Courtesy of some extremely vocal cockatoos, we were woken well before the alarm was set, so Diana cursed at them and rolled over, while Trav decided it was easier to just get up for the day. Wandering into town, he found a supermarket open at 6:30am on Sunday, which was an incredible surprise for such a small town. It was also damn good because he had a craving for bacon, eggs, sausages, and tomato for breakfast. However, seeing as it was a small town, the prices were unbelievably expensive, so he settled for some bread and vegemite and jam.

Seeing as we had simply driven through the National Park the previous evening, in order to get to our destination by dark, we actually ventured toward the tourism sites of interest this morning. Seeing as there is only one road to Kalbarri, we’d previously decided to see the park on the way out, rather than in, as it meant we would not have such a big day on Day Two. As we drove along an extremely rough dirt road, we came to a sign telling us the prices to get into the park. However, there was no ranger - only an automatic ticket machine that allowed you to pay the $5 fee to get into the park. It was based entirely on honesty, and presumably, someone would come and check the ticket on your windscreen at some stage, but we had the holiday pass, so didn’t have to pay. These ticket machines turned out to be at most National Parks, although we never saw anyone use them. Then again, we never used them because we had the pass, so perhaps everyone was as above-board as us.

It was 35C at 10:00am when we got out to see a rock formation called “Nature’s Window” - a hole carved in rock by wind and water erosion, overlooking the Murchison Gorge. As usual, Trav went bounding along over rocks, jumping on every boulder he could find, while Diana sweltered under the heat and struggled to keep up. Toward the end of the walk down to Nature’s Window, there was a rock ledge about a 18 inches wide to walk on, with a 10 foot drop off the side, whereupon you’d probably bounce once, roll off the ledge you just landed on, and plummet 100m to your death. Trav ran along the ledge, and then came back to persuade Diana to come out with him, which she did, although the perspiration running off her had more to do with stress than heat at that point. Not a big fan of the 18″ ledge, Diana made it without any problems, and we took a couple of happy snaps on the *shady* side of the formation.

There was a sign at the beginning of the walk telling people to wear good walking shoes, because of the rocky ledges and associated danger. What surprised us was that people felt that thongs (or “flip flops” for you Yanks) constituted “good walking shoes” and we even saw one woman in a pair of fashionable scuffs, where if she stepped on uneven ground, the shoe would grip, but her foot would slip out of it. Oh well - we guess that if you are in the middle of a National Park, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest capital city, wandering down a rocky ledge in 35C heat, you might as well be trendy. Stupid Person Of The Day? Yes, we have a winner!

We decided it was too hot to walk the 3km loop to see the other sights, which was a bit of a pity, but that’s what we get for going in the middle of summer, I guess. One of the sights was to overlook the river though, and the river was extremely low, so it would not have been as impressive as at other times of the year.

The drive to Monkey Mia was relatively uneventful, with the exception of the animal life. Because the road is slap-bang in the middle of nowhere, it is essentially the outback, as featured in all those beautiful images of Australia in magazines and tourism brochures. The vegetation was sparse but green. The sand was a rich, deep red colour. The sky was a vivid blue, without a cloud. It all seemed very deserted, yet at the same time, it felt as though we were in the REAL Australia, and it was very beautiful because it was so harsh.

We saw some emus wandering in a paddock only 50m from the highway, so pulled over to have a look. Our only sightings of kangaroos were the large piles of skin and bones alongside the highway. Two things surprised us about the roo roadkills:

1. There were not as many as we’d expected.
2. They were left there so long that often it was just a pile of bleached bones.

The latter detail surprised us a little more when we got further south. Out in the deserted region of the road we were currently driving in, we could understand it would be impossible for a truck to come along and clear off all the dead roos. However, when we got back to “civilisation” by about Day Six, we were still finding giant dead bodies by the roadside. We should have thought that the council rates would have covered the removal of dead roos from roads, but apparently not…

The final town on the highway, at the turn-off to Monkey Mia is called “Overlander”. The town is a petrol station. 50km previous to it, there was a town called “Billabong” which was also a petrol station. No other structures were visible, except the dwellings of the station owners. Nonetheless, each place was marked on the map as a town-sized dot, which seemed a little high as a rating, but then, when you get 800kms north of Perth, petrol is all you need in a town.

One other aspect of being so far from major centres is that the trucks tend to be larger, in order to carry more freight from one site to another, rather than making more fuel-consuming trips. In Australia, these large trucks are called “road trains” and may have up to three to six trailers behind them. When one of these comes in the opposite direction on smaller roads, the car must pull off the road and stop, because the truck will run over the car in preference to losing control of such a large vehicle in the gravel on the side of the road. The average motorist follows this logic, but then, who wants to play chicken with a six-trailer truck?

Just as we entered the Shark Bay Heritage Area (1km from the Overlander “township”), we saw a large goanna, over a metre in length, running off the road. We were all hyped up then, thinking that we were going to see lots of fauna, but that was it for the next 150kms, with the exception of bugs that splattered nicely on the windscreen every so often.

We managed to get some radio once more - no nearby stations had meant the last 200kms were radio-free, and it allowed us to finally solve the mystery of the AM radio band. As you hit the seek button, it passes through the frequency 666. We’ve always thought that no radio station would be brave/stupid enough to go out on a limb and broadcast on “the devil’s number”, but this is not the case anymore. Carnarvon has a radio station that broadcasts on the 666 frequency, and was playing nice, boppy 50’s and 60’s rock and roll. Wait a minute - wasn’t that originally called the music of the devil by “squares” back then? Coincidence?

As we approached the resort, we began to catch glimpses of the ocean. To be perfectly honest, both of us were absolutely stunned to see that it looked not only like the brochures, but possibly better than the brochures. The water was such a vivid clear-blue colour, like shown around tropical islands with reefs, in tourist magazines. This water was crystal clear, the sand was a spotless, blinding white, and the sky still had not a cloud in the sky. The view was glorious, and it didn’t change from the time we entered the area, to the time we left, despite having different light conditions.

We planned to stay here for a couple of days, so checked into the Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, and pitched the tent. We did not realise until later what a bargain it was - a nice shady site with access to a free BBQ, fridges, toilets, showers, 30m to the tennis court, 50m to the shaded swimming pool and artesian bore hot tub, 70m to the calm, waveless beach that was so shallow, we could walk out about 80-90m from shore and still only be chest deep. I’ve never seen clearer water, with us being able to see every shell on the bottom, even at that distance from shore. All this for $7 per person, per day. Bargain!

Seeing as it was getting late after our swim, we cooked dinner, and relaxed afterward for about half an hour in the hot tub. A fantastic way to end the day that basically got us inspired to get rich quick so we could get a house with a hot tub in it and we could sit in it every day, not just when on holidays. Anyone looking to donate a hot tub to us is welcome to do so. We’d even accept it as an email attachment, although I think I’d have to check with the Uni IT people first, to make sure it would not crash the server…*grin*

Tomorrow is Dolphin Day - the reason we are here…

Categories: Travel, WA 1999