It was the third of June, and it was another dusty day.  Not-so-much delta and not at all sleepy, ‘cos we were driving!  We’d had a great time in beautiful Kalbarri – stayed in a “posh” caravan park, eaten in an interesting restaurant, seen the surfing potential at Jake’s Corner and found a good physio.  We now had “big plans” – dolphin feeding at Monkey Mia, a big drive into the Kennedy National Park for a couple of days of perfect serenity, and an outback station stay for damper and scones, before moving on to Exmouth in a week.

We also have to mention Kalbarri National Park, just NE of town.  The Murchison River has carved magnificent gorges through this red and forbidding landscape and the parks people have built a stunning pair of aerial walkways to allow even disabled people like me to view the gorges from high above the river.  Lots of “interpretative” signage tells both ancient and modern-ish stories of the landscape and its inhabitants.  In a recurring theme, the gorges are the path of a mighty snake in search of the ocean – not called a rainbow serpent here, but it’s a familiar tale (oh alright, tail).  The pics are pretty good but scarcely do it justice.

It was too far to get to Monkey Mia in one day, so we opted for a half-way stop, rejected it when we arrived too early, and pressed on to Goulet Bluff 24hr campsite.  What a fine decision!  We were only allowed to stay for 24 hours and our permit began when we e-paid for it at 1.14pm.  We left at 1.14 the next afternoon.  Parked on a snow white beach made entirely of tiny shells, we were maybe 10m from the sea and it was simply magic.  More of this please!

WA’s RAC have built a massive caravan and holiday park at Monkey Mia on Shark Bay and, to our amazement, that’s all there was.  The Dolphin Experience (named, I’m sure, by the Dolphin Human Interaction Relationship Manager) was an early morning opportunity to wade a metre into the water with a hundred other people and watch a few dolphins swim past a couple more metres away.  Beautiful but ever-so-slightly underwhelming for me.   Only the staff can feed them and even they had to wear masks when they did – dolphins, being mammals, might catch Covid, but nobody knows.  Shark Bay’s healthy population of tiger sharks seemed a bigger danger to me.  This animal welfare care and concern left me undecided as to whether we’d finally “turned the corner” or finally “gone round the bend”.

The RAC, on the other hand, know exactly what they’re doing!  The park caters for everything from beer and pizza to genuinely good dining.  My blue swimmer crab risotto was outstanding, washed down with a fine Cullen SSB.  Two nights here was plenty and those we met who were staying for a week must have gone crazy.  

Next stop was Carnarvon where we re-supplied and moved swiftly on towards Kennedy National Park with visions of couple of nights at Temple Gorge.  A “slight” misreading of the maps left us at least 100km short of our goal when dusk arrived – nothing for it but to take a roadside stop and make the best of it.  Road noise was surely going to be a problem but there wouldn’t have been 5 vehicles go past from 7pm to 7am.

So now it looked like only one night at Temple Gorge but, undeterred, we drove into Gascoyne Junction to refuel, so we had a full tank for the next substantial leg.  Telstra have a 3G tower in Gascoyne but the service was down.  So what, I hear you say.  Unbelievably, the petrol pumps are “connected” and simply cannot operate unless they are.  No manual override, no good old fashioned cash – just a collection of disgruntled motorists waiting for the internet.  We figured we had enough fuel (maybe) so we pressed on!

A further 40km of dirt road on, we reached the Lyons River crossing, a floodway about 75m across but only 150mm deep.  Lesley bravely steered us through in time to meet another van coming the other way.  They’d just been advised to leave (kicked out!) by the park rangers as the road would probably be closed tomorrow due to a rain event.  We looked at the map, we looked at the fuel gauge, we looked inside our souls – and did a U turn!  400km of our lives that we’ll never get back.  The only thing that actually worked out was picture of ATGANI in full flight, so here it is.  

By and by, we made it to Coral Bay (remarkably like Monkey Mia – caravan/holiday parks and nothing else), purchased some water (first time we’d paid; $1 per 10 litres), grabbed a toastie and coffee and moved on to our station stay at Bullara at the base of Exmouth Gulf.  It’s 100,000 hectares of working cattle property, mostly yak-like Droughtmasters, having swapped over from sheep years ago.  Their tourist offering is remarkable with over 100 sites but not in serried ranks. Damper nights plus country commentary 3 times a week, Burger night on Friday, scones jam and cream plus “barista” coffee every day.  Remarkably, they also sell meat from the property which has a super-high reputation for quality and value – lots of disappointed customers though, because it’s impossible to get the staff to do the required amount of butchering.  Really well organized and executed and the staff sing the proprietors’ praises long and loud (probably not a contract condition).  Lots of the people we met were repeat offenders and a couple had virtually never left.

But we did leave – we had a long-standing commitment in Exmouth (say mouth, not muth) for whaleshark swimming to celebrate Lesley’s 70th birthday. How could that be true, and what could possibly go wrong?