Date Tags 2002au

Geraldton to Kalbarri, Western Australia

A more relaxed day: shopping in the morning, then drive north along the coast to the small holiday town of Kalbarri , stopping along the way to take pictures of roadside wildflowers and the huge coastal cliffs. Then in the afternoon, I visit the informative Kalbarri Wildflower Centre, taking even more pictures, while Chris catches up on some sleep.


Going Postal

And, yawn, we're up in the morning, and dashing to catch the last fifteen minutes of the offered and somewhat lame continental brekkie that comes with the room. I again opt for the All Bran, Chris just has fruit. We're out of there by 9:30. First, we stop at the post office, and I ship another 10.5 kilos of books home for the small sum of $49.50. Rates have gone up. Postcards are now $1.10 to the US, and 49 cents inside Australia, which makes me snicker... Australia doesn't have pennies anymore. So what do you do with all your old $1.00 and 45 cent stamps? You use them! The old ones are still good for what they were made for. That's cool.

We then stop by Coles... and there's a Target next door. With a 20% off all men's clothing sale. Uh oh. Chris buys shirts. I hold back a bit, but do buy a butch King Gee aqua colored work shirt for $22. When I try it on in the fitting room, I'm shocked that I look so skinny. No more pregnant marmot!

Up the Coast

Driving up to Kalbarri on the newly paved coastal route, the landscape is more wheat fields and a few flattopped hills. There's hardly a structure in sight, like the wheatfields are farmed by small little aliens or something. We stop around noon at an interesting bush remnant; I take some pictures of wildflowers. Once agian, I find a good thirty or so different wildflowers in bloom in ten minutes of wandering around.

Once across the Natioanl Park boundry, we stop again for pictures, and spot another banksia species I haven't seen before... a short shrub with smallish yellow cone flowers. After a short stop at Natural Bridge and Crystal Cove overlooks, we head into town.

In the afternoon after we're checked in, Chris takes a nap, and I head out to the Kalbarri Wildflower Centre. There's a short 1.8km hike that I do, and it's well done, explaining quite a bit about the plants that I've been seing for the past couple of days.

We finish up the day with a fabulous dinner at the Black Rock Cafe in Kalbarri: the seafood platter for two, which includes one rock lobster, a good ten scallops, chilli mussels, prawns, shrimp in garlic sauce, chips, and (our favorite) grilled dhufish. The dhufish is sweet and tender. Not sure what it is, but it's great.


Weird Wildlife Sighting

Nothing much. Except for the mass amounts of wildflowers.