Day 106 07/07/2011 Kalbarri – Coronation Beach (near Geraldton)

Day 106 07/07/2011 Kalbarri – Coronation Beach (near Geraldton)

What a gorgeous winter’s day we had today. The day started briskly but with a clear blue sky promising a glorious day.  Ken and Shirley dropped in to say goodbye, as we all figured this was the last stop that we would meet up, as we all had to be home by mid-September.  The difference being they only have to travel to Adelaide, we have a little further to go.  Unfortunately when they dropped by we had only just managed to get out of our pyjamas so we didn’t manage to vacate our site until well after 10am, oh well!!



The coastal side of Kalbarri National Park



Once we had safely parked the caravan out on the road, Shirley treated us to coffee and morning tea, Pete was busy trying to get them to adopt us!! They told us about some rock pools that they had found yesterday that had lots of octopus in them, so we decided to head for a walk along the beach before leaving Kalbarri and continuing the pilgrimage south.  The walk was very pleasant and we all began to warm up. 

We found the rock pools but the octopus were being very elusive, eventually we spotted two hiding separately under rocks, and the kids were fascinated to see them close up and tried, unsuccessfully, to coax them out!!

As the day was slowly getting away from us we had lunch in the local Kalbarri park and the kids enjoyed playing on the equipment, we even saw some whale’s passing close to the sandbar that separated the Murchison River from the Indian Ocean.

After lunch, with full bellies we headed south.  Our first stop was at Red Bluff Lookout where we were again about to spot lots of whales heading south.  We then headed to Eagle Gorge Lookout.  From here we had an amazing view back to the sheer sandstone rock walls along the coast; we could also see lots of whales along the horizon.  Their spouts of water were very easy to see against the horizon and occasionally we were able to see one breeching off in the distance.

We then slowly headed south and it was amazing to watch the landscape change quite abruptly.  We went from spinifex and scrub covered paddocks to beautiful green rolling hills with sheep and crops for as far as the eye could see, at one stage Pete commented that it was like driving through Jamberoo.  It was great to see such green hills after being in the desert and arid country for so long. 

We had decided that tonight we would stop at Coronation Beach, a Council run campground about 20kms north of Geraldton.  As we made the quick descent down the 2kms of winding road we were greeted with a beautiful view of a shallow beach with pristine white sands.  Luckily we were able to find a level spot and we have settled in for two nights. Hopefully, we will be able to fish and play on the beach tomorrow.

Happy 40^th Birthday Aunty Jodie!!! Jodie Misiti is 40 today!!!