Saturday 5th June - Geraldton to Kalbarri

Throughout the night the wind built until Anne was afraid for the washing and got out to take it down.  The wind also highlighted the other major issue with a roof tent, flapping of the fly sheet.  We didn’t want to remove the fly sheet as it was still raining, but it does make sleep hard during particularly blustery nights.  I’ve read that seasoned roof tenters resort to ear plugs so we shall have to dig ours out from wherever we’ve put them in the Land Rover.

From Geraldton, we took the coastal route to Kalbarri by turning off for Horrocks at Northampton.  Upon entering the national park, numerous roads lead off to lookout points over the dramatic sea cliffs which are meant to be good places to spot migrating humpbacks.  Unfortunately we made no sightings, although they have been reported in Albany on the south coast and in Exmouth to the north. SPOT

Kalbarri itself is a nice looking village set at the mouth of the Murchison River, but we failed to find any bush camping nearby as all the tracks are either private or have been closed off by the parks authority.

After checking out an old homestead, but getting a slightly odd feeling about the place, we returned to Kalbarri to stay at one of the campsites which was rather busy due to the holiday weekend.  At least being in town we can see the pelicans being fed down by the beach tomorrow morning, before driving the 25km corrugated road to the Loop where you can walk through the spectacular gorge cut by the Murchison River - the main tourist draw to the region. SPOT