Thursday 7th December

Long morning of driving today to Kalbarri, stopping on the way to see the Stromatolites at Hamelin's Pool. The Stromatolites are a fairly large expanse of rock looking bacteria that grow in the hypersaline waters of Hamelin's Pool and can only grow there because the water is so salty. Scientists have discovered that the Stromatolites are the earliest types of life form that began to grow on the planet millions of years ago, gradually developing to such a point that they emitted so much oxygen into the atmosphere that it allowed the planet to give life to other species of animals. Technically we wouldn't be here if it wasn't for versions of these rocks growing all those millions of years ago! Quite a mad thought!

After seeing the Stromatolites we got back on the road to Kalbarri National Park and arrived in the early afternoon ahead of schedule. We really wanted to go and see two tourist attractions called Nature's Window (a strange formation of rock overlooking the Murchison River) and the Z bend, which is a fairly long bush walk around and across the river. Unfortunately these sights were down a 25km dirt track that was virtually un-driveable with our campervan so we had to turn back after attempting a few kilometres of the road experiencing enough bumps to remove kidney stones! We continued along the road into the main town of Kalbarri when Darren decided to pursue his love of vehicles going down ditches (he once crashed his Escort down a muddy ditch on country roads). Having passed too quickly a sign giving the rules regarding camping around the town, he decided to attempt a 3 point turn forgetting that the high cambre road had soft shoulders either side of each lane. As he went to pull away he realised that the back wheels of the van had slipped too far down the gravel and were now spinning hopelessly in the soft dirt!! He then decided it might be an even better idea to roll backwars further down the ditch with a mind to attempt driving out of the ditch with a better run up, however this only resulted in the van being even more bogged down in soft dirt. We managed to flag down a passing couple in their car and quickly discovered that the trick you see in the movies of shoving branches under the failing wheels does not work. At all. Not even one bit.

Fortunately our good helpers recalled seeing a towing company only 4km further on up the road so we hopped in their car and they dropped us off at a nice bloke called Terry's house to get towed. Not much longer we were back on the road thanks to Terry's 4 wheel drive and all it cost us was some fuel for Terry's car! And maybe some damage to Darren's nerves!

After such an exicting afternoon, unintentionally off roading in the campervan we decided to book into a caravan park in Kalbarri overlooking the river and had a nice quiet evening contemplating our great escape from the ditch as we strolled along the beach front.