Perth to Kalbarri

We left Perth chasing warmer weather and sunny skies and we certainly found it. Not an hour after leaving Perth the skies cleared and the sun came out! Our first stop north of Perth was at Nambung National Park which is home to the Pinnacles. These limestone columns stand amongst the sand dunes, slowly exposed and eroded over time and now watch over landscape like sentries frozen in time.

The Pinnacles, Nambung NP, WA

We set up camp for the night just past Jurien Bay at a great little campsite run by the council. It was cheap cheap and set right in the dunes behind the beach. We got there late in the day and most sites were filled by grey nomads already. On our pamphlet there was a marked 4wd track down past the last campsite, so we set off to see what else we could find… and boy did come up trumps! We found our own private cove with a small protected camp right on the beach. There were some hand made signs that said “sorry camp full” there which you could put on the road to stop other people coming in but we didn’t bother and no one else came.

Our own private campsite at Jurien Bay, WA

The next morning was Dave’s birthday and he celebrated in typical style with a nudie run and swim to start the proceedings! A short while later a young couple with a small child and dog from southern Victoria came walking over the dune. Luckily Dave had clothes on by this point! We chatted about travels, grey nomads being tight arses and pinching loo paper and complaining about camp fees! Hope to see them again, they were nice and have a boat!
We had arranged a rendezvous with some of my friends who happened to be traveling the same stretch of coast as us in the opposite direction. We met Nic, Elle and her friend Lizzie in Geraldton for lunch before they drove south to Perth. It was lovely to see some familiar faces and Dave had nice lunch out with his harem. The girls were absolute stars and gave Dave the right royal birthday treatment, complete with “Birthday Boy” badge, mini cupcakes with candles and a bottle of bubbles! Thanks girls! We stayed in Gero that night and had and birthday dinner at a local restaurant and had a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. All in all it turned out to be a great birthday!

Birthday celebrations with the girls, Geraldton WA

Next port of call for us was Kalbarri which was about 160kms away. We broke the journey with a lunch stop in Port Gregory which was nice but very windy and hit the road again, past the pink salt lake. Just before Kalbarri we stopped at the cliffs and went to the various lookouts, which were quite similar to the Nullarbor Cliffs. Down in town we scoped out all 3 caravan parks and picked the one at the back of town which was green and grassy and looked to too full. We definitely made the right choice the people were nice and the facilities good.
The birds at Kalbarri hated us! We had trifecta of bird incidents in one day!  Firstly we woke up and the galahs had shat all over our table and tent cover so spent a good half hour cleaning all that up. Then we went for breaky at a cafe down the road (which was delicious!) and Dave got dive bombed by a bird 4 times on the way there! Afterwards we stopped into the office to pay for another night while I was giving Fred the pet cockatoo a scratch it bit me and drew blood!
We did some beach fishing in Kalbarri at the inlet and soaked up the sun and enjoyed staying in one spot for a while. One day we took a trip out to Kalbarri National Park to look at the gorges carved but the Murchison River. There is as 9km walk called The Loop which takes in Natures Window, loops around the bend in the river and back. It was quite challenging in terms of climbing along cliff edges, steep rocky sections and a long section of sand to walk on at the end. We had a swim in the river to cool off mid way and soak in the spectacular gorge scenery. We didn’t see anyone else on the entire walk, which made it all the more amazing.

Near "Natures Window", Kalbarri National Park

That night we had another rendezvous, this time with Dave’s cousin Demi and her boyfriend Luka. They had been traveling the coast for the past 3  weeks and were on the way home to Perth. Luckily our paths crossed and we had fish and chips with beers in a hut on the beach and got some pointers for our next section of the trip – the Coral Coast!
For more photos check them out here 
T x

One thought on “Perth to Kalbarri

  1. Dave,
    I hope you survived the pinnacles OK, even the most well endowed could come away with adequacy concerns…. Sounds like a brilliant trip so far, loving the blog, keep the updates coming.
    JB

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