Day 78: A Wet and Windy day in Kalbarri

 The wind is over 20 knots and gusting to 30 knots, with patches a sometimes heavy rain. We are hoping it will ease during the day, but fully understand why the skipper of the lobster boat we were supposed to be on today cancelled today's outing. Hopefully one of the next few days will be suitable.

Crossing the entrance to the Murchison River is a bit of a tricky affair as there is no protection from break walls. The channel is marked with a dotted line on the chart below.

I went for a walk in the wet this morning and this is what it looks like visually, from across the road from our caravan park.


When the weather looked like improving, after lunch, we went for a short drive down the coast to have a quick look at the many sites they recommend tourists visit. The first of these, not far from where we are is Chinamen's Beach/ Point. It is right on the entrance to the river and showed just how treacherous this passage can be.


The channel markers are taking a bit of a beating from the wave action

The map below provides some guidance on the tourist spots along this coast. We were only interested in going as far as the Red Bluff area, as we will be travelling back down this road on our way to Geraldton in a few days time.


Conditions are far from ideal to visit these spots, but at least it is not raining, and we can always come back and visit the places that attract our interest when the weather improves.

After Chinaman's Point, we called into Blue Holes, the best place in Kalbarri for diving and snorkelling, but not today.



Under different sea conditions it is probably ideal

Every where we stopped along the coast, you could see they would be nice places to visit and spend some time, but not today.


Jake's Point

At Red Bluff you can drive right down onto the rock platform.


Red Bluff




Red Bluff Lookout is on the headland in the background

We drove to the lookout carpark, but the wind was howling and we decided to come back on a more hospitable day.

More wildflowers were discovered along the way, and at the path to Mushroom rock, that we decided to put that off to another day.







The weather is slowly improving, but we head for shelter and visit the local craft brewing company, Finlays, where we tasted and purchased a couple of their beers.




Let's hope tomorrows weather is better. The wind and rain have abated, so we are hopeful.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day2: Murrurundi to Narrabri

Image
 Not only did we get to camp for free last night, but an added bonus was the excellent showers and toilets that they leave open for 24 hrs for campers. The showers were as good as you would find anywhere and better than most caravan parks. We were the last to leave this morning with only a relatively short drive today and a bit of an early morning fog meant there was no hurry. It was a bit of a bumpy old road in parts due to many temporary road repairs, and not a lot of exciting things to see along the way. As it is Sunday, most country towns are pretty dead, so even stopping for a coffee is a challenge. A comfort stop was required by the time we got to Gunnedah, where finding a place to park towing a van is a fair challenge. We eventually found one in a back street, a fair walk from the nearest public toilets. The highlight of the visit was an audio presentation of Banjo Patterson poems in the public loo. I doubt the narrator knew where his work would be played. Only the supermark...
Read more

Day 1: Off to Murrurundi

Image
 Finally loaded up after a few days effort, we left our storage paddock this morning at 10.30 am, heading of to our first destination, the country town of Murrurundi. It was a miserable 312 km drive in light rain pretty much all of the way to Singleton, where we stopped for lunch. From then on the weather started to clear and by the time we arrived in Murrurundi, it was fine. We planned to free camp at one of the 2 hotels in town, both of which offer free camping areas for RV's. We decided on the Royal Hotel and were not the first there, but managed to secure a spot at the back of the hotel. The plan is to dine at the pub tonight, but first we decide to stretch our legs and check out this historic little town. The Royal Hotel has quite a history, established in 1863, and spent some time as a Cobb & Co staging post. It has been extensively renovated and seems a very popular venue. Entrance from the carpark A bit of history and a venue for the  music entertainment The buildi...
Read more

Day 4: Full day tour of the opal fields and pubs

Image
 The cloudy outlook late yesterday did result in around 5mm of rain overnight and some rumbling thunder, but no storm. Today's adventure starts at 8.45am with the Outback Opal Tours bus picking us up at our caravan park and moving on to a few other venues to end up with 20 passengers, a big improvement on a few days ago when they weren't sure the tour would go ahead because of lack of numbers. It is a good group of mostly Aussie caravaners around our age and a younger Canadian family of four from Kelowna. Our tour guide, Stacey, is a real character and we can tell we are going to be in for a good day. Married to an opal miner she has some great tales to tell about opal m mining and the social fabric of Lightning Ridge. The locals are a pragmatic bunch, who have a healthy distrust in government. Driving into the town, the usual town population sign is filled in with a question mark. Stacey explains that is because no one fills in the census. With a full bus load we embark on a t...
Read more