Kalbarri gorges and cliffs

I spent a total of 3 days in Kalbarri and I think for this time of year that was probably enough time for me, things were starting to warm up and the flies were incredibly annoying. I’d left the caravan in Geraldon and was staying in a hotel and as my luck would have it, a couple with a young child moved into the room next to mine just after I arrived. All those empty rooms available and they put the screaming baby right next door to me, and there was a door joining our rooms so the sound just seemed to travel straight through.

Anyway, flies, screaming babies, hot weather and I  just seemed to be having no luck at all with my photography. I went out to the gorges at sunset the first day and then sunrise the following morning, but the sun was so bright the contrast of shade and sun is pretty horrible in the deep gorges.

Classic example above. I think ideal conditions for photos around here are probably in the middle of a cloudy day. But we just have to make the most of what we have and I certainly don’t have the luxury of waiting for a cloudy day so I’ll just get on with it and try to pick the few nicer ones, there are some ok pictures among them, though nothing from the Z bend really worked on the first afternoon. Oh and for those wondering about the road out to the gorges? Yes it’s pretty bad, I really wondered how some people made it out there in their little hire cars and campers.

It makes you think when you see evidence of the ocean floor from times past at such a height up on the cliff tops.

On a walk down into the gorge to get to the river, there was a surprising amount of life I saw many lizards, some the kind that get up on their hind legs when they run and they are amazingly quick. Check the length of the tail, I couldn’t even fit it all in the photo.

The colours in some of the dragonfly’s down in the canyon was amazing, this little guy sat still for a little while but not long enough for me to get a picture perfectly in focus. Unlike many dragonfly’s I’m used to, this one tends to fold his wings forward while sitting rather than straight outwards like many others do.

The coast line here is equally as impressive in parts, from rugged huge cliffs to clean white beaches, there’s something for everyone.

This is the end of the cliffs which are to the south of the town of Kalbarri, looking up towards the town which is surrounded by beaches. Here are some more of the cliffs.

I mentioned at the start that this that this was a bad trip for photos in the canyons, the cliffs were the same. On the first night I watched the magnificent deep red glow of the sunset while I ate dinner at a restaurant in town and I planned to be down at the cliffs the following evening to photograph the red sunset on the cliffs. I was there and all prepared but just as the sun got low in the sky some clouds came and fizzled it. There was no colour it was really boring and the cliffs just went grey and dark, so I skipped out on my last night. I should also mention that while driving to the cliffs I saw whales breaching and flapping their fins not to far out, but by the time I got down there they stopped, lots of spouts, everywhere, there must have been at least a dozen whales within sight but none of them coming above the water.

Still I did collect some shell grit/sand from a small beach in between the rocky cliffs and got a photo of the beach there, looks very interesting close up.