The Tour of Northern WA Begins

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At 7am we are collected from our hostel and taken to meet the bus that will be our travelling home for the next 7 days. Our guide / driver is called Steve and seems OK. There are 16 people in total on the tour, a Swedish couple (the wife only speaks english) a canadian couple, 2 single female travellers (Kim and Suzi) who seem quite cool, a Japaneze father and son, the dad can only just speak english but does ramble on a bit, the son is only 16 and is so embarassed but its nice as he hasn't seen his dad for a year as the son is resident in Perth so gave up Schoolies week with his friends to come here with his dad - how sweet! There is also a german single traveller (Daniel - quite quiet) a couple from Wales who are on their 3 month honeymoon (Paul and Sarah), an Swiss girl called Teressa and an Italian guy and girl (just friends they said) Mateo and Alisha (who again can't speak any English so Mateo has to translate).
We set off and all introduce ourselves but as always everyone is a bit shy and weary of the other people.
Our first stop was the Pinnacles Dessert - basically they are massive formations of rocks made from the limestone of sea shells ages ago - reminded me of a huge stone henge!
We also saw our first Australian Christmas Tree, which only flowers in winter at xmas time!
After an hours drive we stopped for lunch - sandwiches which everyone helped to make - then onto Geraldton for the highlight of the day - SAND BOARDING!
Was quite scared at first as the slopes are massive but the boards Steve had were beginner sit down ones and they are soooo much fun!
Then it was back to the bus for another 2 hour drive upto Kalbarri for our overnight stay.
After a stop at the bottle shop (the australian off license) for some Pure Blond (kim and Suzi have been drinking it here, it's an Ozzy beer but low in calories and carbohydrates - but still 4.6 %) we arrived at the Hostel and Steve told us it was Chicken Stir fry night - made on the BBQ! It was fun though as everyone just dived in to help out with the cooking, washing and cleaning which made it like camping!
We shared a 8 bed dorm and through Di's acrobatic adventure we decided it would be safer for me to take the top bunk on this tour!
The chinese pair (Kozo the son and Yugo the dad) had brought their guitar so after dinner the dad got it out and played some songs - only trouble was he only knew Adelvise and waltzing matilda in English!
But everyone singed along and the atmosphere was great - proper camping spirit!
At 10.30pm we all retired to our dorms ready for our 7am start.

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