The West Coast

---

---

Hi all (Those that are reading this anyway)

Well we arrived in Perth in the early hours of Monday (13th Nov) and managed to find a hostel in the city centre. As it was about 2am and we were very tired we went into the first one we found which had a bed and booked in for 3 nights. So far we had been lucky with the hostels that we had stayed in but our room in this one was like we had both been sent to prison and put in solitary confinement (I know that doesn't quite work with two of us in the same room, but that's what it was like!) The room had no windows and one door, which would only allow one person to enter, then had to be shut and re-opened so that the next person could come in, there was that little room. However as we spend little time in the room and when we do its in bed it wasn't too much of a big deal.


Well Perth was okay and we spent a couple of days looking around but we were not greatly impressed by it although we did'nt explore the outskirts which are supposed to be nice. Perth is the most isolated city in the World, the nearest city being Singapore and it kind of feels it, very bizarre. The Lonely Planet says that the first thing you will notice about Perth is how clean it was, the first thing we noticed was in fact how scruffy it was, grafitti everywhere, outrageous!! To be fair there was quite a lot of building and redevelopment going on and we have learned to not take the Lonely Planet too literally!! It claimed of Fraser Island that there was more sand there than the Sahara Desert. The Island is about 80 miles long and only about one or two miles wide!!

On the Tuesday we went whale watching which was good and we managed to spot a whale although could not get that close. Still pretty impressive though to see it as they are huge and it came out of the water a couple of times but too quick for a good photo as I missed its tail (or fluke, see previous poor joke in earlier blog) and you can just about see part of it as it went down to the depths. We did see a submarine returning to port which was pretty impressive and a lot easier to take picture of than the whale.

We decided that as we only had a week here we would book on a tour up the West Coast as after driving the length of the East Coast in 5.5 weeks I could not be arsed to repeat the trick on the West Coast in only seven days, plus the nice lady in the booking shop gave us free tea and bickies! (always a seller). So on Wednesday morning at 6.30am (god that was early) we were picked up by our tour guide/driver/cook/nurse etc who turned out to be a great laugh and there were 16 of us altogether with all nationalities which made it interesting. They were a great bunch though and we soon all got to know each other even though on occasions the language barrier proved a problem especially when Simon (tour guide) was trying to explain what Bootylicious was to one of the Austrian girls (it was not a pretty picture). Once we were all on board we set of up the West Coast and we soon saw how vast it is, you can drive for hours and there is nothing, no other cars, no shops, no buildings, no nothing, soooo glad we didn't opt to drive ourselves.

Our first stop was at the Pinnacle Desert which was fantastic pretty weird, it's a desert with loads of Pinnacles which had been formed over millions of years and we had a walk round with Simon giving us a talk explaining the geological process which took place to create them. He also gave us the aboriginal version which was that they were in fact th bodies of warriors killed in a huge battle, caused obviously by two women!! After that we went to Hangover Bay (named after sailors who were shipwrecked so drank all the alcohol they had and woke up the next morning with a Hangover) and had lunch on the beach and then went sandboarding. Great fun but hard work walking up the bloody sand dunes. Especially for Becks as I missed her on the way down with the camera so she had to trudge all the way back up so we I could try again!!

That evening we arrived in Kalbarri about 9pm so it had been a long day and we all crashed out pretty quickly. The next day (Thursday) we were up at 5.30am and off to a National Park. At the park the Simon said we were going for a walk which turned out to be more mountaineering as we went down to the bottom of a massive gorge and then back up again. It was a case of climbing up with you hands and grabbing the rocks and pulling yourself up. At one point we had to climb a dodgey looking ladder tied up with an even dodgier piece of rope. There were some spectacular sights though with these rock formations,
one of which had a huge hole through it and was called Natures Window. Basically the wind had eroded it over millions of years and looking through it you got a fantastic view of the gorge. There were some pretty big spiders too.


In the afternoon we went to shell beach which yes was a beach completely made up of shells so not great to walk on bare feet but beautiful to look at. Due to the high levels of salt in the sea in this area the shells are pretty much all that can survive and so that is all there is for miles and miles.

That evening we arrived at Monkey Mia after covering a huge distance, however, we got there in time to go down to the beach and see the sun set which was lovely and then we had a BBQ in the evening and consumed large quantities of alcohol. Some of the conversations were very funny, mainly due to the language barrier and some of them ended up being jokes that lasted for the entire of the tour.

We had a lie in on the Friday, getting up at 6.30am! Monkey Mia is a place with a nice beach and in the morning the dolphins swim up to the shore as they know that they will get fed every morning if they turn up. So every morning people line the beach as the Rangers give the dolphins their free feed and a few of the public are invited to feed the dolphins too. Whilst this is happening the dolphins swim up and down inspecting the crowd of people in the water watching them get fed. Once all the food is gone the dolphins get bored an swim off and return at lunch!

After that Becks went out on a boat trip with some of the group, I stayed on the shore as that night I had had a completely random bought of vomiting. The main problem being that as it was a tour we were in dorms, boys and girls, so I was in a room full of people I hardly knew and had taken the top bunk to let Gerard (The crazy but nice 70 year old Swiss guy, who was by far and away the oldest person there) have the bottom bunk. So I had to struggle out of the top bunk, trying to catch my vomit or aim it away from the snoring Gerard as to not cover him, I eventually managed to get out and spent the majority of the night redecorating the men's ablutions. Anyway that's why I didn't go on the boat!!

In the afternoon it was back on the bus and off to Eagles Bluff where you stood on the point and looked out over the sea and we saw turtles, reef sharks and loads of fish. That evening we arrived at Coral Bay and by now we were getting hardened to lack of sleep so we managed to stay up a longer chatting with the group and even had a few table tennis games. The next day we stayed at Coral Bay and Becks & I decided to go out on a boat trip with a couple of the others where you got to snorkel with Manta Rays which grow up to 7 metres wide.

Off we went to the area they are found with a spotter plane buzzing about to locate them, once done it informed the boat of the exact location and we would head off in the given direction. At this point we were told to get into our gear and stood at the back of the boat ready to "gracefully" slide into the water. It was amazing one of the rays we swam behind was over 3 metres wide and so graceful. It was hard work to keep up but once the Ray had enough of our company it would shoot of like a jet and the boat would come and pick us all up. On one of the snorkels following another Manta a 2-2.5 metre Nurse Shark swam up to us and the ray but didn't hang around too long before it got spooked and shot off in the opposite direction. For a brief moment I wondered what had scared it off and could here the derr dun, derr dun music from JAWS in my head before I realised that it was us that had scared it and so I calmed down. A bit.

Next we headed off to an area on the reef which was full of turtles and aptly called the turtle sanctuary, where you guessed it, there were lots of turtles of different species. Small ones, big ones, old ones and young ones. The lady who was our snorkel safari person advised us that due to the large turtle population here this area was quite popular with Tiger Sharks but that they weren't interested in us. The she announced that we would be doing a drift dive just near to here. Great! I went ahead and got in anyway and fortunately there was so much to see that I soon forgot (almost) about being eaten by a shark!!

That afternoon we traveled on up to Exmouth where we would be staying for 2 nights which was good as we could actually unpack a bit and sort ourselves out. In the morning we went to a beach where you swim out to Ningaloo Reef which was just offshore, for some snorkeling. Becks opted to sunbathe on the beach, whilst I, being brave risked shark attack once more (sooo dramatic!!) and headed off for a spot of snorkeling.

Ningaloo Reef is amazing, truly. I saw so much just snorkeling , far more than we had previously seen on the Barrier Reef and it wasn't even very deep. At one point I was following a turtle until it had a rest on the bottom carefully avoiding the Coral, whilst I hovered above it just out of arms reach (not that I tried to touch it of course). It sat there completely unphased by the site of me gawping at it in amazement and after a few minutes I decided to leave the poor thing in peace. I also saw sting rays and a small reef shark, as well as literally thousands of different fish.

After this we went and had lunch at a picnic spot were there were signs showing some of the less friendly animals to be found on the reef, including the pretty Cone shells that people put in their pockets to take home and then get stabbed by it's dart and generally as a result don't make it back home!! Simon (tour guide) was soon bundling us back on the bus and decided to take us for a bush walk. Although I think this was cut short as no-one looked particularly up for it and would have preferred to still be on the beach, or in the water. That night however we had the Perth Planet Mini Golf Competition, which naturally I won. Easily.

The last 2 days would be spent driving all the way back down with the Monday heading off at 7am and arriving at our hostel at 6pm! Although we did get another chance to go snorkeling on the reef if not all to brief. The hostel when we arrived was more of a sheep farm than a hostel, the first clue we were given that this was the case was the name, The Sheep Farm!! We were again in dormitories with the toilets and showers being a short walk over a field and then the kitchen being in the opposite direction so definately back to basics here. I think they put us in this accommodation on the last night as they knew we would all be so tired we would'nt care and they were right. However the men's dorm must have been a lot better than the girls as they all moaned in the morning about there mattress's being too thin, but I guess that's what girls do.

The next morning we set off on the final stage of the trip and back to Perth, with me charged with the duty of sitting upfront and entertaining Simon. When we got back to Perth we decided as we all got on so well we would meet up for dinner and then go to club which Simon had recommended and arranged to meet us at. So after a quick 3 S's (I replaced shave with sleep) we headed out to get drunk one final time as a group.

The next morning we got up and packed as were flying to Brisbane at midday and we were both looking forward to spending a couple of days relaxing by the pool before heading off to watch the ashes. We landed at 10.30pm and got the bus to our hostel only to find that they had no record of our booking! Apparently they had had a girl working for them for a couple of months who had messed up a few bookings and there was another couple there in the same situation. After a brief call round to other hostels we established that there were no rooms anywhere in Brisbane due to the Ashes. With no rooms anywhere, we were offered the pool room where the other couple had already bedded down. We had the choice of the pool table, sofa, or floor. We went for the sofa, but I think the pool table may have been more comfy! The next morning the owner arrived and apologized for the mess up and explained that there were no free rooms and that we would not find one anywhere in Brisbane but that we could stay in the pool room for free or stay at her house. We instantly chose the pool room where we could make up a bed, have a fan, a pool table and cable TV and all for no cost. Sadly later that day they some one cancelled there room and we had to stay in there. Damn it!! So the next few days we lounged around the pool and watched the Aussies slowly take us apart in the cricket and not so much looking forward to going to watch it on the Saturday!!

Anyway that's enough from me for now!

---

Comments

[Calvin]

Hi Jacko, looks as though your having a great time. Kay is right about Wattsey's hair. We went to Brighton on Saturday for Dave's Stag do and Wattsey's turned up in all his best gear........shell pants, bright blue footie socks. You get the picture, but the hair just about finishes it off...it must be official now, he is a tramp. Keep the updates coming as they are an enjoyable read.

[Wattsy]

All you fuckers are gay
The man is diving with sharks, jumping out of planes and just being an all round indiana jones. Why are we talking about my hair you bunch of homers. Jacko have a good christmas dude and keep the adrenaline ride going. Gay boys see you up the sheaf.