Thursday, 18 June 2026
Another early start today to go out on another boat trip! Today’s marine activity was a Kalbarri Rock Lobster Tour. We boarded today’s boat down at the jetty and set off with our crew, Vaughn, Phil and Vaughn’s Dad, David. As David guided the boat out of the mouth of the Murchison River via an S-shaped channel, into the Indian Ocean, Vaughn provided commentary. He bombarded us with information about the difference between crayfish (caught in freshwater) and lobsters (caught from the ocean), the life cycle of lobsters (very complicated), the lobster industry and his family’s history in the lobster industry and in Kalbarri.
I thought we would be going kilometres out to sea to pull up their lobster pots. Imagine my surprise when David eased off the throttle just past Red Bluff and Vaughn and Phil started pulling up pots. Oh, dear the first one was empty so that was a bit disappointing. Soon though, Vaughn was bringing pots on board that had lobsters in them. The next thing was measuring them to make sure they were legal size and not breeding females. Fortunately, only a few lobsters were chucked back into the sea.
After the lobsters were removed from the pots, the pots were re-baited and stacked on the deck. Eventually, when all the pots had been pulled, David steered a zig-zag course so Vaughn could throw the pots back in to, hopefully, capture more lobsters for tomorrow’s tour. The lobsters caught on these tours are not being caught commercially, they are being caught on a recreational fishing license. Vaughn pointed out that the commercial lobster boats go out at 3.00am and tourists don’t want to go out to sea on a boat at 3.00am! He also explained that the pots are not traps. The lobsters can come and go from them. Commercial operators go out at 3.00am because the pots are usually filled with lobsters then. As soon as it is light, the lobsters tend to climb out of the pots and go back onto the reef, which is no good for people trying to make a living from lobsters. When you just want to educate a few tourists, it’s OK if each pot only has a few crustaceans in it.
As we motored back towards the river mouth, we were fed samples from yesterday’s catch. We each received a small lobster roll and a couple of lobster bites. The lobster bites were flavoured with garlic and chili, with my preference being for the garlic. Some dolphins put in an appearance, frolicking not far from the boat. In fact, we saw more dolphins this morning from the boat than we saw at Monkey Mia.
Back at the jetty, Vaughn gave us instructions on how to euthanize and cook lobsters before today’s catch was divvied up amongst the tour participants. This is where we needed people to say – I don’t like lobster, I don’t want to take one with me. Nope, everyone on board wanted to take their lobster with them. Fortunately, today’s catch was big enough for us to leave with a lobster each. Four live lobsters in a bag. Our full-sized kitchen came back to bite us today, with it being decided that we had the facilities to cook our lobsters for dinner tonight!
We drove back to the cabin where we had to decide whether we would kill our lobsters with a 25 minute session in the freezer or drown them in fresh water. Ugh, this is when it does get a bit confronting being a flesh eater. We even talked about postponing the deed and walking down to the ocean at the end of the street with a bucket and leaving the lobsters in a bucket of seawater in the shower recess until this afternoon. Eventually it was me who bit the bullet and put the bag of lobsters into the freezer. At least having them in the bag meant that they couldn’t look at me as I put them in. Twenty-five minutes later we transferred them to the fridge.
So, after dispatching tonight’s dinner, we went out sight seeing which seemed a bit … insensitive? We headed south down the coast to explore the coastal cliffs of Kalbarri National Park. We could have walked up to Red Bluff Lookout from the beach at the end of the road, but we opted for the easy option, and drove the short distance to the lookout that is some 100 metres above the sea. Our next stop was at Mushroom Rock, which does indeed look like a mushroom. We could also see whale activity off the cliffs with some spurts of whale breath out to sea. We continued to Rainbow Valley to look at the red and white banded sandstone and the fossilized burrows/tubes of worm-like creatures that lived 400 million years ago.
A little further along the road we found ourselves at Pot Alley, so named by local lobster fishermen after losing one too many pots to this hazardous cove. We could see more whale activity here but, try as I might, I couldn’t get a photo. I was focusing my camera on the ocean for minutes at a time and every time, the moment I lowered my camera, we spotted a whale spout!!
On to Eagle Gorge where we found another incredible cliff view and evidence of whales in the vicinity. We pulled off George Grey Drive to arrive at Shellhouse, which was given its name as a result of fishermen at sea believing they could see a shell-shaped house on the side of the cliff. Nope, we couldn’t see if from the landward side. We wandered around to Grandstand with its amphitheater-like terraced rock face which was impressive. Gosh, another kilometre or so and we were gazing out over Island Rock, a solitary sea stack that has been separated from the cliff by the pounding ocean waves. And, finally, one more stunning coastal view, this time in the form or a natural bridge.
All this sightseeing was taking longer than we anticipated. It was lunchtime and we were still a long way from Port Gregory, so we broke out some Sirena tuna meal bowls to eat. While we were eating in one of the shelters near Island Rock, two whales came up to breathe and they were so close we could hear them. Very exciting.
Back in the truck we continued down the coast. As we neared Port Gregory, we were driving alongside Hutt Lagoon which is also known at Pink Lake. There were no view points along this side of the lake, we had to drive to the T-intersection and turn into Port Gregory to find the Pink Lake Lookout. Hmmn, maybe not as pink as we might have hoped. It could be a case of recent rain reducing the salinity that the red pigment producing algae need to thrive. Or … just the wrong time of day? It certainly was pinkish but maybe not the bubble-gum pink we had seen in the brochure!
We continued into Port Gregory where the General Store looked closed up tight. It might be just as well that we self-catered lunch. We had been thinking that with lunch eaten, it would be ice-cream o’clock in Port Gregory. Damn, we had to self-cater than too and eat Splices from our freezer. Just as well we are so self-sufficient.
With it now mid-afternoon, it was time to head back to the cabin. We had four lobsters to cook before dinner time. But first, we drove into town to pop into the IGA for a few items, stopping at the Zuytdorp Memorial on our way. The memorial was erected in 2012 on the 300th anniversary of the Dutch ship, Zuytdorp being shipwrecked on the WA coast 60 kilometres north of Kalbarri in 1712.
Back at the cabin, we brought a large pot of water to the boil and cooked lobsters. It was a large pot, but only deep enough for one lobster at a time. After each one was cooked – for exactly nine minutes as per Vaughn’s instructions – it was plunged into a sink full of ice water and then popped back into the fridge until it was time to eat.
Lobster is definitely something best prepared by someone else! I was so worried about spoiling them by overcooking. And now they were cooked we still had to get inside those thorny carapaces to get at the lobster meat. Ross stepped up to break the inedible section apart from the luscious meat. Eventually we were able to sit down to our lobster and salad dinner. All of us agreed that we had never eaten so much lobster in one sitting before. Although the lobsters were small (but legal) we all agreed that it was enough lobster for a delicious dinner. And I hadn’t overcooked them. Phew.
Getting the meat out of the legs and horns was challenging. Bernie went out to the truck and came back in with the vice-grips to crack the shell. The only problem with that was that it tended to squash the meat as well as break the shell. We all used a combination of cutlery, vice-grips, scissors and fingers – and copious amounts of paper towel – to get our dinner eaten!
Steps: 12,004 (7.64kms)
