Kalbarri

I achieved the goal I set myself yesterday of doing very little today. When I awoke the ongoing weather event which I said I will no longer mention had seemed to have died down. I went for a ride just down the road into Kalbarri and stopped at a Cafe for a combination of breakfast and lunch uncommonly known as lunchfast. I ordered a prawn salad and a coffee and was immediately suspicious when the salad arrived before the coffee. I soon realised that it was totally understandable when the construction of the salad merely involved opening a bag of mixed salad from woollies and deep frying some pre-battered frozen prawns. The coffee sucked too.

I went for a bit of a ride around Kalbarri and found it to be really nice. It's quite a beautiful place and would be an excellent backdrop for a number of activities. For example: sailboarding, kite surfing, green energy generation, kite flying, aerodynamics research, paragliding, hang gliding, sailing and hot air ballooning. Unfortunately the beach was fairly unappealing due to the weather.

Looking to the south

The Murchison River mouth. 

I came back to the ranch and went down to the icy cold pool to read my book. It is the only place with any shade. Every 20 minutes or so I'd jump in for a few moments relief from the flies then jump out again to warm up. I spent a few hours down there and then began cooking dinner at around 3. I was hungry and wanted to get in while the one good burner was free.

I noticed a sign saying that cameras had been installed in the bush kitchen to prevent theft. I had a brief flash in my mind of a dimly lit, cigarette smoke filled room with a bank of TV screens in the bowels of the ranch house where some poor, miserable bastard (or team of bastards) have been tasked with monitoring the pots, pans, knives and forks of the bush kitchen. Big brother is always watching.

Tomorrow I'm going to make my way a little further down the coast. I'm not far from the Principality of Hutt River but I don't actually know if it is worth the detour. It does have $5 camping though. Hopefully the movement of air will be minimal.