Our next stopover turned out to be my favourite. We went to Kalbarri and it lived up to all the expectations of what I thought Australia was like. If I didn't go anywhere else or did anything else, I still would've thought this was the best trip ever. In the morning we decided to go check out the gorges in the National Park. The town is actually built in the National Park, which I find a little amusing. We had to drive on dirt roads to get to the gorges and it was so bumpy that it caused me pain just thinking about the poor car. However, once we got there I realized that the potential minor damages were well worth it. The gorges were absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen anything like it. We did a little exploring and walked off the marked path. It was great. We hiked up and down rocks, squeezed through bushes, and the weather was awesome. What more can you ask for??
We saw the famous Nature's window. I have been wanting to see this since the day I came here and I didn't even realize it was in Kalbarri until we arrived into this town.
The next day we went on an abseiling tour. For all you Canadians, it's what they call rapelling down a cliff. Only the two of us had signed up for the tour so we got a lot more opportunities to abseil. Abseiling was something that I wanted to do so this was quite exciting for me. There are three methods of abseiling and of course I had to try them all. The first one was the normal, going down back first. If you've ever done rock climbing, this isn't anything new to you but it's still tons of fun. The next one I tried was the inverted method. This was also the most challenging one because you're literally upside down and have to keep just the tip of your feet hooked around the root. You can't wrap your entire leg around the rope because the heat of the metal cleat and rope will burn you so fast. Occasionally, I felt the metal cleat almost touching my skin. The inverted method was freaky at first when you look straight down.
The last method was definitely the most fun. You begin by facing forward and when it's the right time, you basically run down the vertical cliff. You let go of the rope and just move your legs as fast as you can. You were down within seconds. It was great. Then since we abseiled down to the gorge, we were able to explore it a little. Just yesterday, we were up on top of the cliff, looking down, and thinking about how great it would be to go down to the bottom of the gorge. If the water wasn't so cloudy I would've went for a little dip. The climbing back up to the top was one of the highlights for me. I wish I could do that everyday and go hiking with that kind of intensity.
The rest of the time we did some more hiking and went to check out a few of the outlook points overlooking the ocean. There were a few interestingly shaped rocks, like the mushroom rock. That amused me quite a bit.
Our trip to Kalbarri wouldn't have been complete without a stop to the Rainbow Jungle, the Australian parrot breeding centre. There were tons of parrots flying everywhere. Some were very pretty with all the different colours on them.
I will try to post some pictures up of the gorges once I scan them in but I don't think the camera could do it justice. It's one of those things you have to come see for yourself.
