Highlights from Perth to Kalbarri

We camped for a night in a beachside car park, and had an interesting night to say the least, with many people coming and going, and a local man in a van who proudly said that he had been camping there for a long while. We woke in the morning to let the girlies have a run and then noticed a police car rock up and check the place out. There were 4 cars including us who had slept there overnight. Not wanting any trouble we packed up and quickly moved on.

We did a final stock up at the shops preparing for... well we're actually not very sure, but, I think we are preparing for not very much along the way up north. Then we set off. Found a great little 4x4 track we followed that we ended up spending a lovely night on the beach, nestled in the dunes.

We followed the Indian Ocean high way and came across this mound of rubbish at the junction between the high way and the brand high way. We had picked up these "bin it not fling it" packs from Augusta, with a few bags, gloves and tongs, designed for the traveler. So off we went and picked up all the rubbish we could see, environmental warriors we are, and hopefully we may have even inspired some people who were driving through this very busy intersection to do the same.

Next spot we came to was Geraldton, wasn't so windy for us, and we found a great little spot to camp, on top of the dunes just out of town, near a lime plant. Was a weekend so there were the dune-bashers and drinkers out and about but it served us well for a few nights. We even found a hot shower at the boat ramp to clean up with. After checking out the farmers market we were impressed with all our fresh produce and the best bargain of the day, 5kgs of mandarins for $5. Needless to say we are still eating them.

 

 

 

We had a lovely local drive up to us in his boat, at the end of the day, after we had set up and were enjoying the sun at the boat ramp and ask if we liked crayfish. Nick was quick to jump up and the lovely local gave him 2 and said "welcome to Geraldton"..... thank you very much!!

 

 

 

 

We moved on to sleepy little beachside town of Horrocks, had a lovely walk on the beach and then asked about how to find the Bowes River mouth.

 

 

The Bowes river mouth was popular with the surfers, I found out when having a leek in the morning, I hope that he was concentrating on the wave and not on me in my leopard print flannelette PJ'S around me knees. Having a drive around there we decided that it was ideal to spend the night. It was a rocky beach with plenty of shells washed up on the shore, quite lovely, and then had these amazing red cliffs behind the sand dunes, which is where we camped. Sometimes we noticed that the sand had turned pink,

We played some Frisbee, and it was quite cute watching Delta catch it on her head.

We checked out port Gregory and the pink lake, apparently naturally coloured pink by the Beta Carotene, I did spot a chemical company on the shore when we where whizzing past at 80kms, so maybe tat had something to do with it.

 

Spent last night on a roadside camp with a couple of lovely golden oldies, round the campfire chatting away. Then we were joined by a lovely chick, who is a surf teacher and is heading to Port Headland, after Sahara and her dog came to fisty-cuffs to establish who was boss, we kicked around for a bit then all went to bed.  Sunset was amazing (John you would have been jealous)

 

 

Woken by rain this morning we quickly packed up and said our goodbyes as I wanted to catch the daily pelican feeding on the foreshore of Kalbarri. Got there just in time, but there were so many kids I felt a bit ashamed to feed the pelican's and take away their opportunity, just settled with pictures...