Kalbarri to Port Gregory and return

Introduction

This time I will be going with "Woolie". He is a newbie to touring and it will also give him a chance to try out his new bike and BOB Ibex Trailer. As for me, well you just don't know what these small towns have got to offer, so I'm going to find out.

Since it is only a two day trip, I won't have to take my house with me like crazykev does, so I'll just take some basic needs, mainly 6.5 litres of WATER and food for three days. Always take more than you need. Who knows what is around the corner. Some things I also take are a first aid kit, tent, tools, spares, tubes and a mobile phone if it works when i need it or if there is a service signal, and a few other bits and pieces that I need like my spare left knee cap. (now where did that go?).

After getting it all packed in to the my BOB Trailer and the two front panniers, it was time to take it for a small ride around town to make any fine adjustments. I'd rather do them before the trip than on the road. Everything checked out fine, I just had to move a bit of stuff from one pannier to the other so their weight was the same. I also keep the weight as lowest possible.

Body wise I have a carbohydrate dinner and a good night's sleep and turn my mind off. I hope to leave at 5.30 AM so that means 4.30 AM up and out of bed.....things i do.

Hide/Show Map

The route there and back.

Day 1

...beep beep beep .... 4.30 AM up and out of bed, roll out the bike, put the trailer on and a last quick check on a couple of things, have a bit of a stretch and head of to Woolie's house.

After picking up Woolie we headed out of Kalbarri to face the first big hill. From there you are slowly climbing up and up, nice and slowly. It was great day with hardly any wind and the sun was still waking up and the birds.... it was good. Luckily we were not in a race otherwise would have missed it all.

One of the first stops we did was to stop and have breakfast. We stopped under an information bay and had a bit of a breather.

The road at the first stop.

23 kms out.

Information Bay.

Back onto the bikes and a good down hill. Then the head wind came and then more wind and gusts as well. Great, so our speeds dropped drastically. Now we really had to work and not over do it. We had a few breaks, and had a few more breaks in the wind and out of the wind as well, thanks to the trees.

After some time watching the amount of car parts and rubbish on the side of the road, I could have built a car and driven there. But who wants to do that? I would of again missed all of the great senery. In the distance we could see the Garnet mine and before long we were passing it. From now on from this point, to the turn off to Port Gregory beware of trucks of up to two trailers in length.

Garnet Mine.

On the right, now is the start of the Pink Lakes and over the other side of that is Port Gregory. Time for another stop before the turn off

Time for another stop.

YHHAAAA the turn off, and yes the wind is now behind us. This road winds around a bit, but is safe. There are a few tight corners so beware of other traffic which we did not see much of. As you are just about to enter Port Gregory there is a road side stop that over looks the Pink lake.

The Pink Lake.

Welcome to Port Gregory.

We stayed in a carvan park at Port Gregory. It's details for your information are: Port Gregory Caravan Park, 131 Sanford St, Port Gregory WA 6535, Telephone: (08) 9935 1052, Facsimile: (08) 9935 1093, Rating: **.

It was a good caravan park with green grass to put the tent on, camper's kitchen stocked with an electric cooker, microwave, elecric kettle and fridge, and most of all a hot shower. For drinking water they have a blue rain water tank just for drinking. They also had on site cabins if you want to treat your self. Setting up the tents was not a problem with the firm ground. We even had help from the wind. Next was food, rest and a shower. After that I could really see how much wind burn I had recieved. Now just to get a few things sorted for the trip home tomorrow.

The Camp Site.

Day 2

Yawn... flap flap, the $%# wind kept me awake and now it's 4.00 AM in the morning and still there is wind. But hang on it is still blowing in the same direction as our head wind of yesterday. We could have an easy ride home. It took us about an hour to pack up, we filled our water bottles up from the tank and headed out.

Yep it was a head wind again but we knew when we get to the turn off it should be behind us, so we just took it easy until then. We were right because as soon as we turned that corner the wind was behind us. Since we took the same road back we knew where the hills and stops were.

The wind got stronger and stronger and our speed on the flats was were 30 - 35 kms and up hill were like, what hills. One of the bigger hills that we went down yesterday was coming up but thanks to the wind we did it with no problems. Woolie showed what he thought of that hill.

Woolie shows what he thinks of the hill!

As we got closer to Kalbarri I took off up front a little, well a bit more than little, but still keeping Woolie in sight. I heard all this noise which sounded like a truck clearing land in the scrub but it was a big "willy willy", which is like a little cyclone. It's caused when hot air mixes with cold air and a lot of wind which we had. Now this happened on the road up front and I was going down hill so I powered ahead and just passed it before it hit the road. If I did get hit by that, I could have came off of the bike, but all I got was a mouth full of dirt and dust.

After that I waited for Woolie to catch up and we headed into town and back to his place. It was then a short ride back to my home. We both enjoyed the ride but when you are driving your car/truck please keep your speed down because coming home we saw a kangaroo with a baby joey. The mother got hit by a truck and died but the joey lived but I'm not sure for how long. Also for me I made sure I took the spare left knee cap and not the right one, but I was lucky I did not need it this time. This must have been due to my bike set up, so I might not have to pack them again.