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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