Looking for Clews

Day Two

meclews — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 15:44:00 GMT

Day Two 16.6.17

Distance travelled : 503.3

Today wasn't quite the early start we had hoped for...

We both woke up at 3:45am needed to go to the toilet. You need a high level of coordination to be able to get down from our bed. It sits above the drivers cabin and there is only about 50cm between the mattress and the roof so space is very limited. It's safe to say that when you are half asleep in the dark at 3:45 am there is basically no coordination making a trip to the toilet a mission.

By the time we finally managed to get back into bed we were wide awake and unable get back to sleep for a while. This meant we didn't get up until about 9am.

We had one last look at the river/ocean meeting place and then took off at 10am. Destination .... Kalbarri.

Last night I made sandwiches for us to have for lunch today however, whilst travelling along North West Coast Highway a sign grabbed my attention. It read 'Dongara Bakery'. It was at this point I lost all self control, all I could think was PIE.

It didn't take much for me to convince my driver (Leanne) to drive Britney into the little town of Dongara for some Bakery goodness. We grabbed a pie each and headed for seaspray beach for a view with our lunch.

Back on the road we went and this time I WAS ALLOWED TO DRIVE... I was very excited about this however by the second corner I had a backseat driver. It wasn't until she started reading her magazines (old lady magazines like 'Who' and 'take 5') I got some peace a quiet.

Quick pit stop at Geraldton for fuel (Gero family I will stop in and see you on the way back down) and then it was non-stop to the beautiful Kalbarri. I did accidentally drove past the 'welcome to Kalbarri sign' which meant a slightly dangerous 5 point turn on a thin road (insert backseat driver, who by this stage was sitting at the very back of Britney enjoying a nice cold beer).

The view of Kalbarri foreshore is beautiful as you come over the top of the hill. Not far down the road and we have reached our destination, Murchison Caravan Park.

This park is very different to last nights one. It's much bigger and seems to have a lot of people here. Still a lovely park and is right on the waters edge. We have two nights here so will do more exploring tomorrow but for tonight we went down to the waters edge to watch the sunset (checkout the photos with the waves crashing in front of the sun) then had dinner at Gilgai Tavern.

I'm assuming this is the locals hangout spot as it wasn't the most appealing place to the eye however the people were great and the food was yummy. We got a couple of drinks and headed for the pool table, Leanne was breaking and managed to send the ball flying off the table into a group of locals first shot. Embarrassing much...

After dinner we watch a little of the football, North Melbourne started to frustrate me so we headed back to the van where we had the intention of watch a movie. I fell asleep very quickly obviously exhausted from all my driving.

Tomorrow we explore Kalbarri and do the sunset Horse back ride through the waters of Kalbarri so stay tuned for episode 3.

Photos: Day Two

meclews — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 12:05:00 GMT

Guilderton to Kalbarri

Day One

meclews — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:51:00 GMT

Day one - 15th June 2016

Distance travelled : 107km

Today we finally got to pick up the campervan who will now be referred to as Britney.

We filled Britney with probably too much food and headed off. It only took 2.45 minutes for Leanne to become overwhelmed with frustration due to Britney maxing out at 60km on the slightest incline in the roads. This added 30 minutes to our arrival time at the beautiful little town of Guilderton.

It is here we got to see where the Moore River meets the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately due to low tide the sand bar separated the two but it was still beautiful scenery which aloud us to walk along the sandbar and created the next event;

By far the highlight of the day was a glorious moment when I was standing on a flight of stairs overlooking Moore River and the Ocean. I was filming Leanne who was down on the sand attempting to film the waves crashing on the sand. Suddenly she spotted a kangaroo who, at that moment decided to start bounding towards her. To say she freaked out would be an understatement, being engrossed with fear she turned to run back to the stairs.

It's hard to describe this running style I witnessed; picture what someone's arms and legs would look like when a body goes into the Rigor Mortis stage, stiff, straight arms that didn't really move and stayed next to her body. Her knees seemed to be locked in as well so her legs stayed perfectly straight and then there was some sort of fast shuffle with her feet as she screamed and 'ran' across the sand.

I then heard on repeat for the next hour or two; 'I thought it was going to kill me', 'I've seen them in the zoo before, they have large muscles' and my favourite 'I literally thought it was going to eat me'.

We stayed at Guilderton Caravan Park which was in the perfect location with a quick 1 min walk to the river/ocean meeting spot. Beautiful Caravan park, very tidy and clean shower/toilet block and is $35 for a powered site. Definitely recommend this be added to your list of places to visit. I'd only recommend staying a night or two though, not really the sort of place you'd stay for an extended period of time due to there not being much to do.

We finished off night one with a BBQ, wine 🍷, Orange Is The New Black and a early night in bed (in our coffin bed, see pics)to get plenty of sleep for Day Two's adventures.

Photos: Day One

meclews — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 13:30:00 GMT

Guilderton/Moore River