Our first visit as we headed for Kalbarri NP – Pink Lake near Port Gregory.

The much anticipated Kalbarri National Park begins along the coast on the southern edge with several amazing coastal features and then extends about 60 kilometres or so to the west after the town of Kalbarri.

Island Rock, Kalbarri NP.

It is in the upper section of the park that the famous Murchison River Gorges are located. Deep ravines with amazing red rock strata.

Our arrival in the late afternoon offered the perfect lighting to gaze and photograph these stunning formations.

The famous “Nature’s Window”

Like other parks we have visited there have been extensive upgrades to roads and facilities in the last year or so.

Leaving the park we witnessed not only a stunning sunset, but also a very decent full moon rising.

After a quiet night in a roadside lay-by a few kilometres before the main road we headed north for the famous Shark Bay World Heritage Area which includes the Francois Peron NP & Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort.

Black cockatoos at our lunch stop. Love the red tail feathers!

Shell beach. Look again, there is no sand… it is all small shells (detail pic below). In the distance is a quarry where shell blocks are cut for constructions like the old church (now restaurant below) in Denham.

Island at Eagle Bluff which is bald from years of mining guano (bird poo) for the fertiliser industry. Look closely and you can see hundreds of sea birds around the edge of this little island.

After checking into the seaside caravan park we headed north up the sandy tracks of Francois Peron NP for sunset at Big Lagoon.

Big Lagoon in the Francois Peron NP. Next time I reckon we might camp here!

Up bright and early the next morning as Virginia was very keen to get to the first feeding of the Dolphins at Monkey Mia at 7.45am.

She was not disappointed – the first feeding was great and then a second one (at the Dolphin’s timing) was only 30 minutes later and took everyone by surprise resulting in a small crowd, more dolphins than usual, and Ginnie’s chance to get up close and personal with a female Dolphin named “Surprise”.

The second show gave Markus the opportunity to shoot some photos from the jetty where he got a great view not only of Ginnie’s joyful encounter, but a visiting turtle, tiny birds & playful Dolphins in deeper water.

It had been a great morning and we headed up to a beach camp just south of Carnarvon.

Quite a nice spot to get bogged. We camped overnight here at Bush Bay (Indian Ocean) and it blew a gale all night!