Kalbarri

The township of Kalbarri is quite pretty, set on the banks of the Murchison River not far from where the river meets the ocean. There are 2 small, independent supermarkets, a butcher, newsagent and other shops like a surf shop, gift shops and cafes. Because it doesn't rain much, the water was so very blue, which makes it very pretty to look at.

As we approached the Murchison River from the north, we hit the start of the wheat belt. It was so bizarre after so long away from any real human farming/cultivation activity. I mean, we'd driven through quite a few stations, the majority of them cattle, and we had to be careful of roaming cows upon the roadside but we never really saw any sign of cultivation of man's effort to change the environment until we hit the top of the wheat belt. It was a nice change but truly a bizarre feeling after a couple of months.

The road in to Kalbarri was dotted with wildflowers, until we hit the wheat belt, and then they mostly disappeared again until we turned off the North Coast Highway towards Kalbarri.

The road from Denham to Kalbarri (through the bug splattered windscreen, hence the splotches)

Finally hit "civilisation"

We spent an afternoon looking at many of the coastal lookouts south of town. There are quite a lot of different lookouts in the space of about 12kms of coastline. They all show the rugged beauty of this part of WAs coast and all highlight different aspects of the coast. The coast is very rugged and quite a few shipwrecks lie off the coast in this stretch and up to Shark Bay.

Natural Bridge

Castle Rock

Pot Alley

Monkey Mia

I wasn't sure what to expect at Monkey Mia as I have heard so many mixed reviews about it. I guess your experience is very much dependent on what you expect or hope to see/do. I had heard that only a few people get to interact with the dolphins so I was prepared for that. It cost $24 to enter the National Park, and it's not included in the WA National Parks Pass. Greg was very much of the opinion that we were there so we should do it, while I was more skeptical about the value of it. But I am glad we went as the dolphins were pretty cool and it is an incredibly beautiful part of our country.

The dolphin feeding is a very controlled experience. They start at 7:45am when you meet the rangers for a briefing and there can be any number of people there.... up to the high hundreds on occasion. They only feed 5 of the dolphins that call Shark Bay home, based around a stringent set of criteria, and that depends on whether or not they turn up for a feed. This is to prevent the dolphins becoming dependent of people, too lazy to hunt and not to lose their natural instincts. It's a great idea to protect them so well....  but being there on a day when there are hundreds of people would suck.

After an explanation of the rules you get to move down to the waters edge, in single file, and they talk some more about the rules, dolphins, dolphin behaviour and research, and the dolphins that visit Money Mia. After a bit more of a talk you all move into the water about mid-calf deep and the dolphins cruise within a couple of feet of shore while the Rangers talk. You can observe them up close, with some of them rolling onto their side for a closer look at the people, as well as watch them snack on little fish near shore or hunt a little further out. Eventually the Rangers stop talking and volunteers bring down some buckets with fish in them for the dolphins that are present. At the first feeding only 3 dolphins were present and they all got only 2-3 fish each, as they are only allowed a total of 10% of their daily feeding requirements to be feed to them. The rest they must obtain by hunting for themselves.  Volunteers pick people out of the crowd to feed the dolphins 1 fish. Tilda got picked but chose not to feed the dolphin, which was fair enough. If you don't like contrived and very controlled things, you wouldn't enjoy this and I can see why some people have gone away very disappointed. We were there with about 50-60 other people so we could all stand in the water and have dolphins come quite close. On the busy days, you wouldn't be able to do that.

We hung around for the other 2 feedings to watch as well. Each day they only do a maximum of 3 feedings before midday, and only for the 5 dolphins that are currently being fed. There were 3 dolphins at the second feeding and only 1 came in the for third.  They kids really enjoyed learning a bit more about dolphins and watching them up close.

After the dolphin experiences we spent some time exploring the beach and the kids happily splashed in the water. The water was too cold and it was too windy for a swim, which was a pity as it is so beautifully blue.

Francois Peron NP

The Francois Peron NP is an adventure in 4WD, if nothing else. The track is sand, beautiful red sand, and quite deep in some places. I love that National Parks have provided 2 air pressure pumps so you can pump up your tyres once you are finished and leaving the park. It took about an hour and a bit to drive the approx 40km to the tip. The drive is actually pretty good, with the road graded down to clay for much of it, although it is slightly corrugated. There are a couple of bits where the bumps are so big you really get bounced around, like some really bizarre ride at an amusement park. You got bounced so much your bum left the seat and your feet left the floor. I laughed and Rory slept through it all!

There are 2 car parks at the tip. One right at the tip gives you a short walk to the top of a sand dune to overlook Shark Bay. The wild flowers were beautiful and we all had a great time following animal tracks in the sand. We found definitely lizard tracks and the tracks of what I thought were some sort of hopping marsupial. (After a visit to the Homestead I think it is probably the Hopping Spinifex Mouse). Tilda found a burrow that had tracks leading away from it... she has great eyesight. She's always spotting interesting and small things.

We then drove to Skip Jack Lookout. This is more formed, with a boardwalk and 2 viewing platforms. On a good day you are meant to be able to see sharks, turtles, manta rays, eagle rays and dugongs from the look out. It was too windy when we were there, the sea was a bit choppy and the sand was churned up. I spotted 2 eagle rays, which was very cool. Unfortunately we didn't see any other sea life, but we did see an abundance of cormorants. According to the information sign, the cormorants normally go about their business fishing amongst the sea grass, but if they are up on the beach there are tiger sharks in the water. They were all on the beach, but it could have been a result of the time of day, rather than the presence of sharks. Who knows? Regardless, the views were pretty special.

Just near the car, TIlda spotted a little wren in the bushes. It was tiny, probably only 6-7cm from head to tail. As I watched it a second one came along and at first I thought it has regurgitated food to feed its bub but as I looked closer they were wrestling over a green caterpillar.

We also visited the Peron Homestead. This was originally a sheep station.... and looking at the vegetation I have absolutely no idea how they farmed sheep! It is so barren and dry and hostile, not to mention the fact it is covered in low scrub and the chances of ever spotting sheep in that must have been virtually zero! We toured the shearing shed, which was really well designed given the age and when it would have been built in the 1800s, the cook house, sheep yards and horse yards. You can't visit the old homestead as it is used privately today by Parks. There is an artesian bore on the site and they tapped it when the homestead was operating, using the water for everything except drinking. It is quite minerally, but they used it for watering the sheep and horses! They have capped it now to slow the flow and have a hot tub that the public can use to enjoy the 40 degree water. Tilda, Rory and I went in, but it really was too hot for the kids and almost too hot for me.

Old kerosene fridge in the cook house

Shearing shed

There were some wild flowers blooming. We had seen some at Karijini but I didn't get any photos of those as I kept assuming I would see more, so I took photos of these ones, just in case!

Hamelin Pool - Denham

We wanted to break up our journey from Coral Bay to Denham and knew we wanted to look at the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool on the way, so after looking at Wiki Camps we decided to stop at Hamelin Pool Caravan Park. We really didn't need to and probably shouldn't have, as it certainly didn't live up to the glowing reviews it was getting! The water at Hamelin Pool is spectacular.. so incredibly blue and clear. You can't swim there as it is prohibited in order to protect the stromatolites but it would be very interesting to, as the salinity is 2-3 times higher than in normal sea water.

I wanted to stop and see the stromatolites as they are unique... not very pretty or anything... just unique. They are rocks formed by sediment and blue-green algae. The reason they are so unique... there are only 3 lots of living stromatolites in the world that people can visit; the ones at Hamelin Pool WA and 2 lots in the Bahamas. There are others but their locations are kept secret for a variety of reasons, which I think has a lot to do with possible oil or some other resource. There are a lot of 'dead' ones and they are all believed to be liked back to the days of dinosaurs, so geologists apparently get quite excited by them. The day was very windy and the water in Hamelin Pool was very choppy so, while we could see them, it wasn't under ideal circumstances. Regardless, they just look like boring rocks. Greg and the kids weren't particularly enthused by them.

About 15-20 minute walk away is a shell stone quarry, which was interesting to see. The beach is covered in the shells of the Cardid Cockle, which were deposited on the beach over the last 6000 years, and are up to 10m deep in some places. Small amounts of the calcium carbonate in the shells dissolves in the rain and then dries to become a crystal that binds the shells together into a solid material that can be used for building. It is no longer used for building material, although it has been used to make repairs and restorations to some of the buildings that were originally built from these blocks, including a restaurant and the Anglican Church at Denham. The saw marks and "steps" left behind from the days of quarrying are still very visible. We visited the church at Denham. Actually, we attended the church in Denham,, but I thought it would be good to include a picture of the church here with the quarry pictures.

The next day we moved on to Denham. It is a nice town with a very beautiful view of Shark Bay. It isn't a big town and is primarily geared towards tourism. They are currently working frantically to finish of restoration and beautification of the foreshore in time for the 400 year celebrations of the landing of Dirk Hartog on Dirk Hartog Island. When it is finished there will be  an awesome playground and very lovely facilities on the foreshore, but much of it was fenced off while we were there.

We went to the Anglican Church on Sunday and met the minister, his wife and kids. They are very lovely people, doing a very tough job. We enjoyed spending time with them and decided to invite them to dinner the next day. We had a lovely dinner at Little Lagoon with Steve, Tamara and their kids. It was great for our two to have some other children to play with and it was nice to spend time with some other adults, rather than just us.