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| Shell
House Gorge, south of Kalbarri
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Kalbarri (including Kalbarri
National Park and the Hutt River
Province)
Exceptionally beautiful and
interesting town in the heart of one of
Western Australia's most beautiful
National Parks.
Located 586 km north of Perth, Kalbarri
is a delightful tourist and fishing
village surrounded by one of the most
beautiful regions of wildflowers in
Australia.
Although the coastline around
Kalbarri was explored by Europeans in
the early seventeenth century the actual
town of Kalbarri did not come into
existence until 1951. Yes, your eyes do
not deceive you, that is 1951.
The coastline around Kalbarri was the
scene for the notorious shipwreck,
mutiny, executions, and punishments
which surrounded the wrecking of the
Batavia on the Houtman Abrolhos in 1629
(for a more detailed account refer to
the Geraldton entry). The captain,
Francisco Pelsaert, took the ship's boat
and sailed to Batavia while a mutineer,
Jeronimus Cornelisz, terrorised the
survivors eventually murdering 125 of
them. When Pelsaert returned he
constructed a simple gibbet and executed
Cornelisz and his followers. Two of the
mutineers, Wouter Loos and Jan Pelgrom,
were marooned on the mainland somewhere
near the modern day site of Kalbarri -
they had the unhappy distinction of
becoming Australia's first white
settlers. Their arrival on land is
commemorated at the mouth of the
Wittecarra Creek near Red Bluff where a
cairn has been erected with the
inscription: 'It is believed the first
permanent landing of white men in
Australia was recorded here, at the
mouth of the Wittecarra Creek.'
Then in 1712 a Dutch ship named the
Zuytdorp was wrecked on a reef north of
Kalbarri. It is claimed that the ship
sunk with a bullion of 100 000 guilders
and pieces of eight aboard. This was not
an isolated event. By the eighteenth
century it had become commonplace for
Dutch ships to round the Cape of Good
Hope, sail west along the Roaring
Forties, and then sail north along the
West Australian coast towards the Dutch
East Indies.
In 1839 Lieutenant George Grey, while
attempting to explore North West Cape,
was shipwrecked near the mouth of the
Murchison. He was forced to walk back to
Perth and thus became the first white
explorer to travel along the coastal
strip of the Central West.
The area was settled intermittently
through the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century by miners and
fishermen. In 1848 the Geraldine lead
mine was opened up. Visitors with 4WD
vehicles can visit the ruins at the
eastern edge of the Kalbarri National
Park.
Still, as recently as 1943, there
were only a few crayfishermen living in
the area and the township, if it could
be called that, was known simply as 'The
Mouth of the Murchison'. No one knows
where the word 'kalbarri' comes from.
Some sources claim it means 'seed' or
'woody pear' in the dialect of the local
Aborigines while others claim it was the
name of an important member of the local
community.
Today the town is a popular tourist
destination with fishing, swimming,
horse riding, bushwalking and the usual
round of tourist attractions including a
wildflower park called Kalflora, a
Fantasyland Museum with a display of
dolls and marine artifacts, an amusement
centre, a bird park called the Rainbow
Jungle, canoe safaris, ocean fishing,
joy flights and river cruises on the
Kalbarri River Queen.
Things to see:
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| Hawks
Head Lookout, Kalbarri National
Park |
Kalbarri National Park
Few visitors would disagree that the
Kalbarri National Park is simply one of
the best National Parks in Australia.
The combination of nearly 200 000
hectares which, between August and
October, becomes a vast carpet of
wildflowers, the elaborate and
spectacular twists and turns of the
Murchison River as it cuts its way to
the sea, the dramatic beauty of Red
Bluff, and the equally dramatic beauty
of the sandstone cliffs to the south of
Kalbarri township make it a National
Park rich in variety, drama and beauty.
First contact with the park (for
those people travelling west from the
North West Coastal Highway) is the
virgin bushland beside the road which,
while dull in summer, turns into a
wonderland of wildflowers in the spring.
The thing which impresses every motorist
is the sheer scale of the bushlands.
There is literally over 50 km of roadway
with wildflowers on either side.
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|
Wildflowers in Kalbarri National
Park |
The first turnoffs are to Ross Graham
Lookout, a conveniently located lookout
which looks east along the Murchison
River from a rocky outcrop above the
river. A little further west on a good
dirt road is Hawks Head Lookout which
offers similar views.
Returning to the road and driving
towards Kalbarri the motorist next comes
to the turnoff to the 'Z Bend' and 'The
Loop'. The road out to the viewing
points, which are located above the
dramatic twists and turns of 'The
Gorge', is a good quality dirt road
covered with a distinctive yellow sand.
It is at 'The Loop' that visitors can
inspect 'Nature's Window' - a large hole
in the Tumblagooda sandstone walls (they
were formed about 400-500 million years
ago) far above the Murchison River. To
visit 'Nature's Window' visitors should
not take the turn marked 'Lookout 2' -
although that is well worth visiting -
but continue heading west until reaching
a large car park. 'Nature's Window'
itself is about 600 metres along the
ridge. Located on the edge of the ridge
it affords superb views of the entire
loop. It is quite safe - if you are
careful.
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| Hay
in fields to the north of
Kalbarri |
The road then goes into the small
township of Kalbarri. If you follow the
road through town it becomes a dirt road
once again and runs along the cliffs for
some kilometres. It would be easy to
spend a day exploring all of the paths
which lead to the cliff faces. It seems
as though every few hundred metres there
is another sign inviting the visitor to
inspect dramatic cliffs with names like
'The Shell House', 'Castle Cove',
'Island Rock' and 'Rainbow Valley'. 'The
Shell House' was named by the local rock
lobster fishermen. From the sea the
cliff resembles a house with a shell
shaped roof. This feature obviously
cannot be seen from the top of the
cliffs.
This must be some of the most
beautiful and spectacular coastline in
Australia. The cliffs rise over 100
metres above the sea which crashes far
below. The shapes of the gorges and the
little promontories are dramatic and
quite frightening. This is an adventure
which is not for the faint hearted.
There are no handrails on the edge of
the cliffs and there is this awful
feeling that any minute a giant piece of
sandstone will collapse sending the
visitor into the sea below.
The Department of Conservation and
Land Management (CALM) have a brochure
of 'do's and don't' which includes a
good map of the whole of Kalbarri
National Park which should be obtained
by anyone intending to do some
bushwalking or exploring.
The road between Kalbarri and Port
Gregory, while not being a major
highway, is quite adequate. The early
section through the National Park may be
a little rough in places but once out of
the park it is a dirt road which is
nearly as good as a sealed road.
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| The
entrance to Hutt River Province
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If you continue on (do not take the
turn to Port Gregory) you come to the
infamous Hutt River Province, the
unassuming home of Prince Leonard and
Princess Shirley of Hutt. This amusing
episode in Australian eccentricity
resulted when Prince Leonard renamed his
wheat farm the Hutt River Province,
declared himself a prince and his wife a
princess, seceded from Australia and
Western Australia and, as a nice little
earner, started printing his own stamps.
Of course none of his grandiose
ambitions had any validity but he did
attract an inordinate amount of
publicity. There is some doubt about the
Prince and Princess's enthusiasm for
visitors. There is no welcoming sign at
the gate - which boasts a rather faded
replica of the province's coat of arms.
Interestingly Prince Leonard is not
alone in his regal aspirations. In
Strahan in Tasmania there was a
self-proclaimed Lord who ran his own Ba-k
(he was legally not allowed to call it a
bank). He was closed down a few years
ago and the ba-k is now a gift shop.
