Northampton, another settler town; kangaroo graveyard on the way to Kalbarri; missing Blue Holes and a Red Bluff; Port Gregory and its pretty Pink Lake; three geological marvels; dire dining prospects in Kalbarri, so thank goodness for IGA; review: Finlay’s Seafood; review: Kalbarri Edge Resort
For Part 1, click here.
Courtesy of the fact that I was driving, we were permitted to stop and pay our respects to the Big Crayfish at Dongara before rejoining the Great Northern Highway (GNH), first destination Northampton. Northampton would be a good stopover, with its nicely restored settler buildings and various accommodation options.
Northampton
If these photos make Northampton look closed and deserted, that’s exactly how the town felt – in a not unpleasant way, however.
Roo Graveyard
To get to Kalbarri, you turn left off the GNH and head west to the coast. Though single-lane, the road is sound and the speed limit remains a fairly generous 110km over most of the 65km distance. Good for drivers, but not so good for the couple of dozen kangaroos and smaller marsupials whose sorry carcasses littered the roadside.
Luckily, we tend not to be driving at dusk, when they’re most active on the roads. And on our return trip along this route, two days later, I noticed they’d all been cleared away.
Kalbarri Day 1 – Blue Holes and a Red Bluff
Blue Holes
Arriving in Kalbarri soon after 1pm gave us time to take in the pretty waterfront. It seemed in good shape, though many of the homes around Kalbarri still show evidence of the terrible damage wrought by Cyclone Seroja last year.
Following the coastal road south takes you to Blue Holes Beach, where Roy magnanimously stopped and let me out to explore. Blue holes? There may be blue rock-pools at low tide and in a different season, but there were certainly none today. So I rolled up my jeans and walked about a kilometre south in the direction of Red Bluff – great views!
Returning by foot the next morning, I was again puzzled by the lack of anything resembling the Blue Holes shown on this sign:
Instead, it looked like this:
Red Bluff Beach
Having cajoled my husband to drive me to Red Bluff Beach itself (“What for? – there’s nothing up this road!”), I was well justified in abandoning him for maybe an hour while I explored. Risking life and limb, apparently, I went hoppity-skippeting over the Beach to Bluff Trail in my thongs. (I don’t mean knickers; I mean Havaianas, flip flops or jandals.)
Red Bluff has a nicely signposted trail that takes you from near the carpark all the way to the top of the bluff, if you fancy doing that. I feel generally safe in flip-flops; but after a couple of sideways lurches I suspected they might not be up to the final hike to the summit.
Kalbarri Day 2 – Melaleuca Trail, Pink Lake and Port Gregory
Next morning, despite a howling gale, I let the sleeping Roy lie and slipped out for an exploratory run. A couple of blocks from our accommodation was Chinaman Point, which showed what looked like cyclone damage. Bracing myself against the buffeting winds to take a photo on my phone, I could only imagine how terrifying Cyclone Seroja must have been.
From Chinaman Point and Chinaman Beach, the Melaleuca walking-cycling trail winds through the dunes. I turned back at Blue Holes Beach; no doubt the trail carries on.
Port Gregory and the Pink Lake
I’d been whining to visit Port Gregory, home of the famously rosy Hutt Lake, or Pink Lake. With rain threatening later, and nothing better to do, Roy resigned himself to the inevitable and drove us there: 65km each way. Apart from a caravan park, a jetty, several boats and indescribably numerous swarming flies, the highlight of Port Gregory is its General Store – strangely memorable for its miserable manager and execrable coffee.
While Port Gregory may not be unmissable as a destination, the lovely drive there and back featured a well-sealed road through sweeps of hardy heath down to sandy dunes, with tantalising glimpses of the glistening Indian Ocean.
And then there’s the Pink Lake itself. Australia has lots of Pink Lakes, but they can disappoint; they’re seldom as pink as this. You might have to wait to catch the light just right, but look at this: indisputably pink!
Grandstand, Castle Rock and Natural Bridge – three geological marvels
Ten kilometres short of Kalbarri, you see a sign promising Grandstand, Castle Rock and Natural Bridge… don’t miss the turnoff. These three geological marvels are highlights of a majestically beautiful stretch of cliffs, complete with waves dashing against rock, and – today, anyway – a school of around 20 dolphins.
Dining in Kalbarri – good luck to you!
We tried to have lunch at Pelly’s Café on the foreshore; but it was a minute past 2pm and they were closed.
Next day, we made it into The Gorges Café just before they closed orders around 1.30pm. A graceless wench stated flatly that the quinoa salad had no quinoa. The message seemed to be: get on with it, so get on with it we did, ordering what turned to be an acceptable Reuben sandwich to go with the not-bad quinoa-less quinoa salad. By 1.55pm, the rest of the chairs were already stacked on the tables and the staff developing deepening furrows on their otherwise youthful brows.
We’d been recommended two places for dinner:
- Upstairs, which was 200 metres at most from our accommodation at Kalbarri Edge, was closed on Tuesdays (today) and Wednesday (tomorrow).
- Finlay’s, a casual seafood and brewery joint less than 500 metres away, which was closed today, but open tomorrow – so Roy booked online for our second and final night in town.
Meanwhile, down on the foreshore, the IGA supermarket proved a beacon of hope. It supplied us with half-a-dozen fat lamb loin chops, a pack of frozen potato gratins, and ingredients for a Greek salad – the makings of a great dinner for our first night. (This is why I book accommodation with a kitchen – and a barbecue – whenever I can.)
Review: Finlay’s Seafood, Kalbarri
While we were ordering lunch at Gorges Café, around 1.30pm, Finlay’s Seafood called. Could they move our dinner booking from 6.30pm to 5pm? Ridiculously early, but in desperation we agreed. (They wanted to be sure we had a table under shelter, in case of rain, they said. I reckon the real reason was to get the customers in and out as early as possible.)
Being a brewery in a decidedly no-frills, rustic setting gives the place a certain charm, but that charm wears thin when they’re out of oysters at 5pm and the crayfish is $90 apiece!
I had a seasonal beer – Pink Lake something or other – and we drowned our oyster sorrows with a bottle of Larrikin Classic White. A starter of so-so prawn arancini (three for $14) and some tasty salt-and-pepper squid with a few chips and salad ($25) were as much as we could eat at that early hour. And as we left the place at 6.30pm, the time of our original booking, it was already three-quarters empty. Heart-warming to think how much the management was saving on staff costs, though!
Review: Kalbarri Edge Resort
What is it with service staff in this region? The two dour ducks at reception radiated hostility at the fact that I hadn’t pre-registered on my phone and had to complete the operation on their tablet. Not for the first or last time, I found myself working hard to charm hotel staff into a semblance of courtesy. Not my job, surely!
(Same with the beleaguered woman manning the General Store in Port Gregory; was she indentured slave labour?)
Was it always like this? Or is the local populace suffering from cyclone-plus-pandemic-induced PTSD? It’s impossible to tell.
This was not the first time I’d booked a stay at Kalbarri Edge. We were supposed to stay here in May 2021, but I cancelled that trip after Cyclone Seroja – a Category 3 severe tropical cyclone – inflicted devastating damage on the tourist town in April last year. Up to 70% of the town’s properties were damaged.
Accordingly, we decided to cancel our trip up north; and of the four or five places I’d booked at, only Kalbarri Edge refused to extend either a refund or a credit. I took pity on them, thought how bad they must be feeling, forgave them and swallowed the loss. A year later, I booked there again. Frankly, I shouldn’t have. There are plenty of accommodation options in Kalbarri – and while the Kalbarri Edge website spins a good spin, the experience didn’t live up to the promise.
Our Executive Spa Suite was spacious enough, but tired. Living room sofas and chairs were lined up like soldiers against the back wall, begging to be moved into a more congenial arrangement; and when we did that, icky dust and debris greeted us.
The kitchen had a two-plate ceramic stove and a microwave, but no oven. The interior of the dishwasher seemed to have been home to a fire at some stage and partially melted; the lower shelf was unusable, and it didn’t work properly. In the freezer, the ice-maker was damaged. Outside on the balcony, the barbecue proved to be a griddle only. One of the chairs was steadily unravelling. (And no doubt still is.)
On the plus side, the king-size bed was comfortable. The spa bath filled quickly with hot water and worked well; I used it twice. Thumbs-up for the washing machine, too.
Kalbarri Edge is well located, just a couple of blocks from Chinaman Point and its beach. The intervening block boasts a tavern (possibly open, but not of interest to us), plus Red Bluff Seafood and Red Bluff Bakery (both closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, of course), and the highly recommended Upstairs (also closed on Tuesday and Wednesday, of course). Something was open – a butchery selling kangaroo tails, chilli snags (sausages) and biltong. So you don’t absolutely have to starve.
