Kalbarri - Western Flora Caravan Park (Nov 7th)

Heading south and the temps are cooler around mid 20's. I've probably said this before but driving through the country you see plenty of nothing in between attractions. I've also noticed gas prices coming down, in this area around 1.33 or so. Shark Bay down to Kalbarri, we start to notice more wildflowers. They are prolific around Kalbarri. Many of the bushes are in bloom with pinks, oranges, pale yellows and so on. Around here we visited a couple more beautiful gorges before checking into our accomm. Then took it easy with a nice relaxing coastal drive. The Indian Ocean is a lovely green, and lots of spectacular cliffs here and white sandy beaches. Today we spot a number of whales spouting as they continue to make their way southward to Antarctica. We ate out at a local restaurant and if you think Banff is expensive, well its twice as costly here. I can't quite believe it. For example on the menu was a Chicken Caesar Salad for $27.50!!! You don't pay any tips or taxes on that - thankfully! I must say that the portions are gargantuan too. This salad would probably feed 4 people. I had ordered a bowl of Seafood Chowder and a Garden Salad. I could only eat half and that was pushing it. I think I paid something like $20. Lorraine figures that a waitress in Australia makes generally around $25 per hour, so you can see why the high prices. There's lots of foreigners working here - if I was younger I would too at that kind of money.

The skies are full of colourful galas and corellas. The galas are gray and pink and corellas are yellow and white. Huge birds and noisy.

Instant coffee is the norm as you travel on the road. Once in a while you can find cappacinos which are good. Here in the grocery store you can buy coffee bags (just like tea bags except with ground coffee) We brought some on the road and its quite good and you make it like tea.
Leaving Kalbarri we first stopped at a place called Rainbow Jungle. The do breeding programs on endangered species of parrots, mostly from Australia. Some bee-uuu-ti-ful birds. We also make another stop at a lookout point over the ocean and finally we saw whales close enough to shore that were blow-holing and frolicking by slapping their tales on the water. Close enough that you could here the slapping. It looked like 2 adults and a babe; maybe they were giving the babe lessons!
This evening we finished up in a place called Western Flora Caravan Park, where the owners have about 60 acres of natural untouched land and FULL of wildflowers and shrubs in bloom. Spring blooming is nearly done but it was still quite colourful. We saw dozens of different ground covers, different colours of bottlebrush or malaleuca type shrubs. The owner is a retired botanist and took us on a 2-hr walk through the reserve. I've never met anyone who knew so much about plants. Quite fascinating. He has done some work with David Attenborough also.