03/05/12 – Stromie action #1

Red rocks and sand - even if we didn't have the weather to match!

Stromatolite action - yep, get excited!

Taking care to avoid the multitude of Germans camping in the caravan park, we got off early but decided not to revisit the Pinnacles, and thus missed out on souvies… Gutted – that fridge magnet and stubby cooler would have really tied the room together. Before leaving the area we stopped off at Lake Thetis, famous for its stromatolites (see comment).

The pink lake at Port Gregory -
pink in real life, honest...

Tony's kind of place

Another hefty stint in the car, then we got to the outskirts of Kalbarri for the afternoon sun. Ticked off all the stop offs along the coastline, bagging another ‘Island Rock’ and ‘Natural Bridge’ – inspiring names, I’m sure you agree. This was our first proper experience of red cliffs surrounding a beach – a sight we’d been looking forward to since leaving Melbourne – and it didn’t disappoint. The weather could have definitely been better though – we were expecting nothing but sunshine since heading north from Perth but it looked like that would have to wait a couple of days!

Don't have a clue what is
going on here!

Kalbarri coastline

 Decided against getting involved in the camp kitchen sausage sizzle, instead opting to warm up some sausage pasta of our own. Yummy!

Key Learnings:

 1. The Dutch were the first Europeans to properly investigate the West Coast of Australia, but found it too harsh to settle. That waited for the good ol’ British!