Wed 16th June '21 - Day 5

Geraldton to Kalbarri

 

Wake up in port car park. 8:15am drive to Hutt Lagoon, or, as its more commonly called Pink Lake, which is 1 ¼ hours North West. Sienna upon seeing this pink lake exclaims “why have we come all this way and its blue?”. In her defence, the strong pink tint is best visible when at the same height as the water surface. We walk up and down, remove shoes and socks and dip our toes in. This increases to kicking the water and then to stone throwing. Somewhat inevitably, Seb falls in.

We continue North, stopping at Blue Holes beach, which on a calm summer’s day would be extremely picturesque. However, the wind is up and the waves are crashing on to the beach – there are a couple of hardy surfers out in the deep which we watch from the wind-shade of our van as we eat lunch.

At 1pm we drive through Kalbarri, another gold coin collected and location of tonight’s campsite, and on another 30km to Z Bend Gorge. We walk the 600metres down a well-trodden path through shrubland to view the deep crevasse with river streaming through it. Kate is sure she covered this in Geography at school. Seb unleashes his occasional Super Speed running, which is rewarded with a Tim Tam for all when we get back to the van with sun beating down on us.

11km back on ourselves we stop at Skywalk. It’s a relatively new attraction of two cantilevered walkways extending out over the gorge. It leaves Kate a bit queasy, holding tightly to the handrails. Whilst we’re certainly not alone, the place has clearly been built for much higher volumes of tourists outside of Covid restrictions. It offers sweeping views over the tree covered plains at the bottom of the gorge. The landscape appears green when walking amongst it but viewed from above, it’s a much sandier landscape.

From there we can see our next stop, which is just 1km away, Nature’s Window. Again, a well organised car park suggesting of busier times, and we walk, scramble down 500m of track and on rocks to Natures Window which is a naturally formed hole in rock offering panoramic views of the gorge on either side. A bit like the tall trees Kate and I visited in South West WA several years ago, the Health & Safety is patchy at best – Seb is kept on a short (virtual) leash.

30 minute drive back to Murchison River Caravan Park. Immediate turnaround upon arrival to walk into the town to catch the sunset and the “best ever” playground on the beach while I grab some takeaway pizzas for our dinner. Seb wins Uno, despite him playing with his cards laying down, face up.