Camping at Kalbarri

When the long weekend in June rolled around we were shocked to find that it lined up with Dave being at home so we decided to take advantage of the long weekend and decided to head about 2 hours north to Kalbarri. We didn't stay in the national park (mainly because we had Jezy with us) and we actually didn't visit the NP on this visit at all as we will go back and do a day trip so we can leave Jez at home. Instead we decided to check out Murchison House Station, just out of the town of Kalbarri and bordering the NP.

When we arrived we had the run down from the owners as there was much of the area that would have limited accessibility due to both the aftermath of Seroja as we as the intense rain and storms we had experienced just in the past 2 weeks. We crossed the river and decided we wanted to look at camping upstream so we turned right and started along the track. We earmarked a couple of possible locations along the way before we decided we were not game to take the van any further and returned to a spot near the start of the track that we all liked the look of. The scenery was beautiful and the red rocks very reminiscent of our time up in the Kimberley which would still be our favourite on the trip.

The next day we took the BT out and decided to explore downstream, checking out all the other campsite options (still happy with our choice) and got all the way to Castle Rock where we got an amazing view back up the river and over the township of Kalbarri. Elly wrote her name in the sand and watched behind to see how far she could see it.

We spent the afternoon hanging out at the campsite just enjoying being in the bush again. The kids were climbing the big gum trees, Jez was snoozing and we enjoyed another campfire which is always a great way to spend an evening.

Day 2 found us exploring upstream a bit further and found some more sites that would be great to camp at and that we probably could have got the van into (Dave was way more confident with this than me!!) Elly was excited to make it to a site called Ellie's Pool which she would love to visit again although she had to fix the spelling on the sign. Once we made it back the campsite we decided to do a quick explore to the north and found ourselves on top of a huge limestone hill overlooking the station.

We got the fire going again that night, adding some of the colour crystals to the fire and making slow-mo videos of the flames. When the girls went to bed, Dave and I decided to have a play with the camera to see if we could get some shots of the stars. It ended up quite entertaining as at one stage I was to be found up a tree holding a torch to throw up some light to the top of the tree, keeping in mind that only a few weeks before that I had torn my calf muscle and had to be very careful how I was walking so climbing a tree was not necessarily the best idea in the world. We got some nice pics though in the end.

It was a bit sad to pack up and head back the next day. We decided to drive home along the coast road which took us past Hutt Lagoon, a pink lake that was actually pink unlike the one in Esperance.