I eventually discovered the Bus Pass I possessed was in fact valid for more than I had been told about and I wanted to see the west coast a little better, so North I headed. My first stop was Kalbarri, a little town with a striking coastline and a lot of birds. On my bus ride up a guy offered me some weed, which amused me, and he also mentioned that Kalbarri was full of hot birds! It didn’t quite seem to be the case when I arrived but then maybe he meant the wildlife. However it was full of great people.
Straight away I was invited to go with the shuttle driver Anna to some cliffs the next night to view the sunset, naturally I agreed and then got treated to a view of Kalbarri from the distance. With the sun low in the sky and the sea in the distance, you could see the River and Gorge twist towards the little town and settle just before it. Beautiful little place and Anna chatted away as we drove, telling me about the town and backpackers she had met there, including 2 who would be coming with us for the sunset. Eventually she dropped me off at Kalbarri Backpackers YHA and I attempted to find some food. This search was rather fruitless ending in only a tin of chilli beef.
I woke up and went shopping; I needed some real food as the tin of chilli had made my insides a little uncomfortable. Whilst in the supermarket I experienced an odd thing with the meat, I picked up a packet of steak and then feeling something wet and slimy immediately put it down to see that my fingers were covered in blood which had been leaking out of the package, great I thought and asked for a toilet or somewhere I could wash the blood off my hands, they didn’t have one, instead they gave me some paper towel and I noticed as they did, a sink behind the counter, nowhere I can wash my hands, huh. And on the way back from the shopping mall I was attacked by a bird; it swooped down and clipped my head as it flew over me, before landing nearby and acting as if it was totally innocent, I didn’t take my revenge as I was laden with shopping and really couldn’t be bothered.
I met Helen and Clare 2 charming ladies who also came along for the sunset and off we went to the cliffs, which are by the way pretty damn awesome! As soon as I got there I realised that they weren’t just straight drops, and therefore I could run down and maybe do a little climbing, so off I went bounding over rocks and having a great time. Done with climbing I sat down and chatted with Clare about books while we waited for the sun to descend when suddenly someone shouted Whale! Out in the water the only thing we could see was blue… but after staring at it for long enough there was a slightly different splash of water, whale? We kept looking and nothing happened, so we persevered and eventually there was a similar splash elsewhere, had it moved? So we kept staring and finally it paid off, there in the water a slight black shadow transformed into a little patch of black above the water. We had seen a whale! And we were proud. Then it was time for the sunset, which naturally was gorgeous, the colour growing more intense as the sun got lower, creating this great blue sea/red cliff contrast.
Lucky me got invited along on a little day trip by Helen and Liga. Liga drove I mapread and off we went heading south, our first stop was a pink lake, we assumed it was either just named the pink lake because someone was bad at names or maybe in a certain light it could look pink. Nope, this was just plain Barbie doll pink! The whole lot of it a huge pink mass of water, or least we presumed it was water. I suggested swimming but the girls didn’t fancy it.
After our pink experience we went to the beach nearby and discovered some stairs buried under the sand, walking up them was harder than normal when your feet sunk at least a foot before reaching the actual step. The water at the beach was beautiful, pristine clear water with shoals of fish swimming about and tons of boats, all in what looked like a natural harbour, with no way out. It made you wonder how exactly they all got there, did they come in at an extraordinary high tide and get stuck, or were they built there before the builders realised they couldn’t actually go anywhere with their new boats.
Then we visited an old convict town with only 3 gravestones, odd place. Someone still lived there as well, and we found a miniature arm, that explained what happened to the rest of the inhabitants at least. We spoke to the owner of the remaining house and checked out the mill before heading back to Kalbarri, listening to ‘The Saint’ soundtrack on the way back which was a bit surreal, I also found out some of my music was Lithuanian when Liga recognised it, not quite sure how that got onto my iPod… oh we also stopped at some of the cliff lookouts on the way back, saw dolphins sleeping and some very dramatic rocks!
For the rest of my stay in Kalbarri I swam, chilled out, met lots of lovely people and chatted to Clair and Helen a lot. On my last day before heading up to Monkey Mia I visited the Pelican feeding. It was hilarious, firstly the pelicans themselves who just look so funny but then the way the seagulls would hover above us and steal fish and attack people. When I tried to feed my Pelican a gull swooped down and snatched the fish out of my hand so I had to get another and try again, and when feeding the big birds they would run forward in a sort of charge to grab the fish and then walk away happy. One of the more comical events I have witnessed during my trip so far.
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