Day 103 Kalbarri, WA

Saying goodbye to Monkey Mia this morning was hard.  I think we could have easily had another night, but onwards we must travel.  Before we head back onto the highway we want to have a look around Denham that is only twenty minutes drive from Monkey Mia and is a much bigger centre.  Most importantly I want to see the Old Pearlers Restaurant that is made entirely from the cockle shells that we saw at Shell Bay.  The story goes that the restaurant was built by an Englishman in 1974 and it took him more than three years cutting the blocks from a quarry in Denham. The blocks are formed when cockle shells compact and cement themselves together.

It is 400km from Monkey Mia to Kalbarri where we will be spending the next five nights.  We stopped at Billabong for our lunch break and there are so many cars pulled up at this place that is really only a service station and a pub.  In fact the traffic today has been heavy with this weekend being the last weekend of the Western Australia school holidays. Philip pulled over to a parking bay at one stage to let cars pass us and fifteen vehicles drove past.  Almost every vehicle on the road is towing something whether it is a camper trailer or caravan or boat.  

The country changes quite dramatically once we reach Ajana and we have arrived at the northern end of the Grain Belt of Western Australia.  It is lovely to see the change of scenery that is different from the coastal scrub that we have seen ever since we left Broome.  We see grain silos in the distance and the colours of the crop range from green to yellow.  We presume the the yellow is canola but we will ask to find out for sure.  We cross the Murchison River at Galena and by this time we are driving at an altitude of 250 metres.  It has been a steady climb all day.  We pass a paddock of sheep that look like they are doing very well on the crop stubble.  Maybe they are fat lambs but we are too far away to know for certain.

Soon we come to the turn towards Kalbarri.  The sign says "Scenic Drive to Northampton via Kalbarri".  It is quite a different drive as we once again leave the grain belt and on both sides of the road is the Kalbarri National Park.  This is an area that we will be exploring over the next few days.  Driving into Kalbarri is lovely and we were both surprised to see large waves breaking quite close to the shore.  No swimming here.....