Day 110 – 26/3/14 – Coronation Beach – Kalbarri WA

Our plan for the day was to get to ‘Lucky Bay’ a free camp 30kms south of Kalbarri, drop of the Gator and then visit the cliff lookouts that are one of highlights of Kalbarri National Park. Before I tell you about the day I should tell you how we find our ‘free camps’. We use a combination of a couple of books that list the sites and an app called Wikicamps, that is nothing short of awesome. All the camps, caravan parks, points of interest, information centres and the like are plotted onto google maps and you click on the pin and you get all the information, including comments and pictures, about the site.

Lucky Bay had a few comments on it that the path in was to narrow and that it had scratched somebody’s van etc; so we asked at the visitor centre on the way and was told, no problem. They had been there recently camping themselves and it was easy. OK I thought we will give it a go.

I think we were at least 20 meters down the track when the trees on either side closed in and the track became narrower and narrower and after 100m I felt like the plunger part of a syringe it was that tight. We continued on, mostly because we had no choice, it was impossible to turn around and even more impossible to back out and it was only light shrubs so maybe the people who had made the comments on wikicamps were just a bit precious was my hope.

Nup, they weren’t. Soon the shrubs turned into small trees then the trunks got progressively wider and closer to the track. We had probably only gone 500m and I had the axe out and proceeded to chop our way through what I am guessing was the next 500 – 700m.

 I didn’t chop every tree but I think I would have had a fair go at 30 – 40 of them. To make things worse I got a new axe to take away with us and didn’t have time to sharpen it so it would was closer to using a hammer to chop a tree down than an axe and to make things worse after about the 3rd tree the head came off as the wedge was to small! I managed to put it back together 10 or 15 times before I lost the wedge altogether! I was about this time we came to a fence line beside the road and I was ohh sooo tempted to cut my way through it, and patch it up but decided to go on a scouting mission ahead instead.

Not what I expected!!

I don't think David Foster will be quivering in his boots quite yet!

These spider 'sacks' as opposed to 'webs' were all along our bush track
and were probably the only highlight of that part of the journey!

We managed to find a gate leading into a paddock 300 m ahead and I ran the 300m to the top of the hill where I could see the highway. Back to the Izzygator and another 5 trees later and we were heading through a paddock hoping we wouldn’t get bogged in the dry sand. Luckily we could drive our way through no problems and I noted the properties name so that I could send them a letter with a scratchy!

Coming through the 2nd gate on the farm.

After a very belated lunch we visited the lookouts and enjoyed some wonderful scenery.

Trying to give the cliffs some perspective.

 We ended up staying in the van park in Kalbarri, setting up next to a guy who I kind of new through a work colleague. It’s a bloody small world!

I was completely exhausted after my morning of playing Jack and the Beanstalk and it wasn’t long before it was lights out!