The next morning we all woke up bright and early and treated ourselves to a couple of cups of coffee and some breakfast before hopping back in the minibus and making our way to our first destination of the day – the Kalbarri National Park.
This National Park is hands down one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited. We embarked on a hike which took a couple of hours and involved lots of climbing and scaling of the rocks and ravines. Some of our group had decided they would try out a bit of abseiling, but having done that a couple of times before, we were more than happy to cheer them on from the sidelines.
Whilst on our walk we were treated to some of the most breathtaking scenery. We were in awe at the Murchison River Gorge which is more than 80 kilometres long, and up to 129 metres deep. The contrast of the deep red rocks made the view even more breath taking at the Z-bend lookout spot. One of the most amazing things for me that we saw was the fossilised tracks of an anthropod called a ‘Eurypterid’ (a species of extinct sea scorpion) which were still so clearly embedded on in the rocks. It’s thought that these tracks could be as much as 470 million years old. Mind blown.
The end of the walk took us to perhaps the most impressive point in the trail – the stunning rock arch affectionately known as ‘Nature’s Window’. This was just completely beautiful and we didn’t half get camera snap happy up there. I honestly think it’s the red rocks that make it so beautiful, its scenery like I’ve never seen before and there’s certainly no denying the fact that you’re Down Under!
All now pretty tired from the hike we made our way back to the van and embarked on roughly a four hour drive to the amazing Shell Beach. This, again, is one of the most beautiful places I have ever had the luck to visit in my life. Shell Beach, unsurprisingly from the name, is a beach completely formed of shells – completely. There is no sand on this beach just billions of small but absolutely perfectly formed Shark Bay cockle shells stretching for over 60km and reaching depths of 10m. Even more interestingly this is one of only two beaches in the entire world to be formed solely of shells. I found it fascinating that a beach like this even existed; it was therefore amazing to spend a couple of hours lounging out in the sun. We did, of course, bring ourselves back a few souvenirs from the sand, erm, I mean shells.
After spending some time on the beach we headed into the town of Denham where we grabbed some lunch and sat out on the beach front eating ice creams and enjoying the view.
After a little time relaxing in front of the water at Denham, we hopped back on the road for a short half an hour drive to the other side of the peninsular for our final destination of the day, and our accommodation for the evening. Next stop – Monkey Mia!
