24th August 2013 Nancy's 70th Today

Denham, we were booked in on the 13^th but took a punt and turned up at the caravan park a day early to see if they had an unpowered site for one night, not that it mattered if they didn’t we would have just back tracked a few kilometres to a national park campsite. As it turned out we got a standby powered site for the night but had to relocate to our booked site in the morning, no big deal. Like all coastal centres Denham is a popular venue with wintering southerners and travellers alike, everyday of the eight we stayed at Denham they put a sign out indicating either ‘only overflow sites available’ or ‘no vacancies’. Apparently it was the same at the other caravan park also.

Overflow sites are usually ones close by or adjacent to the caravan park without direct access to power and water and sometimes quite a distance from toilets and showers.

Driving into Denham you approach from a fairly steep hill overlooking the small township fronting Shark Bay, with its shell base, patches of seagrass and crystal clear water reflecting cloudless blue skies it is quite a beautiful sight. Don’t be fooled, you get out of the car and nearly get blown off your feet and it’s quite a cold wind at that.

Denhams main street is about a kilometre long on one side are various venues on the other is the waterfront which is nicely grassed and very tidy with walking paths, several covered BBQ venues and a couple of the most elaborate fish cleaning facilities I have ever seen. In addition to that is a small boat slipway a couple of reasonably sized public jetty’s where local fishing boats berth to unload their catch and ever hopeful hardy dedicated soles drop a line into crystal clear waters in anticipation. There are also a couple of boat ramps to facilitate trailer boats and a long section of the waterfront has a dense hedgerow that is great at breaking the wind while walking the waterfront pathway each day.

On the commercial side of the street are various venues housing a couple of small (read very) supermarkets, bakery, butcher and pizzeria a couple of cafes, two hotels (one a resort type), a small restaurant, service station come fishing tackle centre, ladies hairdresser, a pearl jewellery centre, news agent post office and chemist all in one shop, a very large and modern visitor information and Shark Bay Discovery centre and a very large modern government building housing such departments as fisheries, parks and wild life and environmental people that obviously in the Shark Bay region is big deal.

During our stay in Denham, in spite of the cold windy conditions and a couple of gloomy overcast days we visited all of the local attractions including a full day exploring Francois Peron National Park. It’s about 54 kilometres to Cape Peron on a sand track necessitating 4wd and letting our tyres down to about 20 PSI so we could get through the soft sand sections (and cushion corrugations) travelling on the track requires a degree of concentration as it is only single lane and quite narrow with dense scrub lining each side. As a matter of fact you can’t see a lot while travelling but the various bays and headlands you encounter during the drive make it all worthwhile. At one such bay I met a group of about nine blokes who were camping for ten days, I think it was an annual event as they were well set up with a huge marquee and wind breaks all round it looked more like a Bedouin enclave than a fisherman’s beach boudoir. I can’t remember if it was Wednesday or Thursday but they had been there since Sunday and it was their first day fishing, with a grin to one another they considered it takes a few days to settle in, I think a few coldies had been given a nudge in the ensuing time since camp set up.

I threw a line in at this beach with an artificial worm and immediately pulled in a good whiting unfortunately it was to be the only one, with the wind increasing I didn’t try for very long.

Each day we did something different, even visiting Monkey Mia, which is totally commercialised. Several years ago Nancy’s sister Nola travelled through the region camping on the beach in their campervan at Monkey Mia and actually swam with the dolphins. Now days you have to pay to get anywhere near the locality, ‘for the dolphin’s protection you definitely cannot swim in the area and there are several public feedings (the dolphins of course) to strengthen their survival rate’. Good bit of spin anyway.

We had a nice lunch at the resort (yes there’s a resort there) only for the comfort of the general public nothing to do with cashing in on the dolphins.

Tuesday 20^th

By the time we left Denham we’d had a stomach full of the cold relentless wind. We had clear blue skies and beautiful sunshine, in the car it was great and we drove about 300kls being buffeted by a strong headwind.

Pulling into Galeena Bridge rest area we were amazed to find at least forty caravans and motorhomes parked for the night along the bank of the Muchison River and looking remarkably like a wagon train in a John Waynne movie. Everyone’s got to have a little fire going, then huddle around it feezing their what’s a names off. I know I watched them from the warmth of my caravan while I ate a lovely casserole we had prepared previously and it was freezing outside.

21^st August

The drive into Kalbarri from the main highway passes through National Park for about fifty kilometres. Even though this year is considered not to be so showy for wild flowers due to the lack of rain at the right time, the flowering shrubs such as wattle, banksia and ornamental grasses spreading away from each side of the road were quite spectacular and make a beautiful approach to this lovely coastal town.

Apparently we also saw Oldfield’s Starflower, Bird Beak Hakea, Wrinkle Seeded Lobelia, Straight leaved Guinea Flower, Trigger Plant and White Cranberry. (Oh yes I remember now).

Kalbarri fronts the Murchison River at its opening to the sea. Arriving on a beautiful blue cloudless sky day it couldn’t have looked better. Inside the river mouth protected by a navigable rock bar are sandy beaches, people swimming and fishing, lovely clear water, jetties and fishing boats (a small lobster fleet works out of Kalbarri), boat ramps and a general impression of a nice fishing holiday venue.

We had booked into the Murchison Caravan Park that is right in the middle of town and overlooks the Murchison river. A large park well set out with plenty of shade trees we were put on a drive through site towards the back of the park and handy to amenities which were first class again. A sign at the park gate told us about fresh fish for sale at the jetty 11.00am so we quickly parked the van plugged in the power and bolted for the jetty as it was 11.15am. This must be a much awaited visit by the fish truck as people were lined up like shoppers at a checkout. A selection of fresh Mulloway, Pink Snapper, Pearl Perch and Red Emperor, we selected a snapper and a red emperor and for a couple of bucks they filleted them there and then, that saved me the trouble.

22^nd August 2013

Today we drove back out along the western road to Hawks Head (Gorge viewing) and an area known as Ross Graham Gorge with access to the Murchison River. After some of the spectacular gorges we have seen and hiked in these were a bit of a let down and the wild flowers were basically non-existent in this area. However it gave us plenty of time to have a good look and take photos of the wonderful variety and showings of flowering shrubs on the road as we slowly made our way back to Kalbarri township.

23^rd August 2013

Continuing down the coastal road to Geraldton, this is a nice run through part of Kalbarri National Park and then it breaks out into rolling downs of green pastures, sheep and grain a really pleasant change. More about this section later.