Blown Away at Kalbarri

Kalbarri is a tourist resort at the mouth of the Murchison River. We spent a few days here last year (see the blog report here), but there is a lot to see and do so we decided to stay for a week this time around. The town is surrounded by the Kalbarri National Park, and although we did all the walks on offer last year we decided the park was worth a repeat visit. The signature rock formation is Nature's Window, and even though we already had several photos from our last visit when another tourist offered to take one with us both in it we couldn't resist. Once again we did most of the walks here, although this time we didn't do the 8km one, just the shorter ones. As well as having spectacular gorges, the national park has a section that runs along the coast with high sandstone cliffs. For some reason the Indian Ocean seems to be much bluer than the Pacific Ocean and the clear waters of the national park are gorgeous. The local wildlife obviously like it, we saw a pod of dolphins catching waves right near town, surfing almost into the beach. They have an unfair advantage over human surfers, when they run out of wave they just duck underneath and swim underwater back out to the start of the break, they don't have to struggle back through the breakers.

As well as the natural attractions, we decided to take advantage of some of the tourist activities on offer here. Not to be faint hearted about it, we signed up for a 3 hour quad bike adventure. It started with a 1 minute safety briefing, then we spent 10 minutes getting used to the feel of the bikes and how to use the controls. After that we were off, along sandy tracks, stony hills, washouts, rutted trails and rocky ledges. The bikes don't have power steering so you have to wrestle them around corners and through the ruts, holes and rocks. The accelerator is a thumb press which is very hard to control while the bike is bumping around. However, we had a total ball, and despite the ache in our arms and hands the next day we absolutely loved it.

Our other activities here couldn't compare for excitement, but were nevertheless enjoyable. We spent an hour or so walking through a parrot breeding centre, admiring the multicoloured birds as they screeched and twittered. We also saw some birds of a different feather at the daily pelican feeding sessions run down by the river. And of course we had a couple of games of golf at the local course, including participating in the Friday afternoon 9-hole competition, where we happened to play with the local lady who had run the pelican feeding session we attended. She also does the sporting announcements for Kalbarri on ABC radio on Saturday morning, when we tuned in while we were having breakfast we heard her send us a special cheerio.

The only downside at Kalbarri is the incessant wind. In the middle of our stay it was so strong that the corner of our canvas awning ripped, so now we can't put the awning up until we can get it repaired, hopefully at our next stop at Geraldton.