Kalbarri National Park, south to Eneabba
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Woke up with the sun again, and to lots of birds chirping. There was a flock of about 20 pink-chested and pink-crested parrot-like birds swooping and diving between the ground, the trees, the fences and the electrical wires. I spent about 20 minutes chasing them around trying to photograph them.
We basically came to the conclusion we shouldn’t go north to Exmouth and should instead check out the other river overlooks, then head back to Perth. But we still hadn’t fully given up the idea. We headed into town. I decided it was time for me to get behind the wheel and drove us there without incident. Well, other than constantly turning on the windshield wipers instead of the blinkers (they’re opposite how we do it). I got to the point where I’d remember to turn on the blinkers with my right hand, but my left would still instinctively hit the wipers too. Finally I got it worked out. Only drove on the right hand side once today. Not bad for my first time.
They guy at the gas station told us we really should see Exmouth. It’s great, you’ll love it, etc. etc. We spent another 10 minutes discussing whether to go or not. But finally I asked him if the scenery on the way there was about the same as we’d been going through and he said, oh no, it’s much more desolate. That was the clincher. I had seen enough of this already. So on with the river and Perth plan.
We headed back the way we had come in to town about 35km to the turn off for the two main river overlooks. Only to discover it was not paved. Not a problem. We headed in anyway. But then we discovered it was very very rough and we could only go about 15-20 km/h. It was 30km to the overlooks. This was going to take all day. So bad idea. We turned around. We thought we’d check out the last of the overlooks, Hawk’s Head, that was near the one we went to yesterday, Ross Graham, that was quite nice. Only 3km and paved road.
We got out there and it was a nice overlook. Quite dramatically attached to the side of the gorge. But that was it. You couldn’t walk around or anything. So we photographed it and left. And headed back to town. So that little excursion cost us about 2 hours with not much to show for it. We were hoping for a consolation prize of seeing a kangaroo, which the guy at the store claimed were everywhere, but no luck. In fact, in general, people up here seem to think the roos are running rampant. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. Les, ever the conspiracy theorist, has decided that they’ve been extinct for some time, but the Aussies keep up the pretense to encourage tourism. He may be right.
So time to head back to Perth. We decided to take the scenic coastal road that connects Kalbarri to Northhampton, about 50km south of the Kalbarri cutoff we took into town last night from the main highway. Right on the edge of town we found a camel rental place. While we didn’t want a ride, we thought it would be fun to drive in and get a photograph or two of the camels, which we did. The only problem, the road was made of sand, and very soft sand at that. While trying to back out and turn around, I got us stuck and in the process of trying to get out, got us REALLY stuck. The right rear tire dug down to the axle and we were not going anywhere.
But, this is one of the reasons I travel with Les. He was undaunted, having extracted himself from similar situations more than once in the past. We had acquired a couple of wooden boards during various efforts to get our camera batteries to recharge (don’t ask, I’ll explain some other time). We used them to dig out the wheel a bit. Then got the jack out and put it on one of the boards and used the rear “roo” bar to lift up the van. Then we filled in the hole and put the board under the tire.
As all this was going on, a guy pulled in with a pickup truck and asked us if we needed any help as he had a rope and some free time. This is indicative of the people of Australia that we’ve come across. Very friendly, very willing to help, always seem to have a smile on their faces and not unwilling to make a few jokes at the expense of stupid Yanks who’ve got their van stuck in the sand. If we had been in the states, first of all, no one would have stopped to help. But if they had stopped, they would have demanded our wallets, if not killed us outright just for being stupid or because they were bored.
Anyway, the board and sand solution actually worked so we didn’t need his help and he went off happily to tell his friends what idiots we were. At this point a strange thing happened. The board we had put under the wheel was no where to be found. It wasn’t in the hole, it wasn’t buried in the sand. It wasn’t wedged under the van. I was convinced it was stuck up under the van and we spent some time looking for it just in case. But it had completely vanished. Hopefully to a better place where it can laugh and play with other boards.
Just before we had stopped for the camels, we had noticed a point where the waves were breaking pretty large and people were surfing. This was the first time we’d seen any significant wave activity or surfing so we decided to go have a look and take some pictures. The waves were maybe 5-6 feet but every once in awhile, a 10-12 footer would come along and really shake things up. I took a bunch of pictures of surfers with my telephoto. Hopefully one or two will come out but we’ll have to wait and see after they’re developed.
The day had warmed up considerably and it was REALLY hot out on the beach. It remained hot the rest of the day. Much warmer than yesterday.
So we still hadn’t gotten very far. We left the beach and headed south. But shortly past the beach we ran across signs for various gorges, rock outcroppings and natural bridges. So we sidetracked again and went out to look at them. Basically this part of the coast drops dramatically to the sea and wind and water erosion has made some interesting patterns along the shoreline. Natural bridge is one example. Island Rock another. And Castle Cliffs a third. Check the photos.
Okay, really time to head to Perth now. But hang on. We really haven’t gotten very far from Kalbarri and don’t we really want to take a swim today? Yes we do. So we headed back to town and Chinaman’s Beach where the Murchison River meets the sea. We went out to the beach and as we were getting into the water, we were hailed by a man with his family near by. “No worries, mates?” It was our good Samaritan friend from the camel place. We gave him a thumbs up and continued into the water. And he leaned over and clearly was relishing telling the story to his wife. As long as we’re providing entertainment value to the local population, we’re doing our jobs. The water was warm, but surprisingly, not as warm as Hangover Bay which is farther south (remember, you get closer to the equator going north here).
Now we decided to really head off for Perth and proceeded down the scenic road, which frankly wasn’t all that scenic past the stuff we had already looked at. After about 100km it hooked up with the main highway we had come up before. The winds were very strong, just like on the way up, and keeping control of the tall van was an exercise. But it made the drive more interesting, if a bit frightening for the passenger.
We passed the bent over trees I had mentioned yesterday or the day before, and this time stopped and got pictures of them. Other than that it was pretty much hell-bent for leather, through the same areas we had already been through, until it started to get dark.
Because of all of our adventures we didn’t make it to Perth this evening. Only as far as Eneabba which is still about 250km from Perth. So we’ll have a couple of hours drive in the morning to get there. The caravan park (RV park for you non-Australian speakers) is about a half-acre square of sand next to a gas station and restaurant, with a couple of old cars and older trailers on one side. But beggars can’t be choosers and it does have a power hookup, bathrooms and showers so we can’t really complain.
It’s still really warm and it’s going to be very warm in the camper this evening. Hopefully it will cool down.
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