Mythzmoiselle The Happiest When She Travels
And now is turn to go up north. I really wanted to travel up until Karijini National Park, they say it is the best national park in Western Australia. I put it on my list even before I came to Australia and the eagerness was getting higher when I met a friend in Northcliffe. She’s been to Karijini and she said it was the best she has ever done. But, after doing some google… Uhlala it needs 17 hours drive straight. Or 5 until 7 days with some stop over. Rough budget needed most likely more than $1000 for the whole trip. What the heeeyy!! Some friends suggested me to take a plane to Broome then book a tour to Karijini, it’s way more effective and cheaper. But (there is another but) the plane itself would cost $500 return. Geez…even more expensive than Perth – Sydney return. Unbelievable!
Sad to say, I had to drop Karijini out of my list, the time and budget just didn’t fit my plan at all. And finally I made up my mind and decided to make this road trip up north ended at Kalbarri. Kalbarri is pretty good though. This time I went with my Indonesian gang, which consist of 11 people. We rent a mini van for 2 days, so that everyone could fit in 1 car.
There are some interesting spots on the way to Karijini, so we made several stops to make the trip more fulfilled.
Perth – Lancellin (Sand Dunes) : 130 km – 1,5 hours
We were lucky enough to have 24 degrees temperature, chill wind, and friendly sun – such a perfect weather to play around in the desert. Actually, there are a lot of desert in Western Australia, but Lancellin remain the most popular one to do in north of Perth. What did we do here? Yeah.. sand boarding! Wohoo! Never done this before, and I was beyond excited! We rent 3 boards from a guy for 2 hours with total $30. Ah ya, we found this guy just right in the gate of the desert, he was so nice to recommend us the steepest desert to play it off.
It was sooo much fun! Though it needs extra power to hike back up after sliding down. But I’m proud I was brave enough to do it from the steep hill, just so you know, I’m a afraid of height. Anyway, if you want to do this, means, you have to be ready the sands will sneaking in to all part of your body, including your mouth and ear hole. Hihihi…
Lancellin (Sand Dunes) – The Pinnacles : 75 km – 1 hour
My comment for the Pinnacles : a very photogenic place. If you see it through your own eyes, the place is just like that -a desert with limestones as big as you. When it being captured, it is very lovely. I personally don’t like to spend more time in here, but yes, it is still worth to visit.
The Pinnacles – Kalbarri National Park : 356 km – 4 hours
We booked 2 cabins in Murchison Caravan Park to stay for a night, and would explore the National Park the day after. Oh I highly recommend this place, beautiful location, clean, and the staff also very helpful. And more importantly, the price is kinda make sense for all of us. 🙂
Since we got bunch of places we wanted to explore in the 2nd day, we left early in the morning and visited 4 major places in Kalbarri National Park. They are The Loop/Nature’s Window, Z Bend Gorge, Hawk’s Head Look Out and Ross Graham Look Out. These places actually has the same view of Murchison River but with different angle. Each of them is not close to each other.
Ross Graham Look Out
Hawk’s Head Look Out
Z Bend Gorge
The Loop / Nature’s Window
Other than that major places, we also went to Kalbarri Coastal Road, actually there are amount of spots that we can visit here. If you don’t have much time, it’s better to choose 3 – 4 spot that you like best. We only managed to visit Red Bluff and Mushroom Rocks.
On the way back to Perth, we visited Pink Lake as well. It’s official name is Port Gregory. The soft pink color is just so real and natural, it comes from carotenoid-producing algae Dunaliella salina. I know it’s very scientific, but hey! good to know! Whatever under water plant is that, thank you for making this lake become so girly and beautiful! I really loved it to be there, wanted to spend longer but…
We were not in a good situation at that time. our gas indicator was already blinking since before we got to Pink Lake, which means it was dying! Some of us were busy browsing about the nearest gas station and a bit losing the mood to enjoy the scenery. Unfortunately, the most possible gas station was still 40 km away. Holy Moly Shit!! So guys, lesson learned here. If you do road trip, please make sure your gas always more than half. Because, you never know what will happen on the road. We were extremely worried, imagined about pushing the car in the middle of nowhere for so many km. This road trip definitely gonna be a joke. I remember we counted every single km while looking at google map. Dimas, who was driving, made a joke that the car was already off, even though the car was still moving because it’s sliding down the road, he even pulled out the key! We were screaming together : OH NOOOO!!!! until he laughed very hard and put the key back, apparently we were still good to go.
After a very tensed moment for about half an hour, finally we reached the gas station! Wohooooo!!! Believe it or not, all of us were hugging each other and did the high five to each other! and we celebrated it in nearest McD before back to the road. LoL! What a super fun road trip! and definitely super love these people!
