Kalbarri, WA

 We weren't sure what to expect driving towards Kalbarri as it was the town that took the brunt of the cyclone a few months ago. After the cyclone, locals had told tourists to stay away while they sorted everything out, but they had recently said it was OK to return.

We stayed at Murchison House Station which is 10km out of town and our first "station stay". Kylie and Elsie thoroughly enjoyed camping right next to the goat paddock and talking to the alpacas and hearing the rooster crowing from 4.30am every morning. Zara and Elsie waited eagerly each morning to see the baby goats have their bucket of milk. The goats were making lots of noise each day calling for their milk.




The homestead is right on the river, however the river level was very high and rising and the water was moving very fast. So we couldn't really go close to the river. There wasn't any playgrounds either but they made up for this by having a giant old army tank for the kids to play in. This was a huge hit. They also had a good camp kitchen and lounge room with old books and encyclopedias which the kids loved looking through.




We ventured into the National Park and were impressed by the river gorges and the vast distance that we could see. The skywalk platform was great even though we felt like we would still be blown over the edge by the wind. We braved the walk to Nature's Window despite the wind and were rewarded with a gorgeous view. We didn't risk any of the other walks with the kids this time. It will give us a good reason to come back to this area again in the future.








The weather was still cold, rainy and windy so we had a fire every night to stay warm which was good. Kylie was unwell for the first few days and Saul taught the kids how to light the fire. On our last night, Kylie was all better, Saul went fishing and left the girls to light the fire. Kylie had lots of advice on the best way to do it - Elsie said toilet paper to get it started and Zara said throw some deisel on it!!! In the end we used everybody's suggestion and got a good fire going. We then celebrated our success by eating all the marshmellows that we had in the caravan.



One of our neighbours had his guitar out on the last night as well and invited us down to sign and listen. The kids really enjoyed this, and they also helped light the fire at that camp.

Kalbarri coastline is also very impressive and Saul did a gorge walk one day with Zara and Elsie while Bridie played in the car out of the weather with the unwell Kylie. 




Once Kylie was better she did some of the coastal walk, which was very pretty with lots of interesting plants and saw a friendly meeting between a Caterpillar and a snail. And the kids enjoyed yet another very cool playground while they waited for Mum to return (which I thought I had a photo of but apparently not!)






Sadly one of the locals was lost at sea while wind surfing the day we were there, and the next day the search and rescue crews were everywhere. We saw lots of people in orange uniforms walking the beach and the boats  and helicopter.


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