Cyclone Narelle

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 stopped in at the Kalbarri Visitor Centre in case they had to close, because we wanted to buy t-shirts we had our eyes on earlier. The staff gave us deadly serious advice about getting out of town. They told us how fast things got bad in 2021 with the same storm scenario--Kalbarri had been flattened. They'd just gotten word that the highway north was closed the road south could be too. "Get out today," they said! "Everything will be closed here anyway." 

By late morning orders were issued for campers to clear out of the parks. We kept monitoring weather reports. The weather here was pretty normal but we could see heavy clouds forming. Now they were saying the eye could pass directly over Kalbarri. The strongest winds were likely to be on the eastern edge which meant going to Yalgoo was a bad idea. John managed to find a room for one night in Geraldton 2 hours south. We packed up and headed there about noon.

The cyclone did serious damage to Exmouth, Pilbarra, and Carnarvon. Banana crops were destroyed and many buildings wrecked. But for Kalbarri and Geraldton it was kind of a dud. It headed inland and south and was downgraded almost as soon as it came ashore near Carnarvon. We stayed two more nights in Geraldton (at a different motel) because the road back to Kalbarri was closed. Narelle was now being called an "ex-tropical cyclone." It was one of the longest travelled storms in Australia's recorded weather history.

An interesting phenomenon for folks up north was the red sky
caused by dust from the dry, reddish soil. We didn't see this.