Friday, 20 August
Departed the delightful Monkey Mia this morning, headed for Kalbarri. The first part of the trip was retracing the 150 kms back to the highway junction at the Overlander Roadhouse. Again, it was a very pleasant drive through uninspiring scenery with a cloudless sky and little traffic.
Once we reached the highway, there was little change in the scenery except for the addition of thousands of feral goats. The road continued south for 64 kms without a bend and it was after this that we started to see some wildflowers, which quickly became lots of wildflowers! The low scrub became a bit taller and there were even some gum trees, with carpets of everlasting daisies underneath. The various wattles are starting to flower, we saw the occasional red grevillea and plenty of thryptomenes in full flower. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to pull off the road as much as one of us would have liked – the caravan can be a bit limiting at times.
Shortly before we reached the turnoff to Kalbarri, the desert suddenly changed to wheat and sheep farms – proper farms with green grass! As we neared the coast, this did revert back to desert and coastal scrub as we drove through the Kalbarri National Park before descending into Kalbarri. This is a lovely seaside town, which probably exists for the tourist market, given the large number of accommodation places. We are staying at the Kalbarri Tudor Caravan Park, which is very nice – we have a large site with a shade cloth “slab.” It is so nice not to have dirt and grit and dust.
This afternoon we had a walk to the information centre (we have decided that three or four nights would probably have been nice here), before returning along the beach and checking out the shops.
The weather has been kind today – about 21 degrees – although we did have a head/cross wind for most of the drive. We also received a very excited text message from Diane – Princess Mary was on their flight to Melbourne this morning!
Departed the delightful Monkey Mia this morning, headed for Kalbarri. The first part of the trip was retracing the 150 kms back to the highway junction at the Overlander Roadhouse. Again, it was a very pleasant drive through uninspiring scenery with a cloudless sky and little traffic.
Once we reached the highway, there was little change in the scenery except for the addition of thousands of feral goats. The road continued south for 64 kms without a bend and it was after this that we started to see some wildflowers, which quickly became lots of wildflowers! The low scrub became a bit taller and there were even some gum trees, with carpets of everlasting daisies underneath. The various wattles are starting to flower, we saw the occasional red grevillea and plenty of thryptomenes in full flower. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to pull off the road as much as one of us would have liked – the caravan can be a bit limiting at times.
Shortly before we reached the turnoff to Kalbarri, the desert suddenly changed to wheat and sheep farms – proper farms with green grass! As we neared the coast, this did revert back to desert and coastal scrub as we drove through the Kalbarri National Park before descending into Kalbarri. This is a lovely seaside town, which probably exists for the tourist market, given the large number of accommodation places. We are staying at the Kalbarri Tudor Caravan Park, which is very nice – we have a large site with a shade cloth “slab.” It is so nice not to have dirt and grit and dust.
This afternoon we had a walk to the information centre (we have decided that three or four nights would probably have been nice here), before returning along the beach and checking out the shops.
The weather has been kind today – about 21 degrees – although we did have a head/cross wind for most of the drive. We also received a very excited text message from Diane – Princess Mary was on their flight to Melbourne this morning!
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