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Oceania » Australia » Western Australia » Kalbarri
November 16th 2009
Published: November 17th 2009
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Day 204 - Kalbarri

"Alright Shag, Happy Birthday" would be the message we would normally send to Mark Hartnell today! Well, in fairness it's not normally sent on his actual birthday because we always forget but today whilst we're half way around the world we've remembered! Happy Birthday mate, hope you have a great day!

Who would have thought that being camped by a river would be noisy - fishermen start early apparently! The roar of the motors woke me up at some ungodly hour and then my fidgeting (apparently!) woke Darryl up soon after. Whoops! We wanted an early start but it was about two hours premature!

Not long after 6am we were in the car, with me driving, heading out to Kalbarri national park with a good 8km walk ahead of us.

Since we arrived in Australia back in April, Dar has been doing the driving. The main reason behind it is because he enjoys it and he’s very good regardless of the conditions. During conversations with other travellers it’s often caused a bit of surprise that I very rarely drive and that I have never towed the caravan during this trip. I will, I just haven’t had the chance as yet! We’ve spoken about this on our recent, long drives and Darryl suggested that I take over the driving duties when we’re not towing so that I at least get a handle on the car. I didn’t realise that this meant I would be doing the off road stuff too but the reality of the situation is that I’m now faced with my first trip down a heavily corrugated road and I don’t much like it!

To be fair the road out to the national park for the first 30km isn’t so bad, it is heavily corrugated but I manage to keep my cool and stick my foot in gliding over the top at around 80kph. The second section proves a bit more testing as it turns to sand which is reasonably deep and very soft in sections. I don’t handle this with quite the same level of confidence, or speed, but we all (us and the car!) arrive safe and sound at the lookout for Natures Window.

There were only two other cars in the car park which meant we would probably be enjoying the place pretty much to ourselves which is always great and certainly gives you the feeling of wilderness. We’ve brought plenty of water with us for this short walk because although 8kms is well within our capability, the rough terrain and the extreme heat can turn this beautiful area into a disaster zone. They say that it’s always about 10 degrees hotter out here than in Kalbarri itself and as soon as you realise the temperature is generally around 30 degrees in town you begin to see why you need to be careful. The advice is to carry at least 3 litres of water per person for the walk and that some of it should be frozen to ensure, as the walk progresses, that you still have cold water available. The most extreme temperatures for the area are around January / February and it was in February 2008 that a UK tourist lost her life on the loop walk through heat exhaustion in 42 degree heat (90 plus in UK terms). There are no emergency radio phones here, unlike Kings Canyon or Uluru for example, and when the lady collapsed her partner had to drive 40 minutes back to the local airport to raise the alarm and get help whilst she remained in situ within the park. Sadly she had perished before assistance arrived.

Before we start the walk proper we take a few photographs for ‘future’ use but the sun is in the wrong position for them to work as well as we’d hoped so we’ll have to try again a bit later! You’ll just have to be patient for the end results!

Apparently, the loop walk used to be fairly loosely marked but that seems to have changed, perhaps because of the aforementioned tragedy. The markers are clear from the off and we start to make our way across the gorge.

It’s a great morning for the walk, with the early start and the cool breeze we’re good to go. For the most part we’re walking along the top of the gorge looking down on the river which gives us a terrific view and a better impression on how huge this national park really is, it stretches for miles. The river is still flowing here, the water even looks relatively deep in patches but it won’t last for long once the weather hots up.

We spot a kangaroo high up in the undergrowth, it’s the only wildlife we have seen since starting out although as usual there’s lots of poo around so we know they’re out there somewhere! Sadly we’ve missed the bloom time of the wild flowers here so things aren’t looking as glorious as they do around June or July but the views are still wonderful and quite breathtaking.

Down at the riverside we’re walking in the sand which saps your energy after a while so we were pleased when the markers indicated for us to start clambering over ledges. Guess who got stuck going underneath one with her rucksack, hmm, never mind! Onward and upward we went.

After about two and a half hours we bumped into another couple walking towards us. Turns out that they were in the other caravan camped on top of the Gladstone Scenic Lookout a couple of weeks back, what a co-incidence! The chap (Greg) recognised our Terrano in the car park and we spend the next hour chatting to him and his wife (Wendy). It seems we’ve been travelling a couple of days apart through our entire journey, how funny! They leave here on Friday, the same as us and are heading for Coronation Beach just north of Geraldton which is also a possibility for us! With safe travels wished all round we continue our walk with the knowledge that we’ve only got another 45 minutes to go.

Darryl spots a family of goats on the opposite side of the gorge climbing up the rocks. We watch them for a while trying to work out just where they’re going and why! On reflection they might have just been looking for shade which was the only thing missing from their green, riverside location.

The last bit of the walk is quite tough going, walking through sand and then a route march back up to Natures Window. Phewie, it’s hot!

We relax in ‘the window’ for a while with another couple who were enjoying the view and the shade. We get chatting and they tell us that they should have been enjoying the area via a coach tour but it was cancelled so they are driving themselves instead and loving every minute of it! One of the highlights of their trip will be seeing daughter Jenny compete in an Ironman competition in Bussleton on December 5th. Within the race Jenny will undertake a 3.4km swim followed by a 180km bike ride and then a 42km run! Amazing and she’s doing it all for the Cystic Fibrosis charity, go Jenny! When we got back to the caravan we wondered if she had a charity page and with the magic of Google we managed to find that she does! The FP Triers gave us the opportunity to donate to the very good cause, to wish Jenny luck and also send a ‘Hello’ from her Mum & Dad!.

Whilst we were still at the window, we wanted to try our ‘special’ photograph again so took the opportunity to do so when nobody was looking! We were caught out though and even had one family borrowing our props for their own version! We did have a hoot, hopefully you’ll enjoy the photos when we publish them for a particular day next month.

For our efforts out on the walking track we rewarded ourselves with lunch under the canopy just off the car park. Sandwiches always taste better when you’ve worked for them!

There were more walks available for us to do though, so we didn’t lounge around for too long before heading off to the Z Bend section of the park. For whatever reason I didn’t handle the sandy corrugations quite as confidently as I did first thing this morning and of course there was now the added excitement of the occasional oncoming vehicle plus numerous pot holes and ruts in the road. As young Harley Coulsell would say “I NO LIKE IT”! But I persevered, because Darryl refused to take over and we of course reached our destination safely.

The Z Bend area is beautiful and gives a stunning view over the river as it Z’s it way through! We resist the temptation to take the walk down to the river bed, it’s very appealing as it involves a ladder climb but it’s nearing 2pm now and the heat of the day has arrived.

We stopped at the Meanarra Hill lookout before heading back into Kalbarri and arranging for the car to be serviced on Wednesday (incidentally that’s not as a result of my driving today!). We were going to get in done in Perth but figure using the services of smaller garages outside of the cities goes a tiny way to keeping them in business and that’s surely good all round.

Back at the haven that is our caravan we release our hot, sweaty toes from our walking boots! Ahhhhh, heaven!

The only other place we walked today was down to the jetty to see how people were getting on fishing. We meet Jeanette who is originally from Avonmouth and still has her strong Bristolian accent, beautiful! Her husband Clive is sitting at the top of the hill reading a book, he doesn’t do fishing and infact refers to Jeanette’s attempts as ‘feeding the fish’ because they always take the bait but she rarely catches anything. Well today she’s caught three so she’s doing well! Perhaps we’ll have a go tomorrow.

Dinner rounded off the evening, pie and mash - gorgeous! A bit of reading and guitar practise was in order for me, struggling a bit without a capo but I’ll get there. Dar relaxed with the news and caught up on current affairs ie he watched the TV which is something of a novelty because we rarely have it on let alone watch it these days. My how things change when you’re living in the outback!

Mum K made us laugh when we got an email saying “I watched a programme about the world's most dangerous creatures tonight which included tiger sharks, lion jelly fish and great whites and they were all at Ningaloo!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and a sea snake! I was quite pleased that you had just left there!”

That reminded us about how we’d seen an update about Berry Springs from fellow blogger Jackie whom we met on the Calypso snorkelling tour out of Mission Beach. Jackie had visited Berry Springs which is a renowned swimming hole not far from Darwin only to find it had been closed after the recent removal of a huge saltwater crocodile! We’d been meaning to use the magic of Google to find out more and were astonished, and a little shocked, to find that on the 23rd October the rangers removed the biggest croc that they’ve caught this year from the permanent trap that they have there. The trap is checked on a daily basis but the 4.7 metre, 50 year old male could have been in the area for some time before that and we wonder if he was there on our visit back on September 15th. Fogg Dam that spider's big! was our blog for the day and looking back we recall swimming in the main pool which then leads further downstream. At that point the water becomes murky and we didn’t feel quite so comfortable snorkelling around, the following day Nicole at ‘The Shearing Shed’ where I had my hair cut nearly choked when I said we’d been swimming out there with the retort that she has a rule of not swimming if there’s no filter ie she doesn’t swim anywhere other than a pool! Sounds like a sensible idea with hindsight!

Our research not only led us to this croc revelation but also to an update on the situation at Fog Dam. The same blog was mainly about our visit to Fog Dam where we were unable to walk the dam wall because of a croc, well he’s still there and on October 13th was sunbathing for the tourists! It seems he knows the sound of the ranger’s vehicles though and heads back for the water as soon as they get wind of him!

Good to hear all things are normal in the Northern Territory where crocs definitely rule!

Love to everyone

Dar and Sar


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17th November 2009

This special place
It's fantastic that you've re-visited the place where your headline photo was taken and find it just as wonderful. We were lucky to be there when the wild flowers were out - it must have been towards the end of September 2003. xxx Mum K

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