Kalbarri

Kalbarri:  29 – 30 June

Our first activity on Saturday was to go to the feeding of the pelicans.  While there were only three pelicans (apparently the rest have gone to Lake Eyre!), there were lots of people from all over the world.  We all had fun feeding small fish to the pelicans.

Our first disappointment of our trip occurred when we were told that there was no access to the lower reaches of the Murchison River in the Kalbarri National Park.  This meant that we were unable to see the gorges carved out by the river nor could we see the natural rock formations – particularly Nature’s Window.  We were not very happy about this, as this time of year is peak tourist time and many people would have travelled to this area to visit these features.  While we accept that redevelopment must occur, it seems as if the planning of this work could have been managed a lot more effectively.  Ah well!  It means that we now have another reason to plan further visits to this region! 

 

So, we went for a drive to Blue Holes - a seaside area just to the south of Kalbarri.  There we watched a magnificent surf roll in. After a while, we were able to watch a bloke ride some of these waves in a wonderful display of surfing.  We later discovered that he is a world champion surfer from Haiwai called Clay Marzo.  What a sight. We had a lovely view of Red Bluff through the waves. 

 

Tim managed to get some snorkelling in the Murchison in the afternoon, although the river was too murky to see anything.  Still, the water temperature was fabulous.  We spent some time at the Rainbow Jungle - a breeding centre for Australian parrots.  It has a wonderful display of Australian and foreign birds.

We drove out to Eagle Gorge later in the day to see if any sea eagles or ospreys were flying around but there were none on show.  We did enjoy the panorama to the north along the Kalbarri Cliffs, with the Zuytdorp Cliffs in the distance;  then we watched the sunset over the ocean, with our own version of ‘staircase to the sun’!