Kalbarri to Mullewa and the Wildflowers

On 12 September we moved on down from Shark Bay to Kalbarri, a relatively small fishing and tourist town in a very pretty seaside setting, where the Murchison River runs out through what looks to be a dangerous bar, into the Indian Ocean. Apart from the river entrance there are high cliffs north and south and the town is virtually ringed by the very large Kalbarri National Park. We have been looking forward to getting to Kalbarri. We were fortunate to get a good site in the Tudor caravan park, with sun coming in the front and our backs to a sometimes strong and cool wind. I put the annex up, opened at the front, to give us more protected space outside. We stayed for 6 days here.

Time was spent exploring the national park over some day trips and one energetic day on a canoe safari, upstream on the Murchison. We joined 11other people and were taken in a 4-wheel drive bus, with the canoes on a trailer, about 20kms up the river and canoed back down about 12kms, with a couple of stopovers (one for a BBQ breakfast) and then met the bus at the final point to travel the last bit the easy way. That was a lot of fun, but as the group were self-supporting, M and I in our canoe felt a bit obliged to stay close to a mother and two young (adult) daughters, from Singapore, in the one canoe, and no previous experience. We helped them out with some judicious hints along the way and they were going well in the end, once they learned to keep the thing relatively straight!

We had another especially good day out in the National Park where we visited some absolutely beautiful heathland and wildflower country, culminating in a climb to a rocky escarpment overlooking the river, way below. Have a look at the photos of one view here through what they call "Nature's Window".

We moved on yesterday to Geraldton, just briefly there to some shops, it's a big town, then away from the coast 100kms into the wildflower country to the east, to Mullewa where we have stayed a couple of nights to do a long day today exploring the wildflowers. This has been great, as will be seen by some of the photos below. M is catching up tonight with her wildflower records and I am getting another post into the blog, before moving on down to Perth tomorrow. We will have one more stop down somewhere near Jurien Bay or Cervantes, then into a van park in Perth, up in the Swan Valley, on Friday.

I had better see if I've got any tidy clothes anywhere ... I think there is an iron under the bed, or there was when we left...

The Natural Bridge at Kalbarri (Dont forget you can click on any of these photos to enlarge them)

Lichen on rocks in Kalbarri National Park

Murchison River from the escarpment lookout

Another view from the escarpment

R and M in "Nature's Window"

The view without intruders (did they fall backwards?)

Grass Trees in the Park - there were many

Setting out for the canoe safari

R unloading our canoe (these are the only 2 photos as we put the camera back in the bus then!)

The "Pink Lake" at Port Gregory , south of Kalbarri

A closer view of the pink water - it is even more pink than the photos show, caused by a natural occurrence of beta-carotene in the water

Carpets of everlastings near Mullewa

And they tell us it has been a poor season because of the lack of rain!

More of the same - so much colour!

Wreath Flowers on the roadside

Close-up of a Wreath Flower

M amongst the Wreath Flowers and others

Quobba - Shark Bay

Our last blog post was at Carnarvon. While we were there we spent a day driving up the rugged coast to the north, to an area known as "Quobba". This is an area that featured in a TV documentary a few years ago about people who had been visiting there for years and "free camping" in the nooks and crannies along the coves and beaches, and the authorities were taking steps to stop this. Well, it has been regulated somewhat, but not stopped. It  now costs money and has some minimal health services, but there are still makeshift shacks and camps there (a bit like the camps in the dunes north of Stockton NSW)  plus some more up-market travelling rigs. It's listed in the Camps 6 travelling guide that we use a lot.

Anyway, we visited there on a day trip only, and there are some photos below. We had a close call driving,  nearly cleaning up 4 wild goats, including a young "kid", that chose to appear out of the scrub and cross the road in front of us, in line, but fortunately just beyond a cattle grid that I had slowed down for. I didn't know M used words like that!

M visited the Gwoonwardu Mia (Gascoyne Aboriginal Heritage & Cultural Centre) - just opened 2 months ago, completely run by Aboriginal people - their stories, art, cuture and interactive displays were so well done, so moving..

We went to the growers markets on the last day - cheap bananas, greens and preserves - not to mention donuts.  The Anglicans were there doing the BBQ and an older Anglican lady selling her books of handwritten prayers and cards and inviting us to Church.

After Carnarvon, we moved on to the south, a bit over 300km to Shark Bay, where we are having a lazy day, the last of 4 days in a van park at Denham. We have a great site with a view out across the bay to the West. The Cape that we can just see on the horizon is the furthest point west on the continent and is near where Dirk Hartog left his pewter plate (1616) many years before Cook laid his posession claim on the East Coast.

Shark Bay really is a beautiful place, listed World Heritage, with a great variety of natural scenery, wildlife and marine life. We attended a church service at the little Anglican Church, made out of calcified shell blocks, here in Denham on Sunday and yesterday spent the day driving around the Francois Peron National Park, over 100kms of rugged sand tracks to the furthest point north, Cape Peron. There are some photos below and M will provide some more info.

Warning sign at Quobba Point, near the blowholes,where the big waves roll in from the Indian Ocean
(the sea was as flat as a pancake the day we were there)

The first blast from the blowhole is air, forced ahead of the water

...and then the water seems to recede back into the holes

The information plaques on the memorial to HMAS Sydney

The memorial looks out over the Indian Ocean opposite where the battle was fought

Down now to Shark Bay, a stop to look at the wildflowers on a claypan in the Francois Peron National Park. You can see the nature of the sand tracks in the background that we were following - we were able to stop here because of the hard surface of the pan - some of these pans (called Birridas are either salt or gypsum).  The exciting sand tracks  made it necessary to keep driving momentum so I could not stop and take picures of all the wildflowers but I was just awed by the vegetation patterns - red sandy plains dominated by desert-adapted acacias and hakeas and grevilleas at their most northern range on the peninsula.  The Shark Bay daisy (a creeper) that shows its mauve to pink flowers in and above the other  shrubs.  Interspersed amonsgt the wattles were pink parakeelyas and red Eremophilia glabra, white smoke bush and lambs tails.  The spinifex here is the green furry kind that hugs the sides of the track underneath the other shrubs - just beautiful. As you looked across the landscape you could see a rounded carpet of green, greys, yellows and white of all shades - stunning - one can never tire of seeing such beauty.

These are actual animal tracks in the sand just near the claypan. There is a multitude of small native animals around here, and some ferral cats and foxes, unfortunately still - although the baiting program has almost eliminated the foxes but the cats don't take baits so they are trying other methods.  The bilby and mallee fowl have been sucessfully reintroduced in the Project Eden program because of the successful reduction in feral animals.  The Project also hopes to introduce the captive bred banded hare wallaby and mala as well.

This is "Big Lagoon", the first place we visited in the park

Cape Peron, right at the top - stunning colours!

Picnic lunch at Cape Peron - we watched a dugong swim buy here while we ate our lunch

Looking for Dirk Hartog (wrong Cape!)

A sign on the walk. "Wanamalu" is the aboriginal name for the cormorants (see below) - great walk through the flowers on a red sandy track - we saw a blue Varigated Wren and a lizard or two.  Ron had seen a Woma python on the side of the road earlier.

Another sign at the top of the Cape that describes the meeting of the sea currents that bring such diverse marine life

On the walk. Look closely and see the myriad bird life at the water's edge, mostly cormorants (click on these photos to enlarge them)....not my best side..

Mostly cormorants - We stood at a lookout at the end of the Cape looking down into the clear waters below.  You could see the line of the sea grass bed about 200m from the shore. While we were here we watched a school of hundreds of fish milling around the rocks close to the shore - then we saw the shark - about 10-12 ft probably a tiger shark gliding along the gutter between  the sea grass and the shore - the fish were hiding in the shallows.  We saw a sea turtle and some baby black rays all staying in the shallows away from Jaws.

This is a view from the caravan park in Denham where are now. We are up on a higher level, a sort of plateau in the park towards the back, that has his magnificient view across the bay. We leave here early in the morning for Kalbarri, about 400km to the south

Cape Range - Coral Bay - Carnarvon

Our last blog took us from the hot and dusty Pilbara, Karijini NP and the mining areas of Tom Price and Paraburdoo, Northwest to Exmouth. We spent a couple of days in a caravan park at Exmouth to charge up the batteries and provisions, look at some of the local sights, and do a "recee" picnic run the 50-odd kms around to the Cape Range National Park to check out where we were going the next day. On 30 August we moved around to our campsite for 4 days at Tulki Beach.

We were in 1 of only 11 sites at Tulki, and with the open-ness and the wind blowing strongly at our backs, and the row of high sand dunes between us and the beach, we had some trepidations. But it turned out to be great.

After the 4 days there (that M will fill out some details of below), we left Cape Range and moved down to Coral Bay, towards the Southern end of Ningaloo Reef. This place had some highlights, not least the magic of snorkelling over the coral reef, fish and a turtle - I missed the turtle, but M and another lady who was swimming with us didn't!

And now we are further south at Carnarvon, for the past couple of days. Tomorrow after checking out the local Saturday morning Grower's Markets here, we are headed further south again to Shark Bay and Denham.

M will relate some of the details of these visits and I will assemble some photos below. We went to church in Exmouth on Fathers Day.  We were both  very moved by the way things were done, the music, and the involvement of the people - there was one scripture reading only. The church and rectory is 2 1/2 years old, built by voluntary labour and totally paid for  by the Australian church.  How exciting is that!

M has found some Sturt's Desert Pea, on the way into the Park.

 These ones did not have the black centre, but others nearer the town did. I loved the coastal heath with the rounded hills of the Cape Range bisecting the length of the cape. Low shrubs and treeeless, because of the winds blowing in from the Indian Ocean. We saw emus and  lots of kangaroos.  One camper sighted 175 kangaroos in about 15kms coming home at night.  It was very dry though and R woke to find a large male 'roo drinking the nappy san soak water that our washers were in (red dirt is hard to get out). He would have had a pain the next day!

For the kids - find the emu and the kangaroo

Lighthouse at the top of the cape at Exmouth

Across from the lighthouse - the joint US/Aust Communications Facility

A whale on the way past

M on our Tulki Beach

 We hoped to be able to snorkel at the next beach along, where there was coral closer to shore, but the winds were constant and the Ranger said it wasn't a good day for snorkelling as the current was so strong. So R caught up with some painting and I read (tried to do some Bp Cert.!!!).  Might leave it till I get home.

...and R (we didn't have a photographer!)

Tulki Beach camp (our van is further around left)

The start of the boat trip on Yardie Creek

 We learnt heaps on this short cruise in a creek at the end of the National Park.  Red mangroves are tropical and white mangroves are temperate.  Both varieties exist side by side here.  The white egret is tropical and the grey, temperate and they also exist together here and can reproduce.  We also saw two nests about 10 feet apart high up on a ledge. One was an Osprey nest - very neatly and methodically made and the other a White-bellied sea eagle whose nest was a little more higgly piggly and creative, though still functional and strong. I'll leave it to the readers to determine who is the Osprey and who is the Eagle in our van.

Find the 2 Black-Footed Rock Wallabies

...and 3 more - can you find them?

Sunset over Coral Bay (our tour boat nearest)

 To my delight I was able to snorkel in the clear shallow water here - we had had several hints from other grey nomads about how, when and where.  The next day we were to swim out to the reef - 20 metres, but it was too windy and cold.  After our glass bottom boat cruise in the morning of day 3, we had another go with a very helpful lady who has been coming there for years.  We hired flippers and noodles and off we went.  There was a mark to swim to and then you just relaxed as the current took you down the beach to the shallow water at the end. It was brilliant to be able to do it even though we had seen the coral in the morning. The coral was mostly shades of brown (there is a scientific reason for this - but here is not the space to explain- I need to google it again) We did see some lavender coral though and lots of fish both large and tiny of all colours.

It was too cold for the seagulls to fly!

Carnarvon news will be in the next blog.  At this point I can say that Black Sapotee with blue vein cheese and a gin and tonic have been discovered in Carnarvon.  The readers can guess who made that culinary discovery.