Clifftops and parrots - Kalbarri

4th July 2014

Kalbarri is a really lovely little town.  Only 540km from Perth it is within easy reach for a holiday so does not seem to be in the state of atrophy that so many of the settlements further north seem to suffer.  WA school holidays start today so we had to book our 6 days here several weeks ago to be sure of getting a spot.

Clifftop walk, Kalbarri NP

The weather was beautiful this morning so we set off on a cliff walk in the NP, ended up walking about 5km south along the clifftop then back again so it was a bracing start to the day.  The cliffs are eroded banded sandstone and it's quite spectacular to watch the sea pounding against them.

We spotted humpback whales way out to sea heading north and a small pod of dolphins quite close into shore.

After lunch we went to the Rainbow Jungle parrot sanctuary where there is a breeding programme including some rare and endangered species.  Most of the parrots there are Australian and many of these are in a walk through aviary along with Australian finches. Some Australian parrots have proliferated as they exploit water and food sources [crops] provided by humans and this is often at the expense of the more specialised and less aggressive species.  The birds are unconcerned about people so it is possible to get quite close and one landed on John's hand!

Gouldian finches

Princess parrot

Two of my favourites are the colourful little Gouldian finch and the Princess parrot, both of which occur in WA though they are not common. The Princess parrot is lovely soft colours and has an extremely long tail.