Sunday 23 June 2013

Perth, Cervantes and Kalbarri


Gracie was very excited as we arrived in Perth on Friday morning. She couldn’t wait to see more of the city, being the only family member not having been there before. We decided to stay at a caravan park called Karrinyup Waters, in the northern suburbs close to a Toyota dealership where the car was to be serviced on Monday. The surrounding area could have been Carindale. Big shopping centre, nice big homes with one of the roads being Erindale. It was a little too familiar.
View from Kings Park

The caravan park is very neat and tidy with great facilities, a very big jumping pillow for the kids.  The thing we noticed the most was the number of people staying there for extended periods up to 3 months. Grey nomads who had sold up, mine workers who hadn’t yet been placed on site, even a young family from Quebec looking to break into the mining industry.
Gracie Bouncing

Perth is a very beautiful city and extremely easy to get around. We took a drive down to Fremantle along the coast road, which is a lovely drive along all of Perth’s famous beaches like Scarborough and Cottesloe. We had the most amazing lunch at a microbrewery called The Monk, where I also had the pleasure of tasting the 5th best beer in Australia! Not sure who was judging but lets just say it wouldn’t make my top ten! We picked up some fresh fruit and vegetables at the local Fremantle markets. It’s always fun looking at all of the stalls and even I witnessed a snatch and grab, which was foiled by the young girl whose purse was being taken. Lets just say the lady taking it was a ‘local’ and brazenly just handed it back with a very cheeky smile and walked off! Stunned the girl didn’t quite know what to do.


Lunch at The Monk
The 5th Best beer in Australia - I forget its name...


On Sunday we went into Kings Park in the city for morning tea. The park is very large with all sorts of themes attached to different areas within it. The most popular areas were showcasing the view of the city and the main area with sculptures of ancient mega-fauna and dinosaur fossils that have been found in WA. In the afternoon we went to Harbour Town, which is Perth’s version of DFO to pick up some things we needed for the next leg of the trip. The kid’s runners were all falling apart, some new togs and some snorkeling gear was successfully purchased. Being Sunday we had pizza cooked in the bbq (yum) with a movie and mini magnums for dessert. Maria also did a mini thermomick demonstration for our neighbours when preparing the pizza dough with lots of extremely impressed oohs and aahs in the appropriate times.


The car was serviced Monday and we had a great catch up with our old friend Dan from our days in Sydney. We had lunch back at Fremantle and a walk around Hillarys’ Boat Harbor in the afternoon looking at all of the expensive boats for sale. We also bumped into our friends Paul and Sue amazingly while waiting to be picked up by the dealership courtesy car so we arranged to catch up for drinks later as they were staying in the same caravan park. I also received that much feared call earlier that morning from the car dealership. We’ve all had that feeling of dread where they call comes, you recognize the number and you know it’s bad news because the car couldn’t possibly be ready to be picked up. I reluctantly answered the phone only to be told that both break pads needed replacing and the discs machined. Ouch. Watch $300 turn into $1200 in the blink of an eye! Perth is sooo cheap…NOT!!! Yes Bob I know, THE BUDGET!!!!

We were pretty keen to get to our next destination Cervantes about 200km north, and the famous Pinnacles in the Nambung National Park. Unfortunately we had quite a late departure and didn’t arrive until mid afternoon. So our plan to stay in the national park north of Jurien Bay wasn’t going to work to get back to see the Pinnacles by sunset so we changed plan and dropped into the Cervantes Caravan Park and headed out to the NP. The Pinnacles are unique limestone spires up to 5 metres tall created by wind and rain erosion over a large area in the sand dunes overlooking the Indian Ocean.



The Pinnacles

They reminded me of the remnants of the lost city of Atlantis as we were taking the self-drive tour through the park. It’s a 4km loop drive where you can stop and get out at anytime, take photos and take in these truly unique structures. There’s something really eerie and beautiful about the drive just after sunset. Like jagged teeth breaking through the earth, ancient sentinals fighting the elements and time. On our way back into town it was now dark. Driving along Maria screamed out and I skidded to a stop. She and Caitlin had seen an injured barn owl on the side of the road. It couldn’t fly and we could clearly see it’s wing was in trouble. That said we couldn’t catch it as it could hop away and we didn’t want to scare. So we decided to head quickly back to the caravan park and ask the park manager if there was a local wildlife service. They immediately called the local rangers and we understand a party of three went out in search of the owl. Good deed done for the day.
The 'Taste of Cervantes!'


Dinner that night was at the Cervantes Country Club (read bowls club) where Maria and I had the ‘taste of Cervantes’ dinner for 2 including locally caught snapper, a whole lobster, squid and of course NZ oysters??? Cervantes is famous for lobster, which is caught year round and it was really delicious and certainly the highlight.

Our next stop was Kalbarri, about 400km north of Cervantes with a short stop in Geraldton on the way to see the nautical museum and have lunch. The museum has some fantastic displays on many of the wrecks in the area including the Batavia and Zuytdoorp. The while coastal area is in fact called the Batavia Coast. The Batavia was a Dutch East Indies company vessel on it’s way from Holland to Batavia (Jakarta). Some of the relics were fascinating. There is also a really moving display on the HMAS Sydney, destroyed during WWII by a German ship, the Kormoran. Both ships wrecks astonishingly remained undiscovered until 2009.


We arrived in Kalbarri late afternoon and decided to stay in the Top Tourist park on the Murchison River for the next 3 nights, as there is no camping in the national park itself. It is right in the middle of the national park, which has the combination of some imposing cliffs and lookouts overlooking the ocean and spectacular gorges to explore further inland up river. The fishing is also supposed to be pretty special, however with some rain and 25-35km/hr winds fishing was pretty much out.
Kalbarri - Natural Bridge


On the ocean side of the park we spent an afternoon driving from one lookout to the next. Each had a unique formation like Eagles Nest, Red Bluff, Natural Bridge and Island Rock to name a few, all carved into the Limestone by wind and water over the eons. Inside the park to the north along the Murchison River were the famous Natures Window, Z Bend and the loop walk. This was our first taste of the famous WA gorges and we weren’t disappointed. Very beautiful and peaceful is how I’d describe them.
Nature's Window
Z-Bend
Ross Graham

As we left Kalbarri the next day on our way to Denham, we stopped into two other gorges deeper into the park on the way. First stop was Hawks Head, then Ross Graham, which allowed us to walk down into the gorge and along the river bed. It was really cool seeing the gorge from a different perspective. Kalbarri is a very special place, which I’d like to take more time to enjoy in slightly nicer and warmer weather.

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