GBF: Stacy gets stuck in Kalbarri

Aussie RT: Day 25-26 – Kalbarri to Cervantes

THE GOOD – Kalbarri

We spent a few days exploring the town of Kalbarri and the National Park. We hiked along beautiful coastal trails that reminded us of Northern Cali. We were lucky and saw a humpback whale that raised his large pectoral fin and waved at us from sea.

We hiked through the national park. The Z Bend is an easy 500 metre walk to a lookout overhanging the Murchison River. Hawks Head provides an awesome gorge view, while the Ross Graham Lookout gives a similar view and an easy walk to the rock pools on the gorge’s river bed.

Hiking around the loop you will see beautiful lookout points on the way to the Murchison River and the most photographed shot in the national park – Nature’s Window.

THE BAD – We missed WA wildflower season!

We had thought that wildflower season had just began in October and were sad to learn the season is actually June-October. We had seen photos of never ending fields of flowers in every color of the rainbow. As we drove through “wildflower way” all we saw was wheat fields. We drove out of our way inland to the town of Moora and asked locals where we could find flowers. We were told to go see Rhonda Tonkin at her Wildflower Farm 20k north of Moora. Rhonda is said to be the expert on WA wildflowers and if there were any still in bloom to be seen, she would know where.

A mix of alluring floral fragrances greeted us as we entered her showroom, colorful bouqets of dried flowers hung from the ceilings. She told us we had just missed the season but directed us down a path in which a few remaining flowers were in bloom. The farmland was quite beautiful even without flowers, the land very different than the other parts of the state we had seen so far. Rhonda does know her flowers, and per her directions we were able to find the last remaining sprinkling wildflowers in bloom!

THE FUNNY – Stacy gets stuck in the mud (or something that looks like a mix of mud, oil, and smells foul!)

Stacy went to explore the river bed near a rest area we had stopped at for the night. I heard her call out “Kel! HELP! I am stuck!” Neither of us were sure what the tar like substance was that she had managed to emerged herself into that firmly had hold of her and wasn’t letting go!  “It smells like sh*t!!”, Stacy cried as she struggled to free her feet. There wasn’t much I could do but laugh as there was no way I was going anywhere near for fear I would get stuck too! We had quite a time trying to clean her up that night as the rest area had no showers or running water.

To see more photos of Kalbarri CLICK HERE.

To see pics from our wildflower hunt CLICK HERE.