Australia 2014: Kalbarri National Park to Nerren Nerren

Day 8 – July 27, 2014 – Kalbarri National Park to Nerren Nerren - distance travelled: 200 kms - 24^oC high; 5^oC low. Luckily it had stopped raining during the night and everybody and everything inside the tents had stayed dry. The night had been surprisingly mild. Took a while before the tents were dry enough to pack away so left the ranch just after 10am. Back into Kalbarri National Park, again on the corrugated gravel road, this time to Nature’s Window from where we did a beautiful 8 km hike called The Loop. The hike led us down to the banks of the Murchison River where the trail was sandy for some kilometres, then became a bit of a scramble up and down rocks, with the last couple of kilometres taking us back on top of the cliff walls of the gorge thus completing the loop. Devoured our packed lunch upon return to our Troopy and hit the road direction Monkey Mia. Alas, after about 150 kilometres the rear passenger side tire decided to pop, resulting in an unplanned break and delay. With the high lift jack cranking up the vehicle was easy but to get to some of the tools we had to unload part of our luggage. Likely the tire overheated and the tube just gave; the road was paved and nice and smooth and shouldn’t have caused any flats. Conveniently the 24 hour Nerren Nerren rest area was at just the right distance to set up camp before dark. Nerren Nerren is a recommended free camping spot in the Camps 6 (map) book we consult and indeed the setting was nice with the paved rest area basically extending into the red dirt around where you could pick you own spot in amongst the trees. Yes there were washrooms, but we used these only if absolutely necessary, plus during the night the road trains thundered past loud and clear. Surprisingly cold that night, just when we thought we wouldn’t need socks and extra blankets anymore for sleeping.