Kalbarri to Carnarvon (the first time) - a catch up blog!

You've no doubt noticed that the blog is a little behind...

We have been super busy and have also spent a week or two out of service range (therefore no posting) and the further behind the blog gets, the bigger the task of catching it up seems.  They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so this is going to be one giant update with fewer words and more photos.  Once we're up to date we can get more wordy again :)

We ended up in Carnarvon three times as we used it as a base to leave the van and head out for some tent trips.  This entry will take us from arriving in Kalbarri up to the first time we arrived in Carnarvon.

Kalbarri

Kalbarri is awesome.  Having such amazing, beautiful friends there makes it extra, extra awesome.  We didn't want to leave and have spent a considerable amount of time trying to work out what jobs we could do that would allow us to move there for a while. :-)

Kalbarri does sunsets like this:

Taken on my phone. No filters or edits.

And sunrises like this:

Gorgeous way to start the day.

We arrived on Good Friday and parked the van in Bec and John's driveway.  Ben was initially shy but in no time at all he was playing happily with his new big friends, Hannah and Evie.  They became inseparable.

We had an amazing week with the Kalbarri crew before they left on an adventure of their own to Townsville.  We were going to hit the road again the same day they left but their house is gorgeous (and we were loving the extra space!) and we could help them out with dog/house sitting so we happily stayed for an extra week.  It's lucky they had other friends coming to house sit for them the following week too or we would still have been there when they got back (and may still be there!)


We had so many brilliant adventures in Kalbarri.  Here are some highlights...

Boogie board skiing behind John's boat in the Murchison River.
All was well until Jenny and Ben had a minor stack.  Ben complained of a sore leg.  We couldn't see how he could possibly have hurt his leg in such a small tumble in the water and didn't pay it much attention until we lifted him up into the boat only to find the arm rope of the boogie board wound tightly around his leg.  Send that 'Parents of the Year' award right on over.  He had a garter sized bruise ringing his thigh for a week...

Jenny and Ben getting ready for a boogie ski.

Kalbarri National Park
We had a great day exploring the NP with Hannah.  She and Ben invented 'Lava Boots' which we had to wear to jump over/up/down all the stairs and big rocks.  We went to Nature's Window, Z Bend and walked into some lovely gorges.

Nature's Window

Best friends :)

Snorkelling at Blue Holes 
We saw at least a dozen different types of fish in this protected marine area.  There are signs everywhere clearly stating that it is a conservation zone and yet we saw Mr and Mrs Redneck Morons allowing their children to run up and down the beach with fish nets,slapping them down hard trying to catch the fish.  They could have at least done it gently, but then again, their lack of finesse meant that even a blind and deaf slug could have escaped in time.  I was about to go over and say something to them but Jenny told me that she had seen their car and it had a 'My Family' type row of stickers on the back window, except it depicted all of their different guns.  I left them to it.

Gorgeous place to snorkel.

But all that fun is tiring!

Ben was devastated when the girls left and compensated for their absence by bonding intensely with their dogs, particularly the smaller one, Josie.  He spent hours each day playing with her and giving her lots of tummy rubs.  His favourite activity though was to take my phone and sit out on the deck with her playing all his favourite songs and talking to her about them.  We think he is a budding DJ.  

Ben with his best friends, Josie and Truffle.

Gregory Rock
Bec and John had recommended a great 4WD track out to Gregory Rock and we decided to give it a go even though they weren't around to take us out there.  We let the tyres down to 25psi to get through the sand and had an awesome drive along sandy tracks, dirt roads, up, down and around ditches, past goats and over rocks.  It was well worth the drive.  We were the only people there and the spot was idyllic.  We set up next to the river (which Jen and Ben swam across) and had some lunch.  The flies were pretty pesky but we had head nets, however it all went to custard when I started fishing (unsuccessfully) and the bait bits brought out the excessively bitey red ants.  They were hellish and after about an hour of jumping up and down and Ben squealing every time he got off his chair we decided to head home.  It was getting late and we were pretty remote.  We definitely didn't want to be trying to find out way back in the dark.

Over the rocks to get alongside the river.

Beautiful place - all to ourselves.

Jenny and Ben swimming back across the river - still wearing their fly nets!

Lou's Fishing Adventures

I'd fished a few times around Kalbarri and this is the biggest thing I caught in several outings.

Rex Hunt eat your heart out!

There were loads of small fish like this around the jetty but I never saw anyone catch anything bigger so I decided to go out on a fishing charter (my Xmas present from Jenny that I hadn't yet used).   There were 9 of us on the charter and I managed to catch this giant Mulloway!

BIG fish!  (Yum too!)

Other than this one, I didn't get any nibbles all day.  The other people all caught one or two each so everyone left with something.  The sharks were probably the most amazing part of the day though.  Twice, they came up from underneath and stole big fish that someone had on the line and another even grabbed the entire rig (hook, bait, sinker, line) from one guy just as it hit the water, chomping it right off so he was left with a light piece of line just floating off the end of his rod.  The sharks obviously know that boat means an easy meal.

We were bummed to leave Kalbarri but eventually dragged ourselves back onto the road and headed to Denham in Shark Bay.  We'd left really late and ended up driving in the dark, which we usually try to avoid.  After nearly running over an echidna and then an owl which had foolishly decided to sit in the middle of the road, we decided to stop for the night a free camp about 80km short of Denham, before heading into town the next morning.

Ocean Park Aquarium
The aquarium in Denham is great and has lots of open topped tanks filled with interesting and dangerous creatures.  It is definitely not a place for inattentive parents.  The guides very clearly and regularly state that any fingers or faces that get too close to the water may well be bitten off, stung, punctured or otherwise damaged so we had to be on our toes making sure that curious, Ben didn't forget the rules and hold onto the sides of tanks while looking at their inhabitants.  They have a huge shark pond where we learned about the two common shark species in the bay - the Lemon Shark (so named for it's yellow appearance) and the Nervous Shark (you guessed it, very timid and shy). 

Ocean Park critter.

Monkey Mia
We drove the 30mins to Monkey Mia and were lucky enough to see four dolphins being fed by the rangers.  It is strictly regulated now and there are only certain dolphins that are allowed to eat there.  Part of the beach is a human exclusion zone to minimise any interaction between Dolphin and Human.   

Ben found a giant chess board and wanted to play so Jenny looked up the correct setup and we thought we'd have a quick muck around game, Ben Vs Jenny.   Then a 14 year old boy called Thomas came over and said 'Wow! Finally someone who knows how to set up correctly.  Everyone puts the Kings around the wrong way.'  We suggested that Ben ask Thomas for strategy tips but it turned out that Thomas is a bit of a chess prodigy so the quick muck around game turned serious.  Despite being good at it, Jenny hates playing chess and is too competitive to throw a game so she ended up playing a LONG and frustrating match (which Thomas/Ben won).  There are emus wandering around freely at the resort and apparently they like chess too.

Chess with emus.

After finally escaping the chess match from hell, we went for a swim next to the jetty.  We were all happily swimming about 20 metres out only to turn around and see a shark swimming along the shoreline between us and the safety of the beach.  I think Jenny and I should receive 'staying calm so as not to freak out your child' awards as I calmly said 'oh, look at that, there is a shark' and Jenny quickly and cleverly said 'I'm sure that's a Nervous Shark - they are really shy, it'll stay far away from us'.  Thankfully she was right and it just cruised on down the beach well away from us.  We got out rather quickly.

We did a great 3 hour cruise on a catamaran that afternoon, spotting dugongs and dolphins.  It was sunny and warm and we had fun lying in the netting above the water in between the two sides of the boat. (I'm sure there are proper boating terms for that.)  We went on a second cruise the next day to see the sunset but it was overcast and really windy so we just had fun mucking around on the nets again and didn't worry too much about the lack of spectacular skies.
 

On the catamaran seeing dugongs and dolphins.

On the catamaran not seeing sunset.

We really wanted to 4WD out to Steep Point (the westernmost part of Australia) and also explore the Francois Peron National Park but the next two days were really rainy and windy and they closed the roads into the park.  We were really bummed but had to keep moving as we had the car booked in for some work in Carnarvon so had to get there the following day.