Kalbarri National Park

What a surprise to hear rain on the roof overnight, after so many days of cloudless sunny skies! I don’t understand why Australian roofs are so commonly made of corrugated metals, given the heavy rains that pound down in sudden flash showers. Of course, we had hung out some washing to dry over night - more wet in the morning than when it came out of the washer. I enjoyed an early morning walk down to the fascine (where the river water meets the ocean), with a very light shower and gentle breeze but quite pleasant temperature. 

We packed up and hit the road, back down south to the Kalbarri National Park. I’m getting more used to driving on the Western Australian highways, with the speed limit of 110 km/hour even on roads without a dividing line between the lanes. Chris and I both find overtaking is a little bit challenging because the mirages on the road make it hard to see in the distance. There are also lots of ‘road trains’, the super long loaded trucks. And today, the added excitement of the extra wide loads coming at us, trucks carrying houses on them that jut out over the highway dividing line and right into our driving lane.

It was nice to get off the main highway and head toward the coast to Kalbarri. The national park is huge, but the town has a nice quaint little holiday village feel, all stretched out along the water front. The town is located where the Murchison River meets the ocean, so the water tastes salty but is not very wavy – but you can see the big waves breaking just beyond the river bank. We’re staying at a nice little two-story apartment just off the main drag; I’m thrilled at the size of the fridge and kitchen after cooking in pretty cramped quarters for the last 10 days.

After a walk down the water front to make some plans for the next few days’ adventures, we couldn’t resist jumping into the water for a swim before supper. Seafood again – this time Rio got to try lots of different types of seafood piece by piece: squid rings, oyster and prawn, all breaded and deep fried – how could you miss? Chris enjoyed a delicious homemade veggie burger and Sol had chicken burger again. I got the grilled Spanish mackerel. We ate outside with a view of the river, ocean and hills as the sun set gradually behind some cool clouds on the horizon. I like the way so many places here are BYO; it sure helps to keep the cost down, but still makes it feel like a special meal as you sip your wine from a tumbler and unwrap the paper packet with your fish and chips.

Day 13 Kalbarri: Today was the toughest day of the holiday. I spent the morning in considerable discomfort with a stomach upset – though the boys seemed happy to catch up from their internet deprivation while waiting for me to feel better. Our planned hike in the national park was postponed to after lunch, which wasn’t a terrible thing since it meant we were hiking slightly past the heat of midday and finishing up in the early evening when the lower angle of the sun made for nicer photographs. To get to the start of the hike, we had to endure a 27 km drive up an unsealed road, mostly sand that had been graded by caterpillar in small ridges. Some of the drive was bone-juddering, so we appreciated that they are in the middle of roadworks to pave the way into the park.

The first views from the car park were promising, but slightly clouded by flies. We set off briskly, hoping to walk ourselves out of fly range, but no matter how fast we went, they followed us in swarms. The hike started up on the top of the gorges, then a rocky climb down into the river bed (still enough water to be called a ‘river’ but pretty minimalist). 

We wound around with the river, admiring the Tumblagoorda Sandstone patterning the gorge walls (layers of multi coloured sand deposited 480 million years ago and then gouged into gorge shapes by water and erosion) – as much as we could through the cloud of flies. The heat was pretty intense in the gorge, with very little wind to help against heat or flies. We were fairly well prepared with water and snacks but nobody wanted to stand still long enough to nibble. 

Chris managed to stay cheerful, take photos, and find his inner Zen to ignore the flies, whereas Rio found that giving voice to his complaints was the best approach. He was tempted when we offered to let him take shelter under a shady gorge overhang and stay there, but the flies didn’t diminish in the shade so he thought better of it. 

There were lots of birds, including a couple of black swans that seemed to be escorting a pelican off to a secure facility, one in front and one behind. A couple of roos showed their faces as well, to explain the copious roo poo on the trails. 

The route was fairly well marked but we managed to stray from it a few times when there was no sand to show us trekker footsteps. Chris’s GPS was helpful but not quite at the scale required to avoid all wrong moves.

The Loop hike was 9 km total, with some vigorous up and downs, so we were all pretty tired upon our return. Just enough energy and oomph to smile for the camera at Nature’s Window.

The first thing we did on the way back was to stop at BP to pick up some fly hats – Sol and Chris still being stoic and refusing a hat, but Rio and I pretty convinced they would come in handy. See tomorrow’s post for who was right...

Back at home for a well earned supper and the kids’ first game of Euchre. I think they are hooked. Yay, we don’t have to wait for our annual camping trip at Rathtrevor to play Euchre now.

Coral Bay to Carnarvon

We decided to try out kayaking for our final morning in Coral Bay, in an effort to get close to the sharks again. We paddled across the bay to the reef shark area. We were treated to a view of a number of reef sharks but they were pretty shy of our kayaks and swam away much more quickly than they had when we were just standing in the water watching them. We pulled out our snorkels to try to look at them under water but the visibility wasn’t great. We were treated, however, to  close surface view of a turtle which I at first mistook for a sea snake (and am still not fully convinced was a turtle).

We were also able to tether the kayaks up to a mooring point in the middle of the bay and do some more deep water snorkelling. The coral was gorgeous, including a huge cylindrical reef with a particularly varied array of coral close to the surface that we could swim over and get a very close up view of the coral and the fish.

On the way to Carnarvon we stopped at Bumbak’s plantation to sample their famous fruit smoothie/fruit ice creams. Rio had the banana smoothie, Sol had banana and chocolate ice cream, I had frozen pure mango and Chris had mango dipped in chocolate. Super yum. We also stopped at the  OTC satellite, the first one to broadcast across continents to Australia and receiving the signals for the moon walk.

Back in Carnarvon, the kids wanted to go back to the park to play footy, while Chris and I shopped so that we could make use of the pizza oven at the holiday park by making some pizzas to throw in. We took advantage of the fresh basil and green onions growing in a pot outside reception, and made the most yummy pizza to eat in the gazebo. 

We also squeezed in a walk along the one-mile jetty, built to allow the movement of wool and produce out to the ships that couldn’t make it up the mouth of the Gascoyne River – now part of the heritage precinct and a great spot for fishing (the pylons of the jetty have grown greenery that make it imitate coral in attracting fishies).

Coral Bay

Day 8 Carnarvon to Coral Bay: We checked out the Carnarvon farmer’s market, which we’d heard was famous for fruit smoothies. The fresh produce was gorgeous – and amazing prices—but we all pronounced the mango smoothie to be underwhelming. The Dutch mini pancakes and the homemade fruit jams and chutneys, on the other hand, were superb.

The drive to Coral Bay was mercifully short and we managed to find a roadside spot for our picnic that did not have hordes of flies. No picnic table or shade, but we’d settle for anything as long as there were no flies. Very impressed to see a cyclist going past, with a reclining cycle rigged up with a long thin awning to provide shelter from the sun and all his equipment strung up carefully in front or behind. It was also exciting to cross into the Tropic of Capricorn - particularly for Rio, our 'biggest, longest, furthest' superlative lover.

Our first view of the bay did not disappoint; the water is perhaps even more green and stunning than at Shark Bay. After checking into our resort, we wasted no time in getting down to the beach to try out the snorkelling on the famed Ningaloo Reef. It was recommended that we walk up the beach a ways and then float back down towards the main area, because there is a strong current from the south west. We tried that, but Rio was having some troubles with his snorkel and didn’t want to go too far out of his depth so we let ourselves drift back into the main part of the bay and that’s when we found the amazing coral.

The next two days can be summed up in three words: snorkel, snorkel, snorkel. Coral Bay is aptly named, with rich and varied coral beds from shallow all the way out to quite deep. The north end of the bay is also aptly named, Skeleton beach, as it is home to a reef shark nursery. You are not allowed to snorkel there but you can walk there and stand in the shallow waters to observe the sharks. Our first visit there was in the late afternoon and the light made it difficult to see much more than one little shark. Today we went back with the kids in the early afternoon, and it was teeming with sharks, all swimming very close to shore and putting on a great display for us. Rio was brave, putting his goggles on and sticking his face right into the water, but retreating when the sharks showed any signs of wanted to observe him as closely as he was observing them. The manta rays were also plentiful and putting on a good show right near the water’s edge. Sadly the photos were only from the day when it was hard to see the sharks (okay, maybe you can't see them in that photo below at all! Sorry) - we didn't bring the camera the second time. They were there, I promise!

We snorkeled a lot right from the beach here, but decided also to take a snorkelling tour in a boat to see species that we hadn’t experienced in the bay. The boat tour fulfilled that wish, as we got to swim with some gorgeous turtles and then saw three humpbacked whales on the way back. The boat trip itself was a bit like an amusement park ride, as the tour guide decided to make it exciting for us by doing sharp turns for no good reason and looking for the biggest waves to get the boat off the ground. He kept it within the bounds of reason, though, so we all enjoyed the thrill without getting sea sick. There were also some different fish from what we had seen closer in, and the coral was more elaborately coloured and shaped. It’s sad to see the dead coral in the bay, but it seems as though most of it is alive and thriving so the conservation program must be fairly successful.

Another cool event was the fish feeding. The Department for Environment and Conservation (DEC) are doing their best to keep marine life entertaining while still protecting it from excessive human interest. At 3:30 each day they bring out a bucket of fish food and they give kids handfuls to hand out to the fish that seem to know what time it is instinctively. There are some really large fish who come to get their free food, and they are quite happy to jump up out of the water to grab for it, which the kids find both exciting and a little scary. The fish come thick and fast and they brush right past the people standing in the shallow water. Quite a show.

We also enjoyed another fabulous fresh seafood meal – at least, Rio and I did (Coral Bay snapper for Rio and tiger prawns and crab for me). Sol and Chris went for vegetarian options at Fin’s Cafe.  Given the up-close-and-personal experiences with the fish, I’m starting to wonder whether I should stop eating the little critters as well...

I continue to be amused at how Aussies like to shorten all their words. This morning when I returned my wetsuit, the man at the rental booth said, ‘oh yeah, you’re the wettie lady!’ If I’d just landed here and heard that, I might have been offended, but I think I'm used to it enough now to realize that it's not an insult. 

Leaving Coral Bay, Chris was very interested in the massive termite mounds. I don't really share his excitement, perhaps because I had seen similar mounds in Africa, but the up-close photos are surprisingly cool.

Day 7 Monkey Mia to Carnarvon

Checked out of Monkey Mia, waving goodbye to the pair of emus seeing us off next to the resort reception. We stopped at Shell Beach for the final one of the Shark Bay heritage sites. It just looks like a long white beach at first, but on closer inspection, millions of tiny shells make up soft waves of beach that bury your feet as you walk towards the water. 

The shells are a renewable resource and are being harvested for building blocks, such as the ones that made up the fancy Old Pearler restaurant and a church in Denham. The action of waves compacts them together so that you can make blocks from them; the loose ones are used for lining walkways in the way we would use pebbles.

The drive to Carnarvon was unexciting, as we are getting used to the red dirt and dry scrubby Australian interior landscapes. We managed not to hit any wildlife, which is an achievement given the number of things that like to slither or jump onto the road. Carnarvon is a pretty little town, and it’s in the middle of a lush growing region so it stands out from the surrounding dry landscapes. It seemed quite windswept though they tell us it’s not always this windy. The boys wanted to play footy and cricket in the local oval rather than explore. I got some quiet time to do yoga and then enjoyed a big supermarket shop where I could restock on favourites. 

Holiday day 6 Monkey Mia (Shark Bay)

We started the day early with the dolphin feeding session run by the Department of Environment and Conservation who look after the park. All the tourists lined up with our feet in the water and the biologist walked up and down telling us about dolphins while the ones who were coming to feed swam around waiting for their fish. 

The feeding started in the 1960s with a fisherman who got friendly with some dolphins – after a while it got out of hand, and then DEC took over and brought it back under control. Now there are only a few dolphins who are still fed, and they are only given 15% of their daily food so they still have to do their own fishing. At a certain point, some of the females were spending all their time at the harbour getting fed and thereby neglecting their babies, who starved because they didn’t get mother’s milk and didn’t learn how to catch their own fish. This doesn’t happen any more, but I guess they keep doing a bit of feeding because it brings in the tourism and links up with the dolphin research. Only a select few got to hand over a fish, and we are not allowed to touch the dolphins even though they come quite close and look very cute.

The rest of the day was lazy, hanging out at the beach or in our little holiday flat. Chris and Sol tried snorkelling this morning but it was too silty to see anything. We rented a pedal boat and played around in that for an hour. Chris and I went for a walk along the beach; walking in sand sure is tricky, though better than walking on shells in bare feet. We have mostly managed to avoid sun burn, just a few little spots where sunscreen wasn’t properly applied have come up red. Sol is finding the salt water a bit itchy on his skin, and it makes all of our hair look a bit like straw – but it’s a small price to pay for the lovely relaxing water and sunshine.

We have also been treated to some wildlife sightings on land. There is an emu that has wandered through the resort a few times, and this evening we got to watch an echidna rooting for ants with its cute long snout – it almost looks like a finger, it’s so long, thin and delicate. 

We also spotted a manta ray in the water while playing Waboba this afternoon – the silt had cleared up enough to be able to see more under water life.

Holiday day 5 Denham to Monkey Mia

Today we headed across the peninsula to Monkey Mia, famous for the dolphins and dugongs that gather there for the plentiful seagrass beds. Our first activity was a boat cruise in the Aristocat II, one of two catamarans that take people out to watch the marine life in the bay. They did not disappoint; they knew where to go to spot the animals, by habit but also by communicating with other boats and their boss up above doing air tours. The dolphins were happy to play near the boat, and several of them even seemed to be playing with the boat. 

The dugongs were more elusive; they spend about 12-15 minutes under water and only come up for one to three breaths quite briefly in between. But once you have found one, you can usually keep it in sight and catch it coming up for air a few times, by which point you feel as though you have got a good look because it shows its nose and then dives down and shows the rest of its body as it slides back into the water. 

The tour also took us to a pearl farm where we learned just how delicate is the process of growing pearls – it takes at least seven years to grow a good sized one, and requires several human interventions. Rio got to eat some pearl meat and found it quite tasty, so he is hoping to get another taste of oysters before we leave the coast. Sol was tempted but they didn’t have a lot on offer so he didn’t get to try this time.

The final excitement of the boat trip was the 'natural jacuzzi' effect; they let down a net at the back of the boat and people hang on for dear life. I was still nursing my cold so I didn't jump in for the experience, but Chris and the boys enjoyed some body splashing fun.

Back on land, we finally got to enjoy the warm ocean waters without a cool ocean breeze interfering. Monkey Mia’s beach is the glorious tropical kind we were hoping for in the north west; sandy, warm, clear green-blue waters, and the bonus of lots of marine animals around. There are pelicans that hang around the beach quite unconcerned by the tourists; we saw a couple of turtles, and the dolphins like to come around just frequently enough to be exciting but not impossible to spot. I finally felt well enough to join in the water play, and started to learn why the boys are addicted to the Waboba ball – it really is quite fun to play for long stretches at a time. So much so that my arm is quite sore today from the Waboba session yesterday. 

Holiday day 4: Denham

Our morning trip was to the Francois Peron national park, which covers the central and northern half of the Peron Peninsula that juts up into Shark Bay. With a two-wheel drive, you can get to the homestead heritage site, which has an interpretive trail around the old sheep station as well as a natural habitat reclamation exhibit. 

The trail ends at the artesian hot tub, which was a wonderful soak for travellers’ bones, if a bit algal and murky at the bottom. It was a hot day; the mercury is slowly rising each day this week so it was about 26 degrees today. Out of the wind, that felt very hot and we moved slowly as lizards as we wandered around. Speaking of lizards, we finally got to see some up close and not dangerously crossing a highway in front of us. That was pretty exciting. 

We also saw a family of emus, with three very cute emu babies, who had come to the watering hole to freshen up. A clever blind had been set up so we could get quite close without disturbing them with our human presence. (See Sol's photos on facebook for pix of the emus).

After lunch, Chris and the boys played ball in the shallow water of Denham beach, while I wandered the town’s main strip to choose a restaurant for supper. I got to do some yoga in the back yard, with the wind rushing through the palm trees almost drowning out my internet yoga class – felt really good to be doing it outdoors, though. For supper, we went to the Old Pearler restaurant, housed inside a little building made of thousands of tiny shells compacted and cut into bricks. The speciality is local seafood, of course. Rio and I had the Red Emperor catch of the day, grilled with lemon pepper. He said it was one of the best meals he had ever had. Sol isn’t as keen on fish so he had chicken. Chris had a very tasty vegetable satay with rice, and didn’t miss eating fish at all. The meal was a nice size, but we all had room for dessert as well: Rio got the tiramisu, Chris had a mango-marsala cheesecake, I had honeycomb cheesecake and Sol had lime swirl cheesecake. There was lots of cross-table tasting – they were extremely yum. We managed to walk back up the hill to our place with our full tummies, and then enjoyed some time gazing at the southern night sky. It was very impressive to be able to see the centre of the Milky Way for the first time, and a big disc of the galaxy all the way across the sky, obscured in parts by dust but still thick and intense. I can see why they called it milky. 

Day 3 - Shark Bay and Little Lagoon

Holiday Day 3: In the morning we went to the Shark Bay visitors’ centre, where photos, videos and text explain why the region is a UNESCO heritage site. I was trying not to focus on the reptilian species on view, and absorb all the interesting scientific facts. 

After lunch, we went out looking for those species at the Little Lagoon. We were warned about the spiky rockfish when we went in, so we were a bit nervous, especially as the boys were playing with the ball again and jumping around. The lagoon water is beautiful, the surrounding soft sandy dunes shifting between white and red sand, the clear blue sky with a few tickling clouds. 

The mangroves in the estuary and the shallow waters of the lagoon attract a myriad of shore and water birds, fishing and feeding on the little marine creatures. We wandered along the estuary until we found a slightly deeper spot to try out our snorkels. At first, we weren’t sure we’d be seeing anything because the marine creatures were pretty small and the bottom of the estuary was a bit murky. But suddenly we were in the midst of schools of little fishies, seemingly not shy but happily scooting in and out of our snorkels. 

Pretty but not flashy fish, with some excitement thrown in by a couple of spiky crabs swimming at us. We found another spot further on that also had tiny shrimp – they seemed to be particularly attracted to my feet so I decided to watch from the bank rather than let them nibble whatever it was they wanted on me.   

After supper Chris and Sol discovered that they like passionfruit (I was already a fan), which had been given to us by our B&B host in Greenough.  Rio gave it the thumbs down -- too many seeds.

Shark Bay World Heritage Site

Day 2: We got to meet the pet kangaroos, who have been rescued as babies when their mothers were hit by cars on the highway. Two of the three were very friendly and happily came over to sniff us and be stroked. The third wasn’t that interested in us, and preferred to lounge in the shade. There were also sheep, guinea pigs, chickens and a cat – who knows what other animals there were out of sight!

We did a short riverside walk before our long drive, but the walk was much less pleasant than the scenery warranted because of swarms of persistent – though harmless – flies. On the plus side, it made us thankful to jump into the car. 

The first stop, after three hours, was at Billabong Station – I kid you not – which is a ‘homestead’, meaning a one-family settlement in the middle of the wilderness. We picked up ice creams and continued on the road to Hamelin Pool, our first taste of the Shark Bay region and UNESCO heritage site. Hamelin Pool is famous for being the best living example of stromatolites. Stromatolites, for those of you who aren’t evolutionary biologists, are groups of cyanobacteria that are similar to those found in 3,500 million year old rocks. They are the earliest record of life on earth, and are what created enough oxygen for other forms of life to emerge. Up close, they look a bit like bubbly rocks, and they do solidify into rocks if they are compacted. 

Hamelin Bay, where they are found, was one of our first glimpses of the incredible green-blue ocean of the Western Australian north. There are lots of markers of human history as well as the more distant ecological past, with remains of the various economic enterprises that have been attempted in the regions, some more successful than others. Wool stations, sandalwood, pearls, and lots of fishing are what we’ve seen so far.

We weren’t allowed to swim at Hamelin Bay, so we stopped at Nanga Beach, which is on the west coast of the Peron Peninsula that juts up into Shark Bay. We had the beach all to ourselves for most of our visit, a very long stretch of sandy beach with millions of tiny shells crunching underfoot and a long, shallow entry into the water. The boys are really into the Waboba ball now, so they were entertained in the shallow water making it skim and skip along the surface. It was a bit too windy for me, with my gradually worsening cold, so I spent little time in the water and then did some yoga stretching in a patch of sheltered beach.

The last stop before our final destination of Denham town, was Eagle Bluff. This is a lookout spot above a bay renowned for exciting marine life, such as lemon sharks and nervous sharks. We spotted something in the water, smallish but potentially sharkish too, so we scrambled down the bluff to get a closer look. 

Of course it was gone by the time we got down, and we realized that the view into the clear water was better from up high than close up. We had to scramble back up the sandy slope (that's me in the picture, with windblown hair), and suddenly the kids were desperate to get to the house to watch X-Factor.

Denham is a quaint little oceanside town, a bit buffeted by the strong westerly winds. The boats hang out offshore because the water is shallow for quite a ways into the harbour. 

Our rental place is up on a hill so we get a nice view of ocean and also lots of breeze. The owners live upstairs, but we have a huge space on the main floor with a big ‘rumpus room’ (1970s, anyone?) with a dart board, a large yard, patio with BBQ, and lots of sleeping space to keep the boys happy (i.e. separate beds!).