Day 48 – Denham, Kalbarri to Geraldton

This morning we left lovely Denham behind, and made our way back out the peninsula road to the main highway before turning south on our way to Geraldton.  We stopped at a freecamp stop (parking bay) along the way for a midmorning snack and a quick break. There are numerous spots all around Australia like this now, but the WA ones are particularly well set up with lots of spots scattered through the bush to spend the night in , several picnic tables, long drop toilets, and campfire spaces.

As we turned off the main highway, we made our way into the lovely seaside town of Kalbarri. We have visited Kalbarri a few times before (sometimes when we lived in Perth we would come up here for a weekend), and always love looking at the wildflowers in the Kalbarri National Park on the way in and out of Kalbarri. This is the Kalbarri foreshore (pelican feeding everyday at 8.45am).

There is an enormous array of wildflowers out at the moment, absolutely mind blowing displays of banksias, grevilleas, hakeas, everlastings and a lot of others I can’t name.

After stopping for some fish and chips along the foreshore, and doing a quick wander along the main street (great bookshop here so Lily, Sam and I stocked up!), we decided to take the coast road down to Geraldton.

This area is full of beautiful coastal scenery and boardwalks.  We did a walk along the clifftop boardwalk from Island Rock to Natural Bridge taking in the stunning vistas and spotting many whales out rolling over and spouting.

 

The wildflowers along this particular stretch of road are amazing, and we couldn’t help stopping a few times to take some more photos. Eventually, after joining back on the main road at the historic little town of Northampton, we stopped briefly at the Lynton Convict settlement – a group of very old stone convict buildings that are still standing after all these years.

We made it into Geraldton in the late afternoon, and just had time to park the van at the Gerald Sunset Beach (Big 4) caravan park to admire the sun setting over the beach across the road.

Day 47 – Denham and Monkey Mia

Up early, and we left Denham at 7am, so we were at Monkey Mia at 7.30am for the first early feeding of the dolphins. After paying the $24 Monkey Mia resort entry fee, we walked down onto the boardwalk, until we were summoned by the Dept of Parks & Wildlife people to wait and the waters edge. Monkey Mia is such a pretty bay. 

We didn’t have to wait too long before a dolphin and its baby calf came along and frolicked around us in the water. We weren’t allowed in the water (unless invited by the Parks people to feed the dolphins).

 

After watching the dolphins for a couple of hours, we boarded the big catamaran “Aristocat II” for a three hour wildlife cruise. We were hopeful of seeing some dugongs today. On the way out to sea we stopped off at the Black Pearl Farm onto the pontoon, or a tour and demonstration of how the pearl seeds are implanted into the pearl muscle, and sent out to the nearby farming waters to grow pearls for a few years. (This farm was owned and run by Jamie, from the TV show “Farmer wants a Wife”. Didn’t see him around today though.

One very different thing they are doing at this pearl farm was to implant little nuggets of gold, and opal inside the pearl, so then the oyster covers the nugget in nacre (to make a pearl), and then after extracting the pearl they use an acid wash, to expose the gem inside the middle of the pearl – very cool.

 

Back on board the cat, we had a lovely day to watch the dolphins play on the bow of the boat, and then finally when we reached the seagrass beds, we saw a couple of dugongs. Yey!  They are the strangest creatures, and live entirely on seagrass.

 

We also spotted quite a few huge Loggerhead turtles flapping gracefully through the water, though as soon as they spotted the boat, they immediately did a deep dive out of sight. Beautiful creatures. Unfortunately I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of them.

Back at the resort we wandered around the caravan park to have a sticky beak, and were actually glad that we couldn’t get in, as it wasn’t much – very cramped and dusty.

 

We then had some lunch at the café and then headed back into Denham for a wander down the tiny main street (yep, had to check out the pearl shop again), but didn’t buy anything. We also had a look at the tiny little Anglican church built entirely of the shell blocks we had seen yesterday at the Shell quarry on the way in. Amazing construction, and even the font was made of shells with a giant conch shell on top.

After a wander around the town we drove the 20km south to Eagle Bluff – an absolutely magical place. A boardwalk has been very carefully constructed around the cliff face edge allowing you to walk along and peer down into the warm, shallow waters below. We couldn’t believe the amount of sharks feeding below us – they were very easy to spot, and in one patch we counted 15 Lemon Sharks circling below. We were also amazed to see two Giant Shovel Nosed Rays (which looked like big brown sharks) very clearly in the water. There were also a number of Cowtailed Stingrays. A beautiful walk overlooking the green sea and surrounding cliffs. A lovely end to a lovely day.

 

 

Day 46 – Carnarvon to Denham

Coral Coast Caravan park was a terrific one – best showers we have had – like your own ensuite. They run on an honesty system – choose your own site, put money in an envelope and leave it in a box! Lovely place.

Off to have a look around Carnavon before we left, so we drove out to the One Mile Jetty, and had a walk around the area. There is a little train that runs out the length of the jetty too.

 

The kids requested a play at the terrific park on the foreshore, so we spent a bit of time there, having a swing, a go on the flying fox (yes all of us!), and Brendan joined Lily on the swing.

We then drove out along the river and called in at a couple of plantations, the best one being near the Big 4 Caravan park. The kids enjoyed a choc covered mango icecream, while I tried the black sapote (choc custard tropical fruit) one. We also stocked up on some veges and fruit leathers.

 

Then it was off towards Denham. We tried to book into the Monkey Mia caravan park yesterday, but it is booked out for ages – a very popular place. Anyway, we scored one of the last sites in Denham, some 20km away and a beautiful little seaside town.

On the way into Denham, we called in at Hamelins Pool to look at the stomatalites, living marine organisms that are organised in little dark brown/black stacks. They are supposed to be 3, 500 million years old! Apparently scientists from all over the world come to study them.

 

The wildflowers around here are lovely, so I couldn’t help sharing some more pics of those.

 

 

Nearby was the old shell quarry. Metres and metres of tiny white cockell shells have cemented themselves together over many years, and years ago they were actually sawn into blocks and used to build churches and buildings in the area.

We then called in at Shelly Beach, where there is no sound, just miles and miles of tiny white cockell shells. A very interesting area.

We arrived at the Denham Seaside Tourist Village late in the afternoon, and checked in and did a couple of loads of washing before settling down to dinner. After our terrible day yesterday, it was nice to get out and do some sightseeing today.