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Published: February 4th 2007
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Kalbarri Gorges
Look at that sky! After some lengthy bus rides (partly due to the distance, and partly due to the Greyhound's being a tad unreliable of late) we got into the 'proper' northwest of WA to get back to nature a bit.
When we finally got to Kalbarri late in the evening, we found ourselves in a nice hostel but with no food and no shops open! Luckily our fellow traveller and bus companion, Andrin, came to the rescue with some emergency rations that kept us going until the morning! En route to the shops in the morning, we saw the much talked about pelicans who live by the river, although we'd slept in a bit and missed seeing the early morning feeding. Wondering what we were going to do for the next 2 days we spoke to Goodryn, who worked in the hostel, who was really helpful and sorted us out with a car so that we could get out to the National Park, about 40km out of town, and to the gorges that run down the coast. We had an afternoon out in the gorges, where the ocean views were amazing and we slowly baked ourselves until we decided it was time for
a much needed dip in the ocean. Unfortunately, with the low tide, windy swells and jagged rocks along most of the beaches, it meant that snorkelling, body-boarding and even getting into the water was out of the question in most places! The town beach eventually met our needs for a swim but nothing else!
We got up early the next morning to head to the national park, partly to hopefully avoid the crowds (didn't work - there were 3 backpacker tours all there when we arrived!) and partly to avoid the midday heat (it's well into the 40's on some days around here, or 100's to you old folks!). After a 30km drive down an unsealed road in our Ford Falcon (think Mondeo) we got to the first stop, The Loop and Nature's Window. The Loop is about a 4-6 hour walk, which we didn't fancy much, but the Window is a naturally hollowed out sandstone rock formation that overlooks the Murchison river and is pretty cool (apologies to geologists for vague descriptions!). We then drove down to the river at a part called the Z-Bend, where the river has cut through the rock in straight angled lines rather
Kalbarri Gorges
Sunset at Red Bluff. Good time for spotting some Roo's! than the normal curves you'd expect (hence the clever name). We went down to the river, descending down the gorge (with Kinabalu flashbacks) and across some steep rocks and, finally, a conveniently placed ladder. The river was pretty low so no swimming but it was very quiet and tranquil down there (once the backpacker tour buses had gone!).
Once we'd returned the car, we headed off on the bus to the Shark Bay area. The bus to the highway to meet the main bus was on time, but the connection was about 3 hours late! We were heading to Denham, a small town about 30km from the Monkey Mia Resort. Having arrived at 1 a.m. we got up early to get the shuttle to Monkey Mia for the day, not to see sharks or monkeys, but dolphins!! Obvious really. There are thousands of dolphins (and sharks) in the Bay area and a small group of them regularly come to the shore where they receive a small feed of fish (there are 13 in total but only 5 are fed). This is only a small part of the daily diet to ensure they still hunt and don't become too domesticated,
Kalbarri - Nature's Window
The river is the bright bit (reflecting sun!) and the resort entrance fee funds research into these fascinating creatures so we think the whole thing isn't just a big tourist trap. We were really lucky for several reasons; firstly there were 3 young pups in the group between 2 weeks and 2 months old, and secondly they pick a couple of people watching to come into the water to feed a fish to the dolphins and we both got picked! Technically Luke got picked twice (Save Ferris is officailly now our lucky mascot!) but let Laura have his second go. What a knight in shining armour!!!
We spent the rest of the day at the resort, doing a little bushwalking and cooling off in the pool - the sand gets seriously hot by mid afternoon! We had a chilled day in Denham waiting for our bus to take us to Exmouth, our most northerly destination on the west coast, which was a long night on the bus. But more about that next time...
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