure he feels good by then. Stay tuned.

We had the pleasure of parking our bus in the leafy streets of Inglewood where we spent a lovely 2 nights with Suzie, one of Tab’s colleagues from Merribrook who runs the Fremantle office. Thanks so much Suzz for your hospitality (sorry we kept missing Mark at every turn!) and thanks for letting us catch up on some clothes & self washing that had been neglected for several days! One of the nights with Suzz we also got to catch up for a pizza n beer with Roger, whose partner Suzz (yes another Suzz that Tab worked with at Merribrook in Margs!) is expecting their 1st baby any second…in fact by the time this goes to air she may have already had it, big congrats! If not, hurry up guys, it’s overcooked already!

While we were in Perth we also took the last opportunity to head up to the Swan Valley for a little wine & a little lunch at our fave restaurant Sitellas, as usual just divine, and got some new tyres on the trailer & a few running spring repairs done too. All in all a busy few days!

Onwards and upwrds to the unusual monastic (run entirely by monks) town of New Norcia. Here we stayed a couple of nights on the footy oval (open as a camp when not needed for sports!) looked around at some of the amazing gothic buildings, went on a river walk out to the monks olive grove (some of the trees nearly 150 years old!), bought some of their beautiful hand-made breads & of course hunted down the pub as we’d heard that the monks also made their own beer & wine - all in the name of research of course! So we both settled on a glass of the “Äbbey Ale” which at a whopping 7% alcohol knocked our sox off! Promptly headed back to camp with a six-pack of said beer to chill in front of the campfire until dinner time.

Heading off north-west (and having totally forgotten what day it is!) stumbled across a cool little Sat morning market in Moora, through to Cervantes, home of the Pinnacles. As we pulled in (fugitive cats in lock-down in the bedroom as this is a National Park!) we were told the length including the trailer was too long for the tourist road, so we promptly parked the bus, pulled out our pushbikes and rode the bloody tourist drive instead! Several weird looks, lots of people taking photos of US instead of the rock formations, we were certainly a point of interest! In hindsight it was probably the best way to see it coz you don’t miss a thing out in the open on your pushie! Just an amazing spectacle, if a little “over-done” in its commercialism.

After a short night stop east of Jurien Bay we drove through the Lesueur N.P. (totally visually destroyed by controlled burn gone wrong!) onto the little-known Coalseam Conservation Park where we did a couple of tours on ‘Daz’ (remember, he’s the motorbike!), a small river crossing on the way out and took the backroads to Fig Tree Crossing camp just outside of Geraldton…or Gerro as it’s known here!

With a couple of small adjustments to be done to the trailer at the welders, we happily pulled into Drummond Cove Caravan Park (our 1st park stay!) for a couple of nights, as Tab had been pretty crook with a cold just before we arrived in Gerro too. Here we visited the new War Memorial, Museum of WA, and just generally caught up on the shopping, washing and “stuff” you don’t really get to do when free camping. Having hunted down the only winery in Gerro, and furthermore discovering it only opened Fri, Sat & Sun, we promptly stayed back at Fig Tree the Thursday night so we could pay them a visit on our way north! Glad we did!

We meandered up the coast with Kalbarri in mind but pulled into the little fishing village of Horrocks for some lunch and fell captivated. Ended up doing a 2 night stop here, each night hitting up the jetty with a six-pack of bourbon at about 9pm and promptly caught a 35-40cm tailor each night! Lunch for the next couple of days was a joy! Here the rangas enjoyed some lengthly night-walks through the park, and we all relaxed for a couple of days in the sunshine…oh the joys of having no plans really starting to appeal!

We had heard such cool things about Kalbarri we decided to stay for 3 nights (there are no free camps around here at all) so hit up a van park and got put in the “RV section” coz of the length of bus/trailer. I’m sure Boris had a bit of small-man-syndrome going on parked in among all these gigantic fifth-wheelers & big rigs! Nevertheless the park was stunning, and the local sights even more-so. We headed out of town on Daz on the 1st day to check out Kalbarri N.P, “Natures Window” and the loop trail from there. At 8km trek we knew it would be challenge, but you totally forgot about all that when you were hiking hundreds of metres above the Murchison River on a sheer escarpment, or walking along the sandy shore looking up at the ridge on the way back. We’d do it again in a flash, simply breathtaking. On the way back also stopped at a lookout called “Z Bend”, adding another couple of kms to our already weary legs, but again the view just took your breath away. Climbed aboard Daz for the long dirt-track back into town, stopped promptly at Kalbarri Hotel and soothed our dry throats & aching pegs with a cold cold beer! Bliss!

Next day we went out to Parrot Breeding Centre and were impressed with the construction, species, care & love that has gone into this place. There were hundreds of bird types, most notable the cheeky macaws who all started showing off like little kids when you stopped at their enclosures. After a quick stop off home for some lunch, it was back on Daz out to Eagle Gorge where we had arranged for the local taxi dude to drive us south to Natural Bridge, so we could start the coastal cliffs walk….yep, another 8km hike hundreds of metres above the ocean along the stunning Kalbarri cliffs! So we walked north, ending up back at Daz where we’d left him, and with very little persuasion ended up back at local watering hole for another cold one! This cold one ended up turning into a pub meal, several more cold ones and a lovely bottle of Pepperjack Shiraz! We figured we’d earned a feed after all that hiking the past two days! We also managed to get out on our pushies quite a bit while in Kal, taking in the sights along the foreshore, jetty and hundreds of accommodation places.

After a few days of “non-serenity” (meaning staying in a van park!) we really just needed to relax and go bush for a while so stayed 3 nights at a lovely little spot behind one of the rest areas that houses old water tanks, from back when the trip from Exmouth to Gerro was simply a long dirt track. Here we could have a campfire, plenty of water from the tanks, so we simply chilled out, read mags/books and had no timetable, lovely!

Now we have arrived in the Shark Bay Marine Park, free-camping in some joy spots leading into Denham today and, with Tab’s birthday coming up tomorrow, a little birdy has been hinting about a nice restaurant dinner while in town……gotta love birthdays on the road - maybe being ‘hard to buy for’has it’s blessings!

Till next time xo

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Photos

Natures Window
Kalbarri NP WA

Jeffs New Trike
Some old relics we found in New Norcia

Afternoon Cliffs
Coalseam Cons Pk

The GOAL
Jeff's big mission is to catch Dhufish while on this trek, and one this big too!

Museum of WA History
Tab's mums uncle died in the sinking of HMAS Sydney, this is a letter he wrote to his wife back in Kew after the birth of their daughter Marie. He was about 22 years old.

Lazin in the sun & run
Oscar chillin out in his cat run

Full Moon Rising
Beautiful views while at Fig Tree Crossing near Geraldton, so bright it was like daytime at night!

The result!
This was the first catch, all cooked up with garlic rice & a cold chardy...delish!! (It's at this point we should mention that Tab caught the first one....)

Hunting Ranga
soo so mean

Convict Ruins
Lyndon WA

Coastal Cliffs
Kalbarri WA

Murchison River
On the Loop Track Kalbarri NP

Jeff & Morrie get acquainted
Aus Parrot Breeding Centre, Kalbarri WA

Small Man Syndrome
Boris hangin out with the big boys at Kalbarri

Natural Bridge
Start of our 8km coastal cliffs walk Kalbarri WA