Day 63: Kalbarri hiding from the wind day

September 19, 2022

The forecast was for strong “possibly damaging” south to south westerly winds. But they’re forecasting for an entire area probably bigger than England so I still hoped it might not come to that between Kalbarri and Northampton. Unfortunately wind and rain woke me up at 3am so it seemed like the forecast was coming true. I still got up at 5:30 and got ready but as we watched the sun reach the river mouth the howling wind and rain became more obvious. The rain at least was forecast to ease by mid morning, but the wind was forecast to blow all day.

Mum and Dad decided not to pack up too early and wait for the rain to ease. I decided probably not to ride at all. I went to another cafe, just in front of our apartment, as my favourite one doesn’t open mondays. The coffee wasn’t as good or as quick. Although they were slammed. I also checked that the backpackers, a block behind our apartment, had space which it does. It was still showery by 10 but Mum and Dad packed up and headed south. The hilux didn’t seem to be as bothered by the wind as me. I rode two blocks south just to check I wasn’t being soft and decided it was legitimately really windy and came back to book into the backpackers. It’s not the most modern place but there’s only one other woman with me in an eight bed dorm and I could check in at 10am, and it costs $31.

I set off to walk to the bakery, and saw Tessa and Phoebe drive down the street. I waved but I don’t think they recognised me off the bike so I stalked them to the carpark, and found them just as they were going into another cafe. This one had a huge array of baked goods and coffee. I’d never noticed it before but it had probably been afternoon whenever I went past. They bought me coffee and a cinnamon scroll as payment for the beers on Saturday night despite my protests about my karmic debt.

Then we hung out inside, out of the wind, for a fair while. They had a good time abseiling yesterday except that Phoebe dropped Tessa’s phone off a cliff and smashed it entirely. I think Phoebe felt pretty bad so sitting in a nice cafe out of the weather was a good distraction this morning. We even did the good weekend quiz with relative success, cause we counted all the right answers we said even if we didn’t reach consensus. Eventually they decided they should head on as they’re trying to get to Jurien Bay via a phone shop in Geraldton. So that was a surprisingly pleasant morning.

I then found the actual bakery which was much smaller and more old fashioned around the corner, and hadn’t caught up with vegetarianism as much as the cafe. So I went back to the cafe and bought a salad wrap for lunch.

I actually thought about logging into my work google drive to start planning my return so went to use a computer at the library, but I have two factor authentication set up on my optus number so couldn’t get in.

I had to go for a walk up the river again instead. I walked for about an hour, I didn’t realise the river bent to the north, so ended up crossing these muddy plains with random fences and tracks and a burnt out car quite a way from the river. Once I found my way back to the river, I was still a fair distance from a bend where the wind might’ve lessened so I just sat in the meagre shelter of a casuarina for a while eating my wrap and reading a book from the hostel.

It was a nice spot but I could only last half an hour in the wind

On the way back I followed a horse track along the river edge which was much nicer past a lot of swans and pelicans also looking wind blown

This spectacular grevillea’s common name is smelly socks plant

I also took a walk through town on the way back. A cyclone went through in April last year and damaged something like 70% of houses, and about 10-20% are still being fixed/are still damaged. It’s basically the same latitude as Pittsworth which is crazy to think about cyclones.

I met my dorm mate, Karen, from England who is over here on her first visit to Australia travelling up the west coast via bus. It seemed a bit rude to ask why she’d chosen that trip so I’m still not sure.

Tessa and Phoebe had been told the burgers were good at the other fish and chip shop near the jetty, but it’s closed on the weekend so they hadn’t been able to get one yesterday, adding to their woes. Add the number of places that don’t open weekends to things I don’t understand about Kalbarri. Anyway, I got a burger tonight and it has nice cheese and onion but the bun let it down a bit so I guess they didn’t miss out on much.

The wind was easing and dropped considerably while I was eating my burger so I’m keeping everything crossed for rideable weather tomorrow!

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