Kalbarri - Day 17

Fletcher: Today we left from Dongara to Kalbarri.  It didn't take long for us to get to Kalbarri.  We stopped for McDonalds at Geraldton then kept going on.  We got to Kalbarri and picked the caravan park called Tudor Holiday Park.  We set up the caravan then we went to the pool to have a swim, the water was nice.  We got out of the pool and had a relaxing time in the caravan.  Then we had dinner and went on a night walk.  We went to the oval and there was a tonne of kangaroos, then we walked down the street and looked at some places. 

Mackenzie : Today we came to Kalbarri.  We are staying at Tudor park we got an ensuite site.  When my dad was in the office me & Fletch jumped on the jumping pillow.  We set up our caravan and my job is when the roof goes up I put everything in their spots.  When we finished we got ready to go to the pool, I did a handstand splits in the water and a somersault, the water was really nice.  And we tied Bentley to a pole while we were swimming and he snuck through the bars of the pool fence into the pool area with everyone.  We went back to the van, dried off and played a ball game.  Then we read the rules and it said no ball games - oops.  we had dinner, lots of different things.  We saw the kangaroos at the footy oval and there was a playground at the oval so we played there for a while.  There was a black cat who is staying under our caravan, I don't know whose cat he is.

A 4am start for Dan & I today as It was so hot we couldn't sleep, we got the air conditioning going but we were wide awake but exhausted.  Everyone was the same saying it had been an unsettling night with not much sleep.  We had a great drive up to Kalbarri.  We had a quick stop in Geraldton for bottled water, which is in shortage at the moment all the signage said?  With W.A. school holidays starting in just over a week it looks like they will be in trouble.  We are very spoilt in Vic with our good quality water supply as some places along the way has been a bit iffy.  Many places being really remote and even at Kalgoorlie the pipeline came all the way above ground from Perth over 600kms away.  This was done to ensure water to the gold fields in Kalgoorlie and it is appropriately named the golden pipeline.  So buying bottled water was an expense we hadn't budgeted on but as it is the only drink I have so it is necessary for the kids and I, Dan continues to drink crazy amounts of soft drink - some habits are too hard to break!  McDonalds lunch today as Dan felt like nuggets?? It was cheap & easy but far from nutritious I'm sure.  We came through Greenough which has the leaning trees, it is weird the trees grow a few feet vertically and then lean and grow at right angles to the trunk in a horizontal line.  It looks fantastic but so strange.  We again have been surprised by this town, are preconceived ideas of places are being thrown for sixes.  Daniel had described it as a small town, again assuming it may have a few pubs & stores but it is so much bigger than we expected and very touristy with caravan parks, resorts, restaurants and tourist attractions.  We are looking forward to a look around tomorrow and doing a few things.  We had a great time in the pool, with Houdini dog again doing his trick and amusing the pool goers by squeezing between the bars into the pool area.  Cute yes but at some of the parks we have stayed at with their strict dog policies it would have been enough to have us kicked out.  The park has great facilities for the kids, a jumping pillow & playground and even a soaker hose from tree to tree near the park that runs on & off during the day for the kids to play under, although the owner did say that most grownups pull up a chair and a drink and sit there for most of the day.  He is planning to put more up, to give the kids a go!  The pool is massive and it easily catered for the older couple who were fully clothed reading books while dangling their feet in the pool and all the kids that were in there playing & swimming and not bothering or splashing the couple.  We had a relaxing afternoon, our time is going so quickly already and we may even stay an extra night here just to have a base for a few days and give Dan a break from driving.  We headed over to the footy oval on dusk as we'd been told there were kangaroos but the boys were training for footy so we waited till dark and used torches, they weren't scared at all and let us get quite close to them, the oval was green and lush so they had a great food supply.  The park was amazing & large, a great way to get families to the local footy, with a skate park in the adjoining car park all lit by floodlights, the kids had a ball.