Kalbarri!

Given the success of our first trip to Rottnest Island last month, we decided to make plans to visit more of WA. Kalbarri was chosen thanks to a double page photo from 'Natures Window' in the 'Perth Insight City Guide' both Nic & I owned.

The long 6 hour drive up to Kalbarri well out of reach of most radio stations proved an opportune time to use the iPod wirelessly with the FM transceiver to deliver us with an eclectic mix of music for our enjoyment. A shame that the iPod battery of course doesn't last that long, so we had to resolve to old fashioned CDs for the last stretch of the journey there :)

Our accommodation moved up a notch from the luxuriously converted army barracks of Rottnest Island to camping in tents! Although warm on the first night due to the cloud cover (which soon turned to rain), the subsequent nights got colder and colder. My new sleeping bag and mat proved up to the task keeping me toasty warm and giving me a good sleep on all 3 nights. Many of the people at the caravan park appeared to be permanent residents, with some of the travellers towing their caravans from as far away as Victoria. We were, by quite a margin, amongst the youngest there.

With the rain brought about millions of newly hatched flies the next day, looking for anything with moisture to settle on and buzz about. Our time spent at the highly publicised 'Natures Window' in the Kalbarri National Park was marred by the ever present flies and unfortunately, the terribly over cast weather didn't help our photographic ambitions. Without sounding cruel and unusual, we couldn't decide between the 3 of us if the tour guides friend was male or female. With a name of 'Joe', he/she sounded male/female and looked like . . . fortunately after visiting the standard lookouts, our guide 'Davo' took us down into the Murchison Gorge to where we would be canoeing for the afternoon. Although it has been a dry winter, underground springs avoided us having to paddle through sand. We thought that canoeing in a canoe built for 3 would be quite a simple task, but somehow we just couldn't paddle straight. Swapping across to 2 man canoes proved much easier and more fun as we enjoyed the tranquil environment. Besides the guide and the German couple (and the flies!), there was nobody else about. We had the whole gorge (or at least this section of it) entirely to ourselves.

We had been discussing amongst ourselves what activity we should engage in the next day, and thought that abseiling down the gorge sounded like fun. However one of us (not me!) had never hung off the end of a rope before, and was quite reluctant at first to entertain the idea. Thankfully with some encouragement from our canoe guide and a photo of a 6 year old in action at the information centre, we were able to confirm our abseiling adventure for the following day . . .

. . . so the next morning we were transported back into the national park to carry out our abseil over a 25m ledge over looking the Murchison Gorge. A quick demonstration by our trusty abseiling instructors using a figure 8 descender (never used in SES) showed us how simple the abseil would be, and that we had nothing to be afraid of. It was fun, although I was hoping that we'd be able to abseil down other cliff faces as the morning progressed. This was not to be the case. For the others in the group, this was probably enough excitement for one day, our instructor demonstrated how we could abseil facing forward (ie looking down the cliff face) towards the ground. Very UniSol and a bit of a thrill, no actual technical value, but why not, just for the experience. Simply a case of mind over matter.

Kalbarri presented itself with many 'firsts' for some in our group, including seeing kangaroos, emus & an echidna along our travels. Mushrooms in sandwiches, canoeing, travelling at high speed, abseiling, discovering the 'petrol' light in the car and baileys at night :)

Although restricted to camping in the caravan park, we had uninhibited views of the glorious night sky. There were plenty of 'natural bridges' and other spectacular view of nature which we checked out along the coast before heading back to Perth. It was a spectacular 4 days at Kalbarri, and although our accomodation was fairly humble, the dinners we great, having crayfish for 2 of the 3 nights there. Kalbarri is a lovely place to visit, highly recommended!