The Kalbarri National Park is interesting in that it has a split personality; there is the inland section centered around the Murchison Gorge and you have the coastal section dominated by the wild and dangerous coastline.
Inland
The Murchison Gorge is carved by the Murchison River which is the second longest river in Western Australia (after the Gascoyne River which flows into the Indian Ocean at Carnarvon). There has been an impressive level of investment in tourist access to this gorge by the Western Australian Government with the highlight being the Kalbarri Skywalk. The Skywalk comprises of two cantilevered lookout platforms protruding from the high point of the gorge providing an impressive viewpoint. From an engineering perspective the longest of the two Skywalks at 25-metres is the longest cantilevered structure in the Southern Hemisphere; access is free aside from the requirement to purchase a National Parks Pass (a requirement for all National Parks and inexpensive if you purchase an all parks holiday pass). The fact that the construction of the Skywalk’s would have required a significant investment coupled with the fact that you are not charged an entrance fee to access them is almost as impressive as the feat of engineering required to build them.
Other notable viewpoints along this gorge, again with visitor toilet facilities, sealed pathways and viewing platforms are:
Coastal
The Kalbarri Coast comprises jagged limestone and sandstone cliffs along which pods of dolphins hunt and humpback whales can be seen migrating.
Along with the Houtman Abrolhos islands approximately 80 kilometres offshore the Kalbarri Coast has also proved treacherous for shipping through the centuries and this included one of Australia’s bloodiest shipwrecks; the Batavia. More recently in 1941 approximately 125 miles off of the Kalbarri Coast Australia’s greatest naval tragedy occurred. On the 19th November 1941 the cruiser HMAS Sydney II had a chance encounter with the Kormoran a German raider (a disguised naval ship with the task of attacking unsuspecting allied shipping). Despite the fact that Sydney was a decorated warship and the Kormoran only a converted freighter it is assumed that the element of surprise is what resulted in the HMAS Sydney II being sunk with the loss of her full complement of 645 men. Although critically damaged in the initial encounter with the Kormoran Sydney was able to damage the Kormoran to the extent that its crew had no option but to scuttle and abandon their vessel with the loss of 80 of its 397 man crew with those rescued being transferred to prisoner of war camps. What I find most fascinating about this is the fact that it demonstrates the truly global nature of the 2nd World War; a raiding ship from Germany, a relatively small European country with global ambitions engaged an Australian warship nearly 14,000 kilometres away.
And now for something a bit lighter; the Pink Lake. Situated at the southern end of the Kalbarri National Park is the Hutt Lagoon generally referred to as the Pink Lake. The official reason for the pink hue is that it is “created by the presence of carotenoid-producing algae, Dunaliella salina, which is a source of beta-carotene; a food-colouring agent; and a source of Vitamin A”. Now who would I be to argue and I did ask a representative of Thames Water whether they had any comment, all I was told was that if it had been anything to do with them it would actually be known as the shit brown lake! I did note however that the multi-national chemicals company BASF had a ‘specialty chemicals’ site on the shores of the Pink Lake, hmmm . . .
