Kalbarri, a popular tourist place with West Australians, is like any tourist town. Manic during school holidays, and blissfully sleepy at other times. With a stroke of good luck, we arrived a few days after school resumed, and felt like we had the place to ourselves. It was also the perfect place to catch up with our friends from York - for a couple more days before continuing our journey northwards.
The first priority was to get up early and try to catch breakfast.
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| The boys try their hand at catching breakfast. |
Unfortunately the fish in the Murchison River were too quick for us on this occasion - although James did catch a little YellowTail - which was almost enough to create a new round of enthusiasm for the caper. Against was the fact it was cold and Mum had hot chocolate brewing on the stove top. The boys thankfully chose hot chocolate over another round of fishing, and we all retired for a delicious breakfast.
Kalbarri National Park has spectacular gorges, cut through 400 million year old sandstone by the Murchison River. They are incredibly photogenic in their own right, but around 400 million years ago, life was venturing out of the oceans for the first time. Some of these early creatures walked across mudflats, preserving their footprints for eternity. I thought the known sites of these foot prints would be kept a secret or jealously guarded, but we saw many foot prints imprinted on the ancient rocks on our walks through the park. It was an incredibly special feeling seeing the footsteps of some of the first creatures that walked!
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| Eurypterid footprints - only some 400 million years old |
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| And what the Eyrypterid looked like! |
We made our way down into the gorge at the Z Bend. After such a long dry spell, there were cool rock pools with a few fish in them, which kept the kids amused. We splashed around for a good hour or so, enjoying the red and white colours of the gorge and the many textures in the walls whilst munching on our morning tea. Considering this river drains an area the size of Tasmania, it was an incredibly small trickle of water that was flowing. This is a harsh dry land!
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| Herding fish - Murchison River style |
No trip to Kalbarri National Park is complete without a visit to Natures Window, a natural rock arch on a bend of the river. With the sun shining, and the river peacefully winding down below, it was a beautiful place to stop and spend a few moments - whilst jostling for the perfect photo opportunity.
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| Natures Window - Murchison River |
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| Our attempt at the Three Monkeys |
From Kalbarri north, the coast is lined with limestone cliffs named after the Zuytdorp, the Dutch East India trading ship lost with no trace for some 300 years. Its wreck was confirmed in the 1960s, although dutch coins and relics had been known in the area for a while before that. There is evidence that there were survivors from the shipwreck from a couple of camps made nearby - however what became of those survivors is lost to history.
As ships sailed up the coast, the red bluff near Kalbarri became a navigation point of reference - and we made our way to the lookout to look south. The Dutch were excellent navigators and sailors - with only a handful of ships coming to grief on the West Australian coast out of the 1400 that made the journey to Indonesia from 1612 onwards. Why didn't they colonise Australia? Well, looking at the harsh landscape, it is easy to see why they didn't attempt a settlement here.
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| Looking south - along a harsh and inhospitable coastline |
So, whilst the west coast was relatively well known, it was up to an Englishman to sail up the east coast some 160 years later. Lieutenant James Cook was the first to chart the east coast of Australia, and when you compare the relatively lush east coast, with many freshwater rivers and streams it is easy to see why they thought it was another island entirely - and much more suitable for establishing a colony. It wasn't until as recently as 1802 that Flinders confirmed that New Holland and New South Wales were actually part of the one bit of dirt, and suggested the continent be named Australia.
But I digress. We checked out some more of the lookouts at Kalbarri as we headed north. We paused at the well named Eagle Head Lookout. Can you see it?
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| At Eagle Head Lookout |
No, of course you can't see it. We are standing in front of it. Unfortunately our German friend missed the point of the lookout entirely. Not to worry - I took another photo of it. Can you see it this time?
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| Eagle Head Lookout |
It isn't too easy to see unfortunately, but on the right hand side of the photo, there is a large rock overhang. This is the head of the Eagle! You'll have to take my word for it - or go and see it yourselves! And whilst you're there, make sure you check out the crocodile (another rock formation) at the bottom of the Z Bend walk!
Whilst the Murchison River is beautiful - considering its huge catchment, the real appeal for me here was the footsteps from the first creatures that ventured onto land. To look back in time some 400 million years was amazing - but we were heading north to check out something even older. Much older!
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