Our underwater camera had broken earlier in the trip and we’d posted it to a repair shop in Perth, pleading with them to fix it before Christmas. We had to call to say it was ready so Nitin took us to collect it and treated us to a sightseeing tour afterwards. First we stopped at Kings Park - a beautiful and huge park on a hill overlooking the city. The main part of the park had manicured lawns and large trees lining the road, with panoramic views. Further around the park it turned into dense bush and felt like a completely different place. After driving around and being shown more districts and beaches, we went to a large marina called Hillarys, which felt a little like Port Solent or Gunwharf but it had it’s own sandy ... read more

After breakfast we drove up the coast towards Yellingup. En route Matt spotted a sign for a sheep shearing shed advertising ugg boots so we decided to follow it as I’d been thinking about buying some. Outside the shop there were some sheep in a pen. Most of them had been sheered already and looked a bit naked and lost. We patted them and they immediately tried to eat our clothes. The shop was full of woollen clothes and ugg boots in lots of styles. Matt persuaded me to try on a big woolly jumper that he liked and reluctantly I did. I hated to admit it but I loved it and had to buy it! It wasn’t the most practical thing to buy when I was in a hot country (although today it had been ... read more

When the alarm went off I did my best to persuade Matt that getting up now was a bad idea and we’d be much more productive if we had a bit more sleep. He agreed and we finally got up an hour and a half later feeling much better. When we opened up the curtains we saw that it was raining and cloudy. It was the first rain we’d seen on the west coast and it was a shock. The weather had been getting cooler since crossing the tropic line and even though I wasn’t cold in long shorts and a t-shirt, it was hardly the bikini weather we’d been used to. We’d managed to make up some time by doing longer journeyes and staying less time at some places so it meant we now had ... read more

Our alarm went off early as we wanted to see the dolphin feeding before leaving for Kalbarri. We got into our shorts and swimwear and made out way down to the beachfront where there was already a crowd gathering. People were standing knee deep in the water as dolphins swam backwards and forwards in front of them. There were a few volunteers in the water with walkies and one of them also had a loud hailer. She informed us that we were waiting for a couple more dolphins to arrive before commencing the feeding. The dolphins are fed from the beach three times a day, starting at 8am. The second and third feed are determined by the dolphins - they come back when they want to. Usually by 10.30am it’s all over and their three feeds ... read more

Today we went on our first Monkey Mia tour. It was a full day safari trip through the national park. We all met at the tour booking office and were introduced to Tim Hargreaves, our guide for the day. He was a cheery bearded man, the kind you could imagine to make a fun worldly wise grandfather. He was full of old stories and had experienced lots of adventures during his lifetime travelling the world. He was originally from Jersey and had been officially Australian since the 70s but he still had a very posh English accent gained from years at boarding schools. We took us into Denham first and told how the early settlers were attracted to the place because of the abundance of pearl shells and sandalwood. He pointed to a small restaurant on ... read more