KALBARRI

Leaving the highway and turning east towards the coast and Kalbarri, we were pleasantly surprised to see green rolling hills - more like Gippsland than what we've seen of WA so far. Sheep in some paddocks and crops (wheat and canola) in others.  Nearing Kalbarri, we were amazed by the sheer quantity of flowering shrubs lining the road.

Kalbarri

In Kalbarri National Park we trudged around a number of gorges - all spectacular - carved out by the Murchison River over previous eons.  In the park, again the wildflowers were prolific, though the banksias had finished.  I took lots of photos of shrubs and plants, but it's impossible to capture the sheer scale of the efflorescence.  As Eric said, if he hadn't seen it, he wouldn't have believed it. 

The next day was overcast and much cooler and we had the scenic cliffs of the coast to explore.  Several whales could be seen blowing offshore.  And, of course, there were the ever present flowering shrubs.

A number of Dutch East India Company ships, including the Batavia, came to grief on reefs along these shores in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  The latest edition of the local newspaper reports the discovery of another wreck.  Divers are hoping to recover chests of silver coins, though this may be an optimistic notion.  It may be more likely that the coins have been scattered far and wide over the past three hundred years.

French explorers were also active along these shores, hence the number of French names of geographic features - Cape Leveque, Francois Peron National Park and many more down south.

One thing they have plenty of on this coast is wind.  Not gentle zephyrs either, but gusty full strength blows. We have seen a few windmills.  Coral Bay had four and there were a number at Kalbarri.  Driving south to Geraldton, we battled a head wind from the south.  Today the wind has swung around and is blowing just as vigorously from the north.

South of Kalbarri on the outskirts of Port Gregory, and just before the turnoff to Prince Leonard's Hutt Province, is the Pink Lake, "a naturally occurring phenomenon that occurs when algae 'blooms' and produces beta carotene – a pigment that has become a lucrative aquaculture crop."

 

After a couple of days in Geraldton (I can get Classic FM - civilization), we'll head inland and follow the wildflower trail through Mullewa, Pindar and Mingenew before returning to the coast.