10 Day West Coast Tour Broome-Perth!!!!!!!

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Day 1- Thursday 20th November my tour of the west coast of oz began!! We got picked up from our hostel at 6.30am by Tony our Western Xposure Tour Guide. The group for the tour consisted of 2 English girls myself and a girl called Louise, 1 Japanese girl called Ruri, 2 French Adrian & Sandra, 3 Swiss Barbara, Connie & Carl, 1 Canadian Gary and 9 Germans Jess, Mona, Lidia, Alex, Anya, Hannah, DanI, Yens & Daniel, 18 in total. Quite a mix of ages ranging from 18-68!!!!!! So the first day was really just a big driving day as it is a long way on the coast from Broome to get to the next nearest fun place. We drove about 700km altogether just in the first day, we stopped at eighty mile beach, which is a massively huge beach too big to see but not good for swimming at, to have lunch, we passed through Port Headland which is an iron ore port town and we eventually reached the Indee Station where we bush camped for the first night, which is on the inland highway leading down to Karijini National Park. So this was mainly a long day on the 4WD bus but we got to see the beach and Port Headland. We bush camped at the cattle station which was cool and had dinner with the other group who were also heading down the coast.

Day 2-We got up/woke up quite early due to the sun rising and the buzzing annoying flies. We had breakfast and set off driving again about another 4 or 5 hours from the station to get to Karijini National Park which is supposed to be one of the best National Parks in Australia. When we first got to the National Park we went to Hamersley Gorge, the park runs across the Hamersley Range in W.A. Hamersely Gorge was very cool and big and massive and made of some awesome massive squashed rocks, we had a swim in the gorge here which was cool and refreshing. We then headed more into the park which is massive down big red tracks to where we would be camping for the next few nights. I didn’t really realise we spent 3 nights in the National Park so was a bit shocked when I found this out. We set up camp and a bit disappointingly our tour guide said we could just do what we wanted for a few hours until dinner, we would have rather gone on to see another gorge than sit around waiting for dinner but we thought this was fair enough for now. That night we had a yummy curry for dinner as I’m vege at the mo I had a nice tofu Thai green curry which was yummy. After dinner we played the game where you try and pick up a box with just your mouth and make it smaller and smaller this was amusing.

Day 3-Today was supposed to be a BIG day(as apposed to just sitting on the bus and not doing much), we were getting up early ready to spend the day seeing 3 or 4 awesome gorges and the visitor centre in Karijini. So we all got up early ready to go walking/hiking etc to see the gorges. We managed to see the first gorge Kalamini before the unfortunately forecasted rain caught up with us. Well I’ve been in oz almost a year now and have hardly seen rain all year and had been saying how much I missed it and so it had now caught up with me!!!!! So basically very quickly we got rained out of Karijini. The rain was forecast to stay for 2 days and with it being wet it meant we couldn’t get down to see any of the gorges, plus this wasn’t just a light shower this was heavy stuff that could have ended up with flash flooding, so a decision was made quite quickly to pack up our camp and get out of the park and do the long drive from Karijini to Exmouth on the coast which was our next stop. This ended up taking 9 hours!! so we arrived in Exmouth at about 11pm. Luckily to a really nice hostel, well caravan site with really nice cabin like dorms which were pretty much brand new with nice comfortable beds.

Day 4-Due to the long drive the day before we had a bit of a lie in to catch up on some sleep and just had breakfast at 9am, after brekkie we all got ready to go to the beach with snorkelling gear. This involved everyone hiring masks and snorkels well not me as I have my own, then a stop at the supermarket to get food for lunch and then another hour or so drive round the cape that Exmouth lies on to reach or get into Cape Range National Park. We drove all the way through Cape Range National Park until we reached Yardie Creek Gorge. This is funny as the pearling boat I worked on was called the Yardie Creek. So we had a stop here and walked a little bit to see Yardie Creek. Then we got back in the bus and headed back through the national park back up to Turquoise Bay to go snorkelling/beaching/lunching. Turquoise Bay was pretty magnificent, turquoise water and white white sand. We spent a few hours here snorkelling on what is Ningaloo Reef, having lunch and then lying on the beach. Ningaloo Reef is only about 10m off the shore here at this place which is quite amazing, you can just walk in from the beach and before you know it you are snorkelling on Ningaloo Reef. The reef was nice, nice coral and lots of big colourful fish probably as nice as GBR. We headed back into town to Exmouth around 5pm to have dinner etc at the hostel.

Day 5-Today finally was almost a full day of fun and achievement. We started the day with bacon and eggs for breakfast which made a change, before this I had walked to the beach in town in Exmouth which was ok nothing special, then after breakfast we headed to Cape Range National Park again. First we stopped at the turtle beach and saw quite a few massive turtles swimming in the ocean which was cool. Then from here we went snorkelling at Oyster Stacks which was a really nice shallow bay with reef and coral about 2m off the shore and lots of colourful fish on the reef. We had lunch at the park visitor centre and afterwards looked round the information centre. In the afternoon we went back to Turquoise Bay to snorkel, swim and sunbathe again. Then in the evening we went up to the lighthouse to watch the sunset, went turtle spotting on the beach as it fell dark and had spaghetti Bolognese for dinner!!!!! So busy successful day finally!!!!!!!

Day 6-Today we started the day by going for a walk at Mandu Mandu Gorge, this was actually a pretty cool walk not too hard 3km but some amazing views. After this we went back to Turquoise Bay again for the last time for a cool off and freshen up after the walk. We also had lunch here. Then after lunch we went to go on another walk on another gorge on the other side of Cape Range National Park but the road was closed so we were unable to do this but we managed to find a track to go down to get up over the range and see some out of this world panoramic views of the range this was very impressive. After this we finally left Exmouth and made our way down the coast to Coral Bay which only took about one hour and a half. We arrived in Coral Bay around 6.30pm. Coral Bay being the heart of Ningaloo Reef, a very small town mainly for the access to the reef. We stayed at a nice hostel here.

Day 7-Today was a day to ourselves to do what we choose to do out of a few activities that were possible on Ningaloo Reef. I choose to go on a glass bottom boat for 2 hours and snorkelling as this was a cheap option and I haven’t been on a proper glass bottom boat before. So I went out for 2 hours with a couple of the other girls from my tour. Ningaloo reef is very nice 260km in length apparently, Coral Bay being 90km from the south point of it. I would say that the coral here on Ningaloo is probably nicer, more luscious and maybe better than the coral on GBR, but maybe there are less fish or it appears to me less fish here. The glass bottom boat was cool, the reef is pretty shallow here so the coral was very close, we did 2 snorkels but it was very cold due to the wind. After this we grabbed some lunch back at the hostel and then spent the afternoon on the beach, sun bathing, swimming, snorkelling and walking etc. And tonight we had fajitas for dinner yum yum but jesus I’m putting on weight again with all these free food jobs/tours not good seriously need to loose some weight somehow!!!!!!

Day 8-So today we had to drive from Coral Bay down to Shark Bay where Monkey Mia is. This was another long drive. Shark Bay is a world heritage area though which means its pretty important, housing lots of wildlife and natural important things including something called Stremapolites. Stremapolites are apparently one of the most important things on the earth for humans, they are a bacteria that learnt how to produce oxygen which therefore allowed humans and oxygen dependent animals to live on the earth. We also stopped to see a cool lookout point over shark bay before we made it to Monkey Mia Dolphin Resort, which is a really nice little holiday type resort.

Day 9-We got up early today to watch the famous dolphin feeding which has been taking place at Monkey Mia since the 60’s. Only 2 dolphins came into the shore for the feeding though which was a bit disappointing but they come in so close and shallow and are not scared of the human contact at all so pretty neat. After this we had to hang around quite a while waiting for everyone to leave and hit the road again for a long drive from Monkey Mia down to Kalbarri National Park. We got to Kalbarri around 5pm and quickly went to see the two awesome gorges that are at this National Park…..Z Bend Gorge and The Loop where Natures Window is, these were pretty amazing gorges so worth the long day on the bus again. We stayed at a hostel in Kalbarri this night.

Day 10- Last day of the tour we had to get up early in Kalbarri to leave early, we left at 7am and went to a lookout called Bluff Point which was an awesome lookout on the coast line. From here it was to Geraldton for fuel and food and then a little bit further to the awesome sand dunes for sand boarding. This was fun to actually get off the bus and do something physical. Then from here we carried on down the coast heading towards Perth, stopped for lunch and then next to the final highlight of the trip the Pinnacles. This was pretty awesome limestone rocks sticking up in the desert pretty unreal sight. Then finally after millions of miles and 10 days on a cramped bus with a load of Germans we reached the city of Perth!!!!!!!!!

Yer so overall the West Coast is pretty stunning but I was a bit disappointed with Western Xposure tour because the guide was very unenthusiastic, the group was a bit rubbish, the food wasn’t up to standard and we missed a few good sights for various reasons, so although the west coast is stunning I didn’t feel my trip did it justice, it could have been a better experience, plus there are too many flies on the west coast especially in places that were extremely hot!!!!

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