Murchison River, Kalbarri and Geraldton 2/10 to 4/10

Leaving the Gascoyne behind and heading south down the highway it is generally a good flat run until you begin to approach the Murchison River. Not far from the turnoff to Kalbarri the highway crosses the river and here you find a quite large rest area well back of the road and next to the river. In the rest are we found some other travellers that we had met with a number of times and decided to stay for the night. The further south we travelled the more wildflowers we began to see even crowding right up to the edge of the highway, this was to be the beginning of several weeks of wildflower encounters and already we could easily see how this area has got such a good reputation for fantastic displays. Anyone who has travelled this section of highway or is looking at a map of the area will see that we passed by the turnoff to Shark Bay and Monkey Mia. We chose not to take the trip out to this area partly because we wanted to pick up the pace of our trip south, but more to the point, because we generally shun areas that are over promoted tourist destinations, particularly the ones that rely upon unnatural animal behaviour as their main attraction – each to their own - of course.

From the highway it is a little over 50Km into Kalbarri through undulating to hilly terrain. It took us a good half day to cover this distance because we stopped to take a couple of short walks in the Kalbarri N. P. both of which reward you with spectacular views of the gorges of the Murchison. Once in town we were fortunate to secure a site at the caravan park just across the road from the beach. Kalbarri is a spectacularly beautiful town situated at the mouth of the Murchison, which forms a lagoon on the beachfront as it curves around the headland and enters the ocean. The place was busy and full of tourists as it was at the end of the first week of the school holidays. Tourism has to be one of the mainstays of the local economy these days and you can see lots of new development centred on capturing this trade, in the past the town relied heavily on seasonal Cray fishing for it’s existence. As soon as we were set up out came the bikes so we could ride to the seahorse sanctuary. The seahorse sanctuary breeds seahorses and pipefishes for the pet trade in an effort to lessen the amount taken from the wild. A seahorse taken from the wild will seldom survive very long in an aquarium, yet the captive bred ones from the sanctuary can live for many years. The sanctuary’s strategy is to breed as many as they can to keep the price down therefore making it less attractive to those who might try to profit from the taking of wild seahorses. You can take a self-guided tour of the sanctuary, which we enjoyed very much.

Taking the very good cycleway back towards town we paused at one of the splendid lookouts along the way and were instantly rewarded by the spectacle of Humpback whales frolicking just off shore. They were putting on quite a show with their breaching, tail slapping and fin waving, we were totally mesmerised, so much so that we forgot to get the camera out until they were just too far out of range for a good shot. However we refected on the fact that we had been studying some of the smallest sea creatures and then just minutes later were being entertained by some of the largest – quite a contrast. Back at the caravan park the manager had just got word that one of the local trawlers had returned to port and had a good supply of fresh fish for sale. We were quickly back on our bikes and following her directions it was down to the wharf in just a couple of minutes to select a fish and have it filleted, right there on the back of the boat, it doesn’t come any fresher unless you catch it yourself.

It was certainly a whirlwind visit for us because as soon as we were back at the van we jumped in the car and drove back out to the N.P. to do the two longer walks. Firstly to the rugged Z-Bend gorge and then to The Loop posing for some photos at the appropriately named Nature’s Widow, all the while passing through vast areas of wildflowers. Our late afternoon return to town meant it was a good time to detour to the hilltop lookout to watch the sunset over the ocean and inlet, and then because of all the physical activity of the day we were quickly back at camp to get that fish on the BBQ. Next morning we left Kalbarri and travelled the coastal loop road past Gregories and Horrocks turnoffs rejoining the highway at Northampton. From there it is good highway, although quite undulating, into Geraldton.

Geraldton would be the largest town we had been in since leaving Darwin and we used this to our advantage to re-fuel and re-provision. Although we only spent one night in town we did manage to get a good look around and found it quite appealing. Geraldton is a busy port town and regional hub and yet is attractive to visitors where you can stroll along old narrow streets among many restored 19th century buildings. They seem to have a developing cappuccino and alfresco café strip in one of the old streets not far from the waterfront. There are several large attractive parks around town and then on the top of a hill the memorial to HMAS Sydney II. This is a beautiful tribute to the ship and it’s crew, which was lost with all hands just off the coast during WWII. The canopy of the large central dome is fashioned from 645 stainless steel seagulls, one for each life lost. Curving around the southern edge of the site is a polished black granite wall of remembrance engraved with the names of those lost – many so young – what a tragedy.