Part 3 (Geraldton to Kalbarri)

The next morning, we slept in a little (got up around 730, which I think was the latest we woke up all trip. It's incredible how I can sleep in all day when I'm in school but on vacation I'm happily up at the crack of dawn). We then were treated to our best breakfast trip - Stevie made toad-in-the-hole for us, which I'd never heard of but now am quite fond of - it's buttered bread with a hole cut out of the middle, inside which an egg is fried. After packing up and saying goodbye (we also got to meet their chickens), we stopped on the way out of town to see the HMAS Sydney II Memorial, which is built in memory of the Sydney, an Australian battleship which was sunk by the Japanese in 1942 after having served with distinction in the Mediterranean and the Pacific. Everyone on board was killed. Although they didn't find the ship itself until 2008, a lot of the wreckage washed ashore at Geraldton.


The memorial.

After that we ventured forth once again, this time headed for Kalbarri, a town about four hours' drive north that is a major center for lobster fishing as well as a very popular vacation spot. Along the way we stopped at Pink Lake, which true to its name is a pink-tinged salt lake that, at least at the time we visited, was about half salt plain. Inexplicably, as it was really just a random turn off the road, at pink lake we ran into another group of Currie exchanges also venturing up to Broome. Really an unexpected place for a reunion.


Pink Lake.

Kalbarri is not just a town but also an extensive and well-known national park, and we stopped at the seaside portion of it on our way into town. Here there are some pretty spectacular sea cliffs and rock formations, as well as big waves and really strong winds. Around here was also our first introduction to Australian flies, which are INCREDIBLY annoying and will stop at nothing to get into every possible body cavity they can - ears, nose, eyes, mouth. They at least don't bite, but they were probably the worst part of our trip.



Just a short drive down the road later, we pulled into Kalbarri, which was probably my favorite town out of everywhere we stopped. It's located at the mouth of the Murchison River, which means a nice long stretch of beack just in front of the town's main drag as well as some nice swimming. We stayed at the YHA hostel about a block and a half from the beach, which looked like this: