We arrived at 8am to ideal walking conditions, cool, cloudy with a slight breeze. The Loop Trail is 9 kilometres Class 4 and to allow 3 to 5 hours, so we wanted to be done by lunch time.
As we walked down this lovely staircase, I was only too aware that after 9 kilometres of hard slog, we were going to have to walk back up it. :)
Again, a really nice path down to the look out. That nice little white beach down there is the last part of the loop trail.
A peak through “Nature’s Window”
The opening was a lot smaller than we had imagined.
A fellow walker kindly took this one of us and we reciprocated.
We noticed that is a far as most people are prepared to go.
Tide ripples – age 450 million years ago.
Getting to the top of the gorge ridge line
We are going to follow this ridge line for 3 kilometres
There are other gorges into the main one. The car park is way back over – the top left of this photo. I couldn’t fit it, just off screen.
The track follows on the gorge above the river and at the 3 kilometre point you descend to the river. At the river, you are met with a sign that says “consider your choices” and it basically says that it gets a lot tougher from here on and if you are tired or don’t have enough water turn back.
You start thinking, “what do they mean”, how tough is it, should we not proceed? They warn of lots of trekking in deep sand etc. Well to that point, we thought it was a stroll in the park, so decided to give it a go, but you do wonder if you are taking on more than you can handle.
The sun was out in full now, so we made sure we were drinking regularly and I changed into my sun shirt with the long sleeves as there isn’t much shade. Even though the river is full of water, at this time of year it has a high salinity level – you can see the salt on the shore line.
The descent to the river was fairly easy with only a small steep section at the end.
The next part of the track is shelf walking along the edge of the river. Just going up or down until you get a straight stretch of shelf. Very easy and if you slipped you are not high up. There were only a few climbs with rock scrambling. This lasted for about 2 kilometres. The best part is that there were markers telling you how far that you had walked. Glen is on the path ahead of me.
Left is looking along the path
The only tricky bit along the ledge walk - Above looking back along the path.
Starting on the sandy ledge sections which leads to the sandy section.
The sky is clearing and it’s getting hotter. The path is now sandy as we have entered a wider section of built up sand. It was quite firm under foot and not difficult walking. Only the last kilometre is deep soft sand. The only thing that makes this walk difficult is the heat and dehydration if you are not prepared.
The layer colours were spectacular. We have done the loop, above in the distances a kilometre away is “Nature’s Window”, we now only have to climb up there and then climb back to the car park via the ridge and the stairs. :)
Yes, those stairs were waiting at the end, lucky there is a hand rail to drag yourself up the steps to complete the 9 kilometres. :) We did the walk in about 3 1/2 hours, not bad, considering that we took heaps of photos and rest stops for drinks.
We then did a small look out walk of 5oo metres return.
Next stop was down to Z Bend. We did the 1.2 kilometre return walk to the look out.
It was around mid-day and we were too tired and it was too hot to do the 2.6 kilometre climb down (using ladders etc) to the river.
These are the foot prints of the critter on the right which was running around here some 400 million years ago. Luckily we didn’t have to deal with that.
We took ourselves back the look out above Kalbarri.
The batteries went flat, so this is the best I got.
Time to go back to town and treat ourselves to a ice cream
