Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Road trip to Kalbarri National Park, Coral Bay, Exmouth and Shark Bay.  We left yesterday, around 5:00 pm, although we actually had to backtrack to find a gas station, and we hadn’t even left town yet. We’d been warned about the scarcity of gas stations as you drive north, but we didn’t expect to encounter a problem before even leaving Perth. So we didn’t actually get on the road until around 6:00, then drove as far as Geraldton, where we spent the night at a B & B. The house was a 120 year old two-story, set on a hill with great views of the ocean, even from the first floor.

The B&B owner suggested we check out the local museum before heading up to Kalbarri, since it’s less than a 2 hour drive. First we walked to a memorial at the very top of a hill overlooking the city, which memorialized the seamen from a ship sunk off the coastline during World War II. After touring the museum we headed for Kalbarri National Park, which was wonderfully quiet. Only two other rooms in our motel were occupied, but we were told that next month, during school holidays, the population would expand from 2,000 to 10,000.

We drove to several coves along the coastline, and hiked for a while just as the sun was setting. The above  pic shows some of the fascinating sandstone, some of which looks like stalactites or soda straws like you’d find in a cave.

This is a photo of the Kalbarri coastline.