Kalbarri to Wooramel

Kalbarri sits at the mouth of the Murchison River. As we leave the caravan park and come over the crest of a hill we are met with a unique view. Brown flood water pours from the mouth of the Murchison into the blue Indian Ocean, roaring into shore pushed by Cyclone Ilsa which made landfall north of Port Hedland.
The road out of Kalbarri stretches in a straight line ahead of us, 2 lanes of grey framed by red/orange gravel. Either side of the road Mallee scrub stretches to the horizon. Suddenly, an emu paces out of the scrub, nearly runs into the car ahead of us, then turns and runs back into the scrub! Phew!
By the time we get to the main highway north, we are back to travelling through farmland. As we head north the roadside gravel changes from orange to deep rusty red and the scrub changes to low, scraggly gum trees.
After travelling close to 100 km of variously sparse, sandy landscape suddenly we are surrounded by low, abrupt hills. We surge up a hill to a lookout and gaze out across the flat expanse all the way to the sea. We have found Woodleigh Impact Crater. This is believed to be the 4th largest impact crater in the world! Most of the impact is underground so the exact size is unknown. The crater is believed to be up to 120 km in diameter, created by a meteor between 6-12 m wide, around 364 million years ago.
We finally make it to Wooramel Riverside Retreat without hitting any of the goats or sheep wandering along the side of the road, and without losing any wine bottles along the extremely bumpy entrance road.
Wooramel is a working goat and cattle farm. The river is usually underground, but we are fortunate that our visit coincides with the few times in a year that there has been sufficient rain for the river to flow above ground.
The riverbed is maybe 100 m wide of soft, red, ripple-patterned sand. In parts, find brownish silt has dried into curls that crackle under foot. Beautiful mature gum trees with white bark and narrow leaves are dotted across the river bed, and flank either side. A flock of galahs fly down to the shallow river to drink, then fly off again, shrieking, as the kids shriek with laughter racing thongs on the river.
After soaking in the artesian bore pools at a very pleasant 34C, Daniel gets a fire going in the fire pit – an old truck wheel frame – and we cook potatoes, corn cobs and sausages on the open fire for dinner. The kids demolish a giant bag of marshmallows, toasting them over the coals and trying to spot satellites moving through the millions of stars overhead. We see a strange triangular shape moving through the night sky – we find out the next day this was European Space Agency’s Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer 2nd stage rocket booster fuel plume!
Daniel and Fiona get creative photographing the Milky Way from the river bed before we all retire for the night ahead of another long day’s driving tomorrow.もっと詳しく