Western Australia Don and John

Pink Lake, Pinnacles Desert, Endless Wheat Fields, Wave Rock Our next excursion was into the interior--the bush--tho the territory was mostly agricultural. Vast wheat and canola acreage--seemingly endless in all directions--now just stubble, dotted by a few large gum trees. The coverage is vaster than anything I've seen in the US midwest. It's hard to imagine how they manage to plant or harvest or transport it all. But somehow they do. We saw several quarter-mile-long, 2-story, tarp-covered storage structures at railroad sidings presumably full of wheat or canola seeds.  And everywhere there are flocks of hundreds of sheep. But I get ahead of myself. Our first stop heading south along the coast was back past Pink Lake where we had a windy breakfast. I mentioned this mining area lagoon earlier on our way up to Kalbarri. Its water is bright pink. John's shot of the Pink Lagoon as a short squall moved through My shot of Pink Lake lagoon Next we turned off Hwy. 1 and continued ...

The last week in Kalbarri April 3 - 10 Except for the very last day, our final week in Kalbarri was much cooler. Mornings were quite chilly. One more trip to Nature's Window (my first, John's second) at 5:30 am. The moon was still full.  Natures Window rock formation above the Murchison River. A tricky hike in the dark before sunrise but glorious.  View of parkland and Nanda Country from Meanarra Hill. We went looking for mallefowl here, but later we learned they had not been seen for years  On Saturday we took a boat ride with other tourists out into the ocean with a lobsterman and his sister. A well run operation, a couple of miles up the coast, collecting 12 lobster pots (about 4 feet square by a foot and a half tall) each with 6 to 10 "cray," tho not all were kept. I got a bit seasick, but didn't hurl. Each adult on the boat got 3 lobsters (we donated 3 of ours) and we ate our fill for the next 2 days. Learned a lot about the industry and licensing The captain...

Nanda Country A viewfrom the top of Meanarra Hill of Kalbarri and the Murchison River where it flows to the ocean, Nanda Country  The Aboriginal people of this area are called the Nanda, the Salt Water People. For at least 50,000 years they have subsisted off the abundant sea life from the ocean and river. British colonialists who settled Western Australia in the 1830s committed the same brutal ethnic cleansing here as they did in North America and all their other conquered lands. There were several massacres carried out by settlers, as late as the 1920s. And of course the horrendous residential schools. Population estimate of the social and language groups of Nanda is now about 800 people. It wasn’t until late 2018 that the Nanda people were finally recognized as the traditional owners of 17,000 square kilometers of land encompassing the upper Murchison River and the western seaboard from Northampton to Shark Bay. They have exclusive title rights to several key areas. South...

Playing it Safe--Our Escape   We were hearing about the cyclone (same as a hurricane) soon after we got to Kalbarri. It came ashore from the Coral Sea to Queensland on Australia's east coast as Category 5, lost a little energy but picked back up over the gulf, and then was dubbed a tropical storm across the Northern Territories. It seemed too far away to bother about. But by Wednesday, March 25 it was a cyclone again and several predicted tracks had it coming right for us. Thursday, March 26 we began making contingency plans. It is quite remote here and there are very few roads or motels outside of Kalbarri. People on the west coast were starting to head south or inland, so alternative places to stay were disappearing fast. Everything seemed fine here, but John did find a room in Yalgoo (southeast) for 2 nights and we went shopping for water and things to eat that didn't require cooking in case the power went out. We filled our gas tank--one station was already out of gas. We s...