Distance travelled : 661 kms
Cumulative distance: 8,167 kms
Sponsored by Peter Whiteside
It rained most of the night and there were some weird noises from outside the motel unit. When I opened the door to see what was causing the noise and alarm went off so I quickly closed the door. We were warned by motel management that we shouldn't leave anything removable on the bikes as there were undesirables everywhere. In the morning I woke to a soggy bike with everything intact. I was last to leave as I had to reorganise all my gear making sure it was dry when packing it in my panniers. I struggled into my wet weather gear as it started to rain AGAIN. The bike made a couple of strange noises when I tried to start it but managed to burst into life eventually. It hasn't seen wet weather for a while so I guess it wasn't used to it. Luckily as I headed south towards Geraldton the sky began to clear and the rain stopped. At the Billabong roadhouse they were playing some great music on outside speakers so a few of us had coffee and hung around for a while.
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| Enjoying the music at the Billabong roadhouse. |
Next stop was the Skywalk in the Kalbarri National Park about 65 kms west of the main highway. Kalbarri was devastated by a cyclone about a year ago. Colin and I visited it in 2010. The "Skywalk" has only just been opened. It ìs actually two platforms jutting out over the Murchison river gorge that give you a spectacular view of the river.
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| This is one of the viewing platforms being manufactured. |
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| This is the site where they are lowering a platform into position. |
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| This is some bloke posing by the railing of one of the viewing platforms. |
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| The Murchison river in the gorge. |
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| Looking back to the cafe from the viewing platform. |
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| Some magnificent bottlebrush nearby. |
Afterwards I rode into Kalbarri to refuel and check out the changes since 2010. There are certainly a lot more houses now A lot of the houses damaged in the cyclone were still being repaired. I couldn't stay to watch the sunset as I had to get to Geraldton by 5 pm. There are lots interesting rock formations on the coast road heading south and viewing platforms to enjoy them from.
We head to Fremantle tomorrow for two days. The weather has started to get cooler so I have dug out my thermals ready for it. Unfortunately there is rain forecast for the next week. I think it is a front moving from west to east and we're going to be following it.!!!
