Last few days of the Safari and Perth
Day 31: Hamelin Stn to Kalbarri
At Hamelin Station near the Shell Beach we encountered our first rain in the early evening.What a shock after 4 and a half weeks dry days. A great feature of that day was the sights and features of Kalbarri National Park. Covering over 1800 sq km it features 2 distinctly different landscapes - wild bush land and rugged coastal cliffs. The dramatic gorges lined with red river gums, the slow flowing Murchison River and breath-taking vistas made the place a little magical.
We have started to see more wild flowers although it is a little early in the season still . One unique tree that we love is the grass trees that are very common here. They have a distinctive spear-like spike that can grow up to four metres long. And their foliage is like a mop of long thin needle like leaves. Formerly known has “black boys” due to their purported similarity to an aboriginal man carrying a spear. They are very slow-growing - a tree with a 1 metre trunk is probably about 100 years old!
A stunning drive through a bush-scape of grass trees, sand, and spinifex took us to a 45 min walk to the edge of one Gorge and Nature’s Window, a jagged hole in a huge rock formation that looks out to the river snaking through the deep gorge. Scary clambering down to have your photo taken, but worth it for the amazing view.
Day 32: Kalbarri to Geraldton
A short day of only 160 km today. The first part of the trip was along the raw and rugged cliffs where the NP meets the sea. Lots of detours to lookouts and we were lucky to enough to spy some whales not far off-shore. It came about like this:
Jill: What’s that brown thing just off shore.
B: Don’t know. Don’t think it’s a dugong - right colour but it’s just floating on the surface.
Jill: (to an on looker) : we’re looking at that brown patch floating down there.
On-looker: well I bet that what you are seeing is whale poo - I’ve seen it before.
J: Really ! .? Etc etc.
On-looker: words of confirmation. That means there will probably be whales around here ....... and there they are ! Over there (pointing)
J: WOW a mother an her calf. And look there’s some more further out. Wow! And other words of surprise, joy and amazement.
The whole coast right around to the south coast is a whale superhighway and we’ve had several sighting since.
Geraldton. Hooray a biggish town where we might be able sort out the photo up-load probalem that has plagued this blog from the early days. Found a Harvey Norman computer shop and quite easily the problem appeared to be fixed. At least I have managed to post some retrospective photos in the last few days.
Day 33: To Cervantes
One of many small fishing villages/owns along this coast specialising in lobster fishing. The rock lobster fishery is Australia’s single most valuable fishery worth 83 million p.a. and is the world’s first certified ecologically sustainable fishery. We had a gorgeous seafood platter at the Country Club across the road from our camp with lobster being the centre piece of the huge (for two) platter.
We visited the Pinnacles Desert in Nambung NP near to Cervantes. Formed from Limestone nearly 30,000 years ago over many thousands of years but were exposed only in recent times. Aboriginal artefacts at least 6000 years old have been found in the Pinnacles Desert despite no recent evidence of Aboriginal occupation. This suggests the Pinnacles were exposed about 6000 years ago and then covered by shifting sands, before being exposed again in the last few hundred years.
Massive changes on scenery over the last two days from scrubby uninteresting terrain giving way gradually to cropping and pasture land. Huge acreages of crops, mainly canola, along with the requisite clusters of grain silos and small processing mills.
Day 34 and 35
Yuk. Getting closer to Perth and expressways and built up areas and hectic traffic. No thanks !
Our mammoth trip is all but over - more than 7500 km ( 3 times Bluff to Cape Reinga !!)
Now get our heads into big city mode and enjoy Perth for a few days before setting off on a smaller ( and shorter southern adventure of our own.
Photos in a separate post
At Hamelin Station near the Shell Beach we encountered our first rain in the early evening.What a shock after 4 and a half weeks dry days. A great feature of that day was the sights and features of Kalbarri National Park. Covering over 1800 sq km it features 2 distinctly different landscapes - wild bush land and rugged coastal cliffs. The dramatic gorges lined with red river gums, the slow flowing Murchison River and breath-taking vistas made the place a little magical.
We have started to see more wild flowers although it is a little early in the season still . One unique tree that we love is the grass trees that are very common here. They have a distinctive spear-like spike that can grow up to four metres long. And their foliage is like a mop of long thin needle like leaves. Formerly known has “black boys” due to their purported similarity to an aboriginal man carrying a spear. They are very slow-growing - a tree with a 1 metre trunk is probably about 100 years old!
A stunning drive through a bush-scape of grass trees, sand, and spinifex took us to a 45 min walk to the edge of one Gorge and Nature’s Window, a jagged hole in a huge rock formation that looks out to the river snaking through the deep gorge. Scary clambering down to have your photo taken, but worth it for the amazing view.
Day 32: Kalbarri to Geraldton
A short day of only 160 km today. The first part of the trip was along the raw and rugged cliffs where the NP meets the sea. Lots of detours to lookouts and we were lucky to enough to spy some whales not far off-shore. It came about like this:
Jill: What’s that brown thing just off shore.
B: Don’t know. Don’t think it’s a dugong - right colour but it’s just floating on the surface.
Jill: (to an on looker) : we’re looking at that brown patch floating down there.
On-looker: well I bet that what you are seeing is whale poo - I’ve seen it before.
J: Really ! .? Etc etc.
On-looker: words of confirmation. That means there will probably be whales around here ....... and there they are ! Over there (pointing)
J: WOW a mother an her calf. And look there’s some more further out. Wow! And other words of surprise, joy and amazement.
The whole coast right around to the south coast is a whale superhighway and we’ve had several sighting since.
Geraldton. Hooray a biggish town where we might be able sort out the photo up-load probalem that has plagued this blog from the early days. Found a Harvey Norman computer shop and quite easily the problem appeared to be fixed. At least I have managed to post some retrospective photos in the last few days.
Day 33: To Cervantes
One of many small fishing villages/owns along this coast specialising in lobster fishing. The rock lobster fishery is Australia’s single most valuable fishery worth 83 million p.a. and is the world’s first certified ecologically sustainable fishery. We had a gorgeous seafood platter at the Country Club across the road from our camp with lobster being the centre piece of the huge (for two) platter.
We visited the Pinnacles Desert in Nambung NP near to Cervantes. Formed from Limestone nearly 30,000 years ago over many thousands of years but were exposed only in recent times. Aboriginal artefacts at least 6000 years old have been found in the Pinnacles Desert despite no recent evidence of Aboriginal occupation. This suggests the Pinnacles were exposed about 6000 years ago and then covered by shifting sands, before being exposed again in the last few hundred years.
Massive changes on scenery over the last two days from scrubby uninteresting terrain giving way gradually to cropping and pasture land. Huge acreages of crops, mainly canola, along with the requisite clusters of grain silos and small processing mills.
Day 34 and 35
Yuk. Getting closer to Perth and expressways and built up areas and hectic traffic. No thanks !
Our mammoth trip is all but over - more than 7500 km ( 3 times Bluff to Cape Reinga !!)
Now get our heads into big city mode and enjoy Perth for a few days before setting off on a smaller ( and shorter southern adventure of our own.
Photos in a separate post
What a trip - look forward to catching up on your memories when you are back home
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