19/09/18 Kalbarri

19/09/18 Slow start at Geraldton.  (Had to put some positive reviews on sites for Pippa.)  Got away at 10.  Filled up.  I swear every time I fill up, its the peak day of the cycle.  I'm sure it was cheaper yesterday! -Never mind, I don't take much.

Another lovely morning ride at a pleasant 22C, on a decent road with little traffic, sitting on a great comfortable bike.  Ain't motorcycling grand!
A couple of grey nomads in their smelly old 4WDs seemed to have the problem of speeding up when approaching a passing lane.  I wonder if their vehicles do it automatically?  Anyway, not a problem for my mean machine, which steams past them.  -I wasn't even doing the speed limit.  Didn't see the need, plenty of time.

Not too many wildflowers on this road (Geraldton to Kalbarri).  Banksias, but colourless.  Yellow daisies.  Lots of wheat.
I was instructed by Don to walk on the beach at Horrocks.  Osprey nests.
Well just to prove I was there, a lookout view over the 'town':

The beach with one lonely osprey nest in the distance, the post leaning at a precarious angle.  Not a soul in sight.  I walked a fair way along the beach.  Didn't see any more nests.  Didn't see any ospreys, only swallows, willie wagtails, pacific gulls.

They want visitors, but even the grey nomads had deserted the place.

Then as I got ready to ride off, I saw a large bird glide past me carrying something. It cruised along slowly against the strong wind, hugging the bushtops to reduce its affect, I guess.  Then flew to the osprey nest.  Too far away for me to see if it was feeding a chick or adding to the nest.  -Those nests are huge. The ospreys must expend a lot of effort building them up. 

I rode toward Pt Gregory, to see the pink lake which actually is pink (as opposed to the Esperance one which isn't).

 Looks luverly, but reality is, it's caused by excess salinity and a concentration of algae strong enough to be toxic to most creatures.  On the other side of the lake, I passed a BASF facility.  Presumably they mine the salt.

I called in at the Kalbarri information centre get find out where I should go.  Booked a river cruise.  Could buy a park day pass, but not a month pass.  Have to go to parks & wildlife for that, and they are only open 9-12.  ???
Ate a snack lunch out the back.

On to my accommodation for 3 nights (Kalbarri Palm Resort, where booking over the phone costs more than online).  Find out that I can't stay longer, because of coming public holiday and school holidays.  -No doubt the reason I found Denham was booked out the following weekend.  So I can't stay here any longer even if I want to.
Nice place.  I think MMBear and I will be very comfy here for a bit.  (Even if the supplied WiFi credentials are useless.  Thank goodness for my phone.)

Its pretty warm in the sun.  A foretaste of things to come, I think.
Maybe I will be using that pool across from my room!

In answer to Paul's question, I've done about 5,200km so far on this trip.  -Just getting started.  The Wauchope AGM trip was around 11,000km, with Michele on the back.

20/09/18  Kalbarri National Park

After getting slightly lost as is my habit, I found the parks & wildlife office, to buy my monthly park pass.  Google maps was no help, wanting to send me hundreds of kms away.  I ended up ringing the office (Google did give me their phone number) for the address.  Not knowing the spelling meant my technology couldn't find it.  Ended up riding round only a tiny bit.
No discount for old farts, but hey, someone has to pay for the great infrastructure.  I had to ask for a map and places to see, from the lady   behind her security window.  Maybe a tough old biker like me took her out of her comfort zone (yeah right).  By luck or good fortune, the office is on the road to the park. I rode out to one of the lookouts she suggested, Natures Window.

These photos aren't reduced in size, except for the signboards.  Not sure if that means they can be viewed in all their glory.
From the car park lookout.  This is gorge country.

 Looking down on the well formed walking path.

 1.  Don't know how many of these flowers I haven't seen before.  Need Michele with me.

 2.

 2. (Closeup view.)

 The gorge one way.

 The other way.  This would be very spectacular when in flood.

 The bend.

Natures Window.  Tourists queued to have their photo taken sitting in it.  Unfortunately I'd left MMBear at home.

 3. Shrubby, with some wildflower patches.

I did the short walk, class 3.  The loop was longer, class 4.  Ok for the likes of Richard, but I would probably get lost!

 The class 3 'path'.  Michele wouldn't have been comfortable here.

Closeup of the colourful striations in the rock.  Attractive, but no doubt contributed to the flakiness of it.  Warning signs everywhere.

Back at the carpark, I sat at the picnic table under shelter to cool off and let some sweat evaporate.  No, my feet weren't smelly, these little critters were just friendly.  Dress of the day for many tourists was a fly net.  Plenty of Aussie wave going on.  I wasn't too bad, with my application of Coober Pedy wonder cream.

 

 4. Toilets in the background.

 This has to be one of the best ever views standing at a urinal.

Rode to another lookout to see if it was different.  Z Bend.  The walk from the carpark to the lookout was still steepish, but much more 'manicured'.

 5. No flowers on this plant.  Soft furry leaves.

Hard to get a good shot without a shadow.  Class 5 walk here.  Definitely not me.

Looking toward the lookout.  The group at the spot was a bunch of schoolkids on tour.  When they' walked past, I asked a teacher if they ever lost many.  His answer was that 20% was acceptable, so long as its the right 20%.  :)
Their next main stop was Dongara, so pretty big tour.  No idea where home is.

 The gorge one way.

 The other way.

 6.

This is a view of the path.  Pretty good.

Plenty of bees.  The big one in front is a honeybee.  Smaller to the right is what i reckon is a native bee.

I heard birds as I walked back, but didn't see any.  -Didn't even hear them at Natures Window.

After glugging a heap of water at the Z Bend carpark, I rode back to Kalbarri.  Toootled around a bit.  There is an incredible amount of accommodation here, in all forms, from backpackers, to motels, to small mansions for hire.

Must admit, I was a bit underwhelmed by Kalbarri National park.  Not the flowers of down south, but has gorges and rocks.  Little on the sides of roads.  Sporadic yellow wattles, white bushes, yellow daisies, some pink, lots of grass trees (not in flower), lots of banksias with no colour.  I'm either to early or too late for colour there.  No birds along roads or in the park.  Just the occasional crow (Australian Raven).  Either I'm a poor observer (likely), or my timing is not quite right.
Lots of warnings about dehydration, complete with a couple of news excerpts where foreign tourists have died.  Easy to see why.  Today was only 28C.  In direct sun it was warm, with a warm dry breeze blowing on and off.  You could get dehydrated on a longer walk without even realising it was happening.
I kept my bike boots on, so my feet got sweaty.  I did take my soft 'deck shoes' with me, but they don't offer any ankle support, and don't resist all the pebbles underfoot.  For tricky terrain like today, my comfortable Rossi bike boots serve me well.  In the southern wildflower parks on even ground, the deck shoes were fine.  (I am starting to wonder if I should have squeezed in a summer bike jacket.)

I had taken my drone with me into the park, then read the pamphlet the lady gave me at the office.  "Launching and landing drone devices in national parks and reserves is prohibited unless authorised."  Lucky they didn't nab me at Depot Hill!  (That's probably a poor abbreviation of the rules, cos it allows for launching outside the park and flying into it.)

I did take lunch into the park, but I just didn't fancy sharing it with all the flies.  So I've eaten it in my motel room in comfort, followed by a nice cup of my filter coffee.  I must be very unfit.  The ride and walks this morning have fair worn me out!  I'll leave the Rainbow Jungle bird place for tomorrow arvo.  Can't imagine the cruise will tire me much.  Bludge arvo.

Wandered down to the shops area looking for a cheap tea.  All the small shops are closed!  Ended up at the same pub as last night.  Fish n chips.  For a holiday place with plenty of grey nomads in town, its not very lively.

When is a place open?  When it isn't closed to go fishing.

21/09/18 Cruise & Birds

After breakfast I wandered down to the assembly area for the river cruise.  I was early, so I ducked into the secondhand bookshop in case there was a treasure there I needed.  Fortunately there wasn't.  The lady in there (20 years in Kalbarri, previously from Largs North) was helpful WRT eating places.

Here is the gang waiting for the boat to turn up.  Check out the average age.

Here is our boat, and the eager ones in case seats were limited (they weren't).

Some serious fishing boats here, but a fraction of what was here before catch limits were brought in.  Crayfish has fetched up to $106/kgm.
The Murchison River is the second longest in Australia, but tidal and salt for a long way up.  It floods when cyclones hit its catchment area a long way upstream.  One spot has had a water level rise of 5 metres.  Tidal movement is 1 to 2.

Its very shallow.  Sand bars in the distance.  There is a horse riding establishment which takes rides across the river.  We saw horses crossing in the distance.  The boat hadn't run for a few days, because the water level was so low.

These sheoaks supposedly have such a shallow root system, they stay out of the salt water.  Further along, the eucalypts on the river's edge put down a tap root into the fresh water layer.

 We stopped for a walk around at "castle rock".

 I didn't walk all the way to the top.  This is upstream from half way up.

This little guy is what I cheerfully rip out at home (scotch thistle).  But it deserved to stay here, where it was obviously surviving against the odds.  They are tough plants!

Grant the driver/spruiker, showing some wares for sale.   They had bottle holders, doormats, baskets and bommyknockers, all made from woven old fishing rope.  Grant kept us amused, while Nikki gave us tea/coffee, and sold drinks.

Looking at the river mouth.  Apparently calm now, but subject to huge winds and waves.

The river cruise didn't really show me anything new.  But what's not to like about relaxing in a boat watching the scenery drift by, kept informed and amused by a personable guy.  Beers and stubby holders were $5.  Too cheap to pass up!

This is the closest MMBear came to a cruise.  -A sniff of the souvenir.

Rainbow Jungle

Darryl told me I should see this.  There were lots of different parrots in cages, as well as a bunch of finches.  Naturally when I lined birds up for shots, they chose to move somewhere else.  The cages supposedly were big enough for flight.

Hard to get birds in the sun.  This is inside a walk-in aviary.  There were birds all over the place, relatively unfazed by people.  I had birds zoom past me a few times, especially zebra finches.  You had to watch where you walked.

Many of the birds were very colourful.  A few types of macaw.  They breed lots of birds, some of which are endangered.

The view of the ocean from their "whale watching tower".  I didn't see any whales.  There are whale-watching cruises, which a guy on the river cruise with me had done, and they did see whales.  I'm satisfied with the ones I saw at Head of the Bight.

While I know I wouldn't get to see a lot of the birds in that zoo if they weren't in cages, I prefer the situation at home.  I put out seed, and birds come and eat.  Friends and rellies nearby do the same and get different birds.  I'd much rather see them free.  And in the Adelaide foothills, we get a pretty colourful bunch of feathered characters.
Kalbarri has been a bit of a disappointment bird-wise.  As for Geraldton, they need to cull the bloody homing pigeons (aka rats of the sky) everywhere.

Tea was fish n chips at a "real" fish n chip shop, as recommended by the bookshop lady.  I ate it in a park facing the river, out of old fashioned paper wrapping (but not so old fashioned as newspaper).  The Greek salad was OK too.