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Published: April 25th 2008
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Dolphins and flies at Monkey Mia
You can see the dolphin being fed in the background of the picture. However the flies are the wildlife that stick out in our mind from this stop. Take a look at Larry's back... It was so enjoyable being in our own caravan...we ate pb&j's and froot loops (among other western delicacies), slept, played a ton of rummy, and listened to audiobooks...totally different type of travel. A great experience and a wonderfu way to see Australia.
Our trip south from Exmouth was really pleasant due to a constant layer of clouds and rain. We ended making it much further than we expected on the first day because we weren't dying of heat. Our goal was Monkey Mia on the famous Shark Bay. Its known for the wild dolphins that are hand fed from the beach everyday by the local Park Rangers. We made it from Exmouth to Shark Bay driving very comfortably and stayed at a caravan park about 50 miles shy of Monkey Mia.
Everybody told us that Monkey Mia was not to be missed..."you just HAVE to go"..."they feed dolpins out of their hands"...."its one of the best places in Western Australia, you gotta go." Well, we thought is stunk...literally and figuratively. The flies were awful (thank goodess for our fly nets from Ayers Rock!), and the dophins were no big deal..and the walking trek was so bad that it would
Kalberri National Park at sunset
From atop my assigned video post with Kalberri's wilderness in the background. have been funny had it not been smelly, swarming with flies, in the burning heat, and with nothing to see except the same desert we had just driven through for the past 1500 miles.
I want to know what they were thinking..."man I bet after driving 1000 KM through sagebrush to get to this nothing tourist site that tourists would like a meaningless walk through the same sagebrush and rock when they get here."
Thank goodness this was the low point of Western Australia (but if you really, really, really, love dolphins please go....but I can't see how that much driving could be worth the 10 minutes of watching someone else feed a dolphin (it was cool I guess).
The rest of our trip was wonderful...that same day we drove south to Kalberri..a little coastal town inside a National Park with the same name. We ate dinner out (our first outside the camper in 5 days) and walked around. This community has a beautiful National Park right outside its city limits, and world famous coastal rock formations. We thought it was really a worthwhile stop.
The next day we drove down the coast, enjoying stops on
beautiful secluded beaches, all the way to the town of Cervantes..the gateway to "The Pinnacles". We were not expecting much, but this was another National Park worth seeing. There are over 150,000 sandstone pinnacles...and you just drive your car right around and among them. Futhermore, we went to the park first thing in the morning and had the whole park to ourselves to watch the sunrise over the pinnacles. Oh yeah...we had our first up-close experience with wild kangaroos(we had seen them from the road, but not 10 feet away)!!! These two little roos let us right up to them -- we were all excited until we drove back into town and almost hit a half a dozen of them with the van.
We headed south to Perth to restock at shopping centers with needed "western goods" before our trip to India and then headed south to a quiet coastal village by the name of Preston Beach. We had a great time with wonderful beaches, a nice little town store, and they let us park in the beach parking lot for free. We saw a ton of kangroos too (see photos).
The next morning we woke up to
More cliffs near Kalberri
FYI: the beautiful body of water your looking at is the Indian Ocean :-) my (Larry's) birthday and headed back to Perth to turn-in our campervan. We picked the van up on Jessica's birthday and dropped it off on mine...not our two favorite travel daysto share our birthdays with out of the trip, but we're not complaining. We spent the morning packing up our belongings from our adoptive home (caravan) and repacking into our backpacks.
We headed back into Perth where we had really underestimated travel time. We had to return the van by 3:00 pm sharp...or pay for another day. We literally sat in traffic right outside the return station and pulled in at 2:59:30 -- no kidding. They were impressed.
The rest of the day was walking around downtown Perth...we went to an Irish Pub for birthday dinner...and then did some book shopping at a Border's in the shopping district.
Cervantes, Kalberri, and Preston Beach made a wonderful, relaxing and beautiful coastal holiday.
We both agree that when we return to Australia very soon that we will again rent a caravan and drive up the eastern coast. The traveling was fun, affordable, and you get to unpack and stay unpacked! A GREAT way to see an amazing country!
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Troy
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great photo's
Wow, what an awesome trip! Thanks for sharing so many great photo's....... Troy