Awoke nice and refreshed to find that Diana had survived her first ever night in a tent unscathed by the various imagined dangers she had been worried about attacking her.

Driving out of Fremantle toward Perth, we proved that we had still to get our navigation/driving skills issue resolved. After following Diana’s directions for several kilometres, it was deemed by her that we were definitely on the wrong road. As we attempted to get back onto the right road, we found that the road we were on was probably the quickest road we could have taken anyway, although not the intended route. Diana proudly proclaimed the road no longer “wrong”, but instead, “the best road to take”. Trav has done this several times in the past in a desperate attempt to pretend he was not really lost at all, and it seemed odd to be on the other side of the quickly-deflating argument. Made Trav realise how silly he must have sounded on previous occasions.

Drove to the Pinnacles (~250 kms north of Perth), and followed an extremely corrugated dirt road in. This track was the first of many breaches of car hire rules. Well, technically it was not a breach of the rules - just that if we’d had an accident, we would not have been covered by the insurance policy because we were off a sealed road. Seeing as they charge $8 per vehicle to go and see the Pinnacles, you’d think they’d have fantastic roads, but the ranger explained they liked to keep them dirt so that the local native animals were able to wander unhindered.

It was about the only thing that she knew with any clarity, because any question on the Pinnacles was met with a blank stare and a statement to “read this brochure”. Apparently she was just there to collect the money, and not know anything about the National Park she was responsible for. When we were in the Pinnacles, there were some brown ones and some black ones. Quite obviously, the burning question of the day is what causes the colour difference. She didn’t know, and directed us rapidly to “read the brochure”. Ah well, we did find out she was from Geelong, so that explained a lot for us…

Another thing proven to us to be worthwhile (other than the brochure) was the use of the internet. Without having visited the Conservation And Land Management (CALM) department webpage, we would not have known about the existence of a “holiday pass” which entitled you to entry to every park in Western Australia for four weeks, as often as desired, for $20. There were no signs up saying we could purchase a holiday pass on the board of prices, and the CALM ranger seemed a little surprised we knew about it. We bought it because most parks charged about $5-$10 per car to get in, so the holiday pass was more suited to us, we felt. More on this in coming days…

As we arrived in the midst of the Pinnacles, we got out of the car to take a photo or two. The first thing seen by Trav was a naked man running through the Pinnacles. Perhaps he was trying to do an impression, although one could quite harshly suggest it was a rather unimpressive Pinnacle. Before Trav could grab the camera to record this incredibly surreal sight for posterity, the pants went back on, and the moment was gone. However, this man lives on in our minds as “Stupid Person Of The Day” for exposing his genitalia to not only the world, but the cancer-causing UV rays from the sun on a 38C day.

After leaving the Pinnacles, grabbed lunch in a town called Cervantes which presumably was put there for some other reason than to service tourists who came to visit the Pinnacles, but we could not work it out. Seemed like a coastal fishing village in some respects, so we presume that was it’s other role. We were actually quite impressed by one of the residents though - a 12yo girl walking down the main street in bare feet on a 38C day. The bitumen was melting in some places, and yet she was without shoes. Those looneys that partake of firewalking would have been impressed…

As an aside, the car we hired was officially named “George” today, because every car needs a name if it is to function correctly.

Just south of Geraldton is a small town called Greenough (”gren-uff”). The major feature of the landscape that impressed us was all the trees were lying down. Almost every gum tree grew up a couple of metres, then aimed back down at the ground once more. The shire logo is that of a tree lying down, and we presumed it was very specific to the area. Further investigation over the next few days unearthed the fact that the species of gum tree that grows in the area does not like the salt content of the wind coming in off the coast, only a few kilometres away. As a result, the trees contort themselves into a shape that minimises the amount of salt hitting them, which quite often means growing downward and away from the wind. Seems to me that evolution is just not taking the hint well enough, and perhaps those trees just are not meant to grow there.

Reached the Kalbarri turn-off about 6:00pm and began to drive through the Kalbarri National Park. In our experience, a National Park has always consisted of towering trees, maybe a waterfall, certainly a walking track through leafy surrounds. The Kalbarri National Park is just small twisted scrub, and not at all what we expected. At a rough estimate, Trav would have been taller than 70% of the plants growing in the park, so why anyone would take the local tourist bureau up on the “hike through Kalbarri National Park” idea is beyond us. Especially in summer when everything is deadish looking, although we’d not be surprised to go there in winter and see the same vegetation appearance.

Driving through the National Park, there were lizards all over the road because they were wanting to absorb the heat of the road. Out of the direct heat of the day, the lizards were after the warmth that came with the road, although none seemed to grasp the concept of when to actually depart the warmth and make for the relative safety of the bush as cars approached. One type of lizard - Thorny Devil - had a camouflaged appearance, and so it’s defence mechanism was to stand still. Might work quite efficiently against carnivores, but not with cars… We did see one at one stage that was not roadkill, so we pulled over and got out to take a look. We expected it to take off into the bush as we approached, but it stayed there quite happy to be photographed. Unfortunately, the photos did not turn out well due to Trav’s unfamiliarity with the new camera, so you’ll just have to believe us that we could put our hands within inches of it, and it would stay there.

Decided to try our luck with the coastal town/fish dinner theory once more, and went to Finlay’s Fish BBQ - apparently “the most famous tin shed in Australia”. I’d never heard of it, although Di thinks she saw it on a travel program once. After reading the prices, decided to settle for “steak and vegies”, which will come as no surprise to those than know Trav. Unfortunately the vegies turned out to be capsicum and onion in rice, which is not something Trav would eat. When one of the staff came to take away the plate, he questioned why Trav had not eaten the vegies. Trav pointed out that he was expecting vegies like potato, pumpkin, beans, corn, peas, carrots, etc, and not the rice mix. The staff member looked at him strangely and said “around here, that’s vegies, you know, vegie rice mix”. Apparently we should just have known that…*slapping oneself on the forehead*

The Kalbarri Tudor Caravan park was featured as a Big 4 Tourist Park. Basically, for those unaware, a park that is part of the Big 4 franchise has to be a damn good park, with shade, clean amenities, possibly a pool, tennis court or other activities that would allow people to go to the park and do stuff in the park as well as the local township. We think this park needed a re-check of the Big 4 status, due to their “mini-zoo” that was promoted in all the tourist brochures, and tourist radio stations. The mini-zoo apparently featured “kangaroos and talking cockatoos”. When we went to have a look at this menagerie, we found a rather neglected 4′x5′ aviary containing a corella that needed some serious beak trimming work for the health of the animal, three moth-eaten galahs with broken wings, 2 chickens, and a couple of cockatiels. No talking cockatoos. No kangaroos.

Update (20th Aug 1999) - The park is now under new management as a result of our complaint being one of many to the management of Big 4 Tourist Parks regarding that specific park. Whether it has improved or not is now unknown, but there are apparently more staff employed, and the state manager for the Big 4 organisation agreed with us about the poor quality of the ‘mini-zoo’ and decided that until chickens become classed as native parrots, it should not be a selling point of the park. It is indeed nice to hear that at least one organisation follows up on complaints.

The local pub was filled to capacity with the “Sport Fisherman’s Gathering”, so we decided to just go for a walk along the beach in the full moon. Oh, how romantic. After finding lots of shells, Diana sat down for a while and Trav dug a great big hole for people to fall into. Once Diana had tired of watching him dig, she faced the ocean once more, allowing Trav to dig just a little bit closer and a little bit deeper to Diana without her noticing until the sand began to collapse from under her. Unfortunately there was not enough speed of sand collapse, and Diana was able to escape the fate of falling bum-first into the giant sand hole. With all the extra sand now above the surface, Trav was able to sculpt a giant turtle, just before Diana jumped on it and squashed it flat. Oh well, I guess the romantic nature of a walk along the ocean under a full moon is wasted on us…*grin*

Onward to Monkey Mia tomorrow…

Categories: Travel, WA 1999