Day 16

Kalbarri

"I'd like to be, under the sea in an octopuses garden, in the shade...."

Sun, Sun, Sun - woo hoo lots of it too. Hit 30 today and didnt we enjoy it!

The kids started out after breakkie with attempt 2 at pelican feeding - still no go though. I tried to tell them that I knew 3 pelicans that liked being fed daily but they wouldn't have a bar of it!

So we loaded up the Land Rover and headed back into the Kalbarri National Park to finish of the gorges we didn't get to yesterday. These were the more easily accessible ones being on bitumen all the way. First stop was Hawkes Head which had a nice lookout but nothing more than that. The last gorge was called Ross Graham - weird name for a gorge but a nice tribute to the first school principal of Kalbarri who died very young and who was a big contributor to protecting this beautiful part of the world.

It's not the prettiest gorge or even the nicest part of the Murchison River, but it was an easy kilometre hike and so we swam in the river, played in the "rapids" and explored the caves along the banks that the river has carved out of the sandstone .

It was nice to hike back up the gorge to the car in the heat still wet - made things much more bearable.

We headed back into town for lunch and a relax - mostly cause we needed bread! The hot bakery here has the nicest freshly baked bread - all 3 kids go berserk over it. Maybe it's got some sort of addictive sugar??? Who knows - they are eating well though.

After lunch we decided to try our luck snorkeling at Blue Holes - literally 5 mins from the town. The big swells have been a problem that has prevented us from enjoying this wonder so far and we had heard such great stories about how special the spot is . They were right too!! Luckily the swell had dropped significantly and the tide was on the way out as well- nice calm conditions for 3 novice reef snorkelers. Cayla's first time too at any type of snorkeling.

There were Fish galore and all types too from standard bream and whiting to exotic angel fish, parrot fish and fancy blue ones all living together a few steps from the shore. We spent the whole afternoon in the water. Every fish spotted was the most amazing thing seen! Cobey though had the find of the day with a beautiful starfish.

We only left Blue Holes to go watch the sunset! Another cracker of a show too tonight! We will all be very sad to leave in the morning - but there are other great things ahead in Shark Bay where we are heading. Looks like at least 2 or 3 days there too !