Kalbarri to Denham

Tuesday 29^th April 2008

There was plenty of discussion about the weather and our plans this morning. Danny (manager of Kalbarri Boat Hire for Lisa) was regretting cancelling a canoe safari the previous evening because the sun was shining and the light grey clouds were far off. However the forecast was still saying ‘possible thunderstorms’ and we decided that we’d be best to pack up the camper while it was more or less dry and take our chances with the bad weather forecast for Denham. Lisa was confident that it never rained for more than a day in Kalbarri so we headed to the caravan park and put everything away with remarkably few narky comments. Even the awning wasn’t as bad to pack up as we’d expected.

We left the park only to return less than five minutes later for Katie’s crocs (shoes) which had been left in the playground where she had (sensibly) retreated whilst we packed up.

Then we were on the road again – rollin’, rollin’, rollin’.

The Nature’s Window turn-off had a ‘Road Closed’ sign which gave an indication of the amount of rain that had fallen the previous day. In fact, there was water everywhere on the side of the road and often into the middle of the road, with great swathes of red mud strewn around, as well, all the way up to Denham.

We stopped at the Overlander Roadhouse for lunch – it was decidedly underwhelming.

On the road into Denham we saw that the road (sealed, according to the map we have) to the stromatolites was closed. This caused us to wonder whether our half-hatched plan to camp at a proper campsite (as opposed to an all-facility caravan park) up at Herald Bight on the Peron Peninsula might not work out. And indeed, that road was closed to traffic in order to protect its condition so that it might be opened again quicker (apparently). So, caravan park it is.

Katie found another new friend (2 ½ yr old boy called Ocean, this time) and was very soon playing with his trucks and cars and gorgeous dog called Spike. Holly finished her book and moved onto a new one, Paul made a couple of calls after his four days of enforced ‘radio silence’ and I fretted about what to have for dinner (life’s hard when that’s all you have to worry about, isn’t it!).

The potential thunderstorms didn’t eventuate although as we drove through Denham to try and get out to Herald Bight a large bank of dark grey clouds did pass by very closely. The owner of the caravan park was certain it wasn’t going to rain again – he’d been laying concrete based on that belief – and it turned out he was right.

The drive from Kalbarri to Denham was 386km.