KALBARRI

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Kalbarri

As we began to approach Kalbarri we finally began to see the scenery change from red dust and dry sparse plants to more and more green fields, trees and the famous wildflowers that people come thousands of miles to see every spring.

Kalbarri, a small seaside resort set in a national park sounded nice in the guide books and was even nicer in real life. It was a lovely sunny day and after the obligatory visit to the visitor information we decided to book ourselves into a caravan park for a couple of nights and booked ourselves on a 4 hour canoeing trip the next morning, starting up in the hills of the national park and finishing in Kalbarri’s beach, also including a full English breakfast!

The caravan park we stayed at was great, run by a lovely couple from Coventry of all places! They even gave us a discount because we were “lovely people” apparently! We had a lovely afternoon, exploring the town, and were really looking forward to the trip the next day so we were both gutted when it was cancelled as they’re weren’t enough people on it to make it worth going! Booo!

A bit down in the dumps we had a relaxing morning, found an internet café to check our emails and bought a few books from a second-hand book shop to keep us occupied! Apparently the next best thing to do in Kalbarri was the gorge walks along the coast, with huge cliffs, famous for being a perfect place to spot whales, dolphins and the dangerous “King Waves.” We had literally just parked up at Red Bluff Gorge and got out the van when an old couple shouted over “Have you seen the whales?!” Once again, just off the coast we could see a couple of whales frolicking in the water, still as amazing to watch as the first time we saw them. The couple had lived in Western Australia for 19 years and this was the first time they had seen a whale, so we tried not to sound too arrogant when we admitted it was the third time we had some this week! There were also loads of dolphins nearer the shore, playing around and jumping in and out of the water.

After a long walk over the cliffs, trying not to get hit by the King Waves and trying to spot more whales, Adam suggested a fishing trip in the main harbour to try and hopefully catch some dinner! We asked the man in the fishing shop for the cheapest lines and bait he had, so for less than $10 we were all set and settled on a small jetty for the afternoon. I have never fished before so was a bit freaked out when I reeled in a small fish onto the jetty and didn’t know what to do with it! Adam very kindly unhooked it and threw it back in as it was too small to keep, but in less than five minutes I had caught another one! This time one of the fish that was in the tank in Finding Nemo that blows up when its scared which was pretty bizarre, and freaked me out again when very kindly a passing man commented that it was poisonous! After booting it back into the sea we carried on with our fishing. Adam was next to catch something, a huge blue crab! They seemed to be pretty stupid, and even after being reeled partly in and letting go it grabbed on again to get the bait and we managed to get it onto the jetty. We didn’t have a clue on the local crab laws, how big it had to be to keep it etc so threw it back in after letting it pose for a few photos. Annoyingly we later found out that we could have kept it and would have been perfect for dinner!

We carried on. After catching about 10 more of the blowing up fish we decided to call it a day, a very exciting afternoon, even if we didn’t keep any of them!

We consoled ourselves over fajitas and wine that night, and apart from some drunken idiot singing and playing the guitar in the middle of the night, had a great nights sleep, ready to carry on our journey south the next day.

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Photos

Ads crab
a blue swimmer *nods* :)