A few hours north of Geraldton, Kalbarri was our next stop. The town is small, made up of one main road, with a few restaurants, hotels, and stores on it. We stayed at the Murchison Caravan Park, which was right across the street from the beach and next door to a few cafes.
The main focus of the town is the Kalbarri National Park. There are two main parts that we visited. The first day we spent hiking on the coastal spots. Red Bluff, Mushroom Rock, The Natural Bridge were just a few. There are many gorgeous trails to try out as well. We didn’t get tempted by the 8km trail, mostly because of the flies that are in the dry areas. They are really bothersome, and at this point, we didn’t have any nets to keep them off. Of the ones we did Mushroom Rock was the most enjoyable. You got to climb down a rock ledge (an easy to navigate one) after which there was a nice open rock area with many crabs and waves.
Day two we went to the park, to walk the Z Bend hiking trails. This was another hard day of unpaved roads. 20km of bumping around got us to the fork in the road. Another 6km and we were finally able to step out of the vehicle. It was great to take a break from the rattling, not so much to see where all of our belongings in the back seat had landed. The trail to the observation deck is only 800km return, and it’s a super easy. We decided that since it was so quick, we’d continue on to the river bend. This trail was a lot of fun, but not if you’re in rough shape. There are ladders and metal stairs in a lot of places to get you up and down the rock cliffs. There are some tight spaces to climb around as well. It’s about 2km total return. With walking, photos, and water breaks (the heat was sweltering) it took us about an hour. Be careful of the flies here as well! After a great hike, it was back onto the unpaved highway from hell, and out of the park to our next stop...Shark Bay!
