Tuesday, Oct. 14 - Kalbarri National Park

(pics: Roadside plant, Birders, Kalbarra National Park)

We all got up at 5:30 to try and beat the wind. Grabbed a cup of Mark’s macho coffee and drove down the coast a few miles to the southern edge of the park. Wind increasing, but made it to several overlooks with views of craggy rocks and crashing surf and quite a few Euros. Hiked down into a canyon and got good views of one of my favorite birds, the Fairy-Wren, this time the Blue-Breasted…really lovely!

We got out of the wind only to find ourselves brutally attacked by the infamous tiny Australian flies!! They don’t bite, but their goal in life is to crawl up your nose, into your ears and lodge themselves behind your glasses and they can literally drive one insane! Bob’s fly net was still safely packed in his suitcase and Mark doesn’t have one, as yet, but I got mine out and I survived. The boys had to flee so we returned to the car and drove back for breakfast at 9:30. Delicious eggs scramble with onion, green pepper and cheddar cheese, beer and coffee. Perfect!

Bob realized that since we’re 15 hours ahead of California, that Monday Night Football was happening as we breakfasted…and the Browns were playing the NY Jets, so we logged onto my computer and found that the Browns were leading at the half. Bob figured that they would soon be mashed by NY, but when we checked after breakfast…the Browns had won: 34 to 17!

We worked on our computers and photos during the heat of the day (95) and didn’t set out until 2. This time we drove into the inland part of the park. We drove about 20 miles through flat scrub with glimpses of pink, yellow, and red flowers. We suddenly emerged onto the lip of the beautiful canyon of the Murchison River which winds in looping coils through the plain. The walls of the canyon are red and streaked with white and black and resemble Utah. Mark spotted a kangaroo on the other side of the river lounging in a cave in the shade..more sense than we had!

It was too hot to take proper hike, but we took a few short walks to the edge and rejoined Mark who had been birding and he showed us a place where we saw wonderful view of several new birds: the Black Honeyeater and the beautiful Pied honeyeater which has a blue patch of skin below its eye.

We drove back to our nice condo at five and washed up and organized our gear and had Cuba Libres. Finally we decided to go out to dinner at 7:30 and were wondering if anything would be open in this tiny town in the middle of the week. We pulled into the Grass Tree Café and they were bustling. Got a talk outdoors and shared a delicious plate of spring rolls. Service was very slow but finally Bob got Creamy prawns, and Mark got seafood pasta and I got crab in Singapore chili sauce. First I got a big bowl for shells and pliers, a pick and a bib! Finally a big bowl arrived with large pieces of crab sitting in hot delicious sauce. I’m very good at dissecting lobster but delicate crab shell covered in chili sauce is quite another thing! I did very well, but ended up covered in sauce up to my elbows! Quite a sight, but well worth it! We finished by splitting a milk chocolate/ginger parfait! Quite an amazing dinner considering we are really off in the boonies