Finally we arrived at our very first national park. Kalbarri is a little fishing village, mainly consisting of hotels, hostels and camping grounds and of course a supermarket. But of course this concept exists everywhere where tourists appear so it was neither the first we saw nor the last one we’ll see. There is another funny characteristic of the villages along the coral coast. Most of them seem to have their own tradition in feeding one specific animal. Usually it began in the 40’s or 50’s when fishermen fed marine animals with the remaining of their caught and by the time research centers and a touristic attraction developed. The chosen animal in Kalbarri are the pelicans, which come every morning at 8:45 to be fed and seen by almost all guests staying in town. However we skipped this “event” and were obfuscating the pelicans in the evening without interruption.
To cut a long story short we arrived at the camping ground at Kalbarri in order to start exploring the national park. By the way, camping grounds in Australia are usually well equipped. All of them where we stayed had a Camper’s Kitchen with Barbecue, stove, microwave, water boiler, toaster and fridge, which is very comfortable if you stay there with a tent like we did.
Ok so now the national park (I know, finally 😛 ): We already heard from people that some national parks have unsealed roads or can only be explored with a 4WD. That’s why we asked the park ranger if our vehicle would survive in the conditions of the park. She told us “it’s fine, just a bit bumpy”. Maybe the biggest understatement EVER!!! It’s hard to describe how we felt driving on a rolled sandy road with potholes everywhere. We nearly stopped and often thought about giving it a miss, but we crawled over the road with 10-20 kph always hoping the car will not simply break into pieces. Finally we arrived at the “Loop Walk” (a sealed car parking area :-/ ) and were inspecting our car for damages. Luckily we couldn’t find any of them (Hopefully the car rental company won’t find any as well, since unsealed roads are not included in the insurance). However, it was definitely worth going there and the return was much easier with the knowledge that other similar cars also did the road without damages.
The national park itself can be summarized shortly and hopefully the pictures will do the remaining. Ages ago a river cut a gorge in the sand stone which curls through the park. It built some extraordinary formations such as the “Loop” (a loop like part of the river) or the “Z-Band” (a nearly perfect formed Z with nearly vertical edges). Another one is the “Natural Window” a formation in the stone – like the name implies – forming a window to the “Loop”. The Kalbarri NP is an impressive huge bush land. You can’t even imagine the end even if you are staying on a high lookout.
The next day, there was another drive on the schedule, going to Coral Bay (appr. 700km), let’s see how the story continues…
Oops, I nearly forgot something: By the time of arriving in Kalbarri we saw the first viable kangaroo!!!! In fact there were three of them, eating from the waste….