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Published: December 19th 2006
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So we rented a car and first we headed North, up highway one, along the West Australian coast to a town called Geraldton. When we first arrived everything was closed, which we figured was quite normal as everything closes really early in Australia - we're talking REALLY early, 3pm on a Saturday early! Anyhow when we awoke on Sunday morning the city was a ghost town, everything had remaind shut. There were no cars, no people, even the seaguls hadn't turned out. When we inquired, a local woman told us we had 'expect this in a small town' - Geraldton is the biggest city in the Mid-West, population 24,000 - what would happen when we got to Kilbarri (population 1,000)?!
Alas, all was not lost, it seems Western Australia has it all covered on Sundays, three crucial establishments were found to be open 1) The DRIVE-IN liquor store 2) The bookies 3) McDonald's -- so if anyone reading this finds themselves in Geraldton on a Sunday, you're sorted! Unfortunately for us 1) The hostel had banned alcohol 2) We have no money 3) We're not that desperate! Mind you, later on we have to confess to sharing a McDonald's ice
cream sundae, in an attempt to keep ourselves on the wagon and in pocket. To be fair to Geraldton, they do have a great museum and art gallery, so it could have been a far more boring Sunday! We'd also taken food with us, so we managed not to starve.
We said goodbye to Geraldton on Monday morning and headed further North to Kilbarri, a beautiful little bay which provided us with a good swim, a lovely motel and fresh bread from a great little bakery. We got our first taste of the Australian beach... it was bloody cold! After saying that, we were in the middle of a desert for most o the day, so jumping in that water was pretty refreshing - getting out was even better. After a good rest and catching up on Neighbours (or should that be looking into the future?!) we got back on the road North and things were only going to get hotter.
Driving in Oz is quite odd, you drive along for ages without seeing anything and then all of a sudden a Road Train starts veering over onto your side of the road... we were pretty stunned as
this enormous truck startd baering down on our tiny Hyundai Getz! Joanna was panicing and James took evasive action, Raffles just looked on in silence, nothing was said between the three of us for several minutes.
Denham was our final stop in Northern WA, a tourist town dedicated to the national park of Monkey Mia, a beach resort famous for its regular (up to three times daily!) dolphin appearances! On arrival, mid-afternoon on a weekday, we were yet again confronted by Western Australia's lesuirely opening hours - only the town bakery was open! Joanna lost her rag a little at this point, asking the poor lad working behind the counter whether 'there was ANYWHERE open to get something to eat in this place?!' - obviously quite taken back by this, and perhaps wanting to save face on behalf of all Denham, he feebly responded 'I could make you a sandwich'. Great.
Anyway, we settled into our little motel, where we met a lovely Irish and Australian couple who were on a similar adventure to our own, we shared a couple of beers and cooked up a BBQ in true Aussie fashion! The following day we were off to
Kangaroo
The roo we nearly ran over! the beach in the motel's free 'shuttle bus' (it was a crappy mini-van). We watched the dolphins from the beach as they swam in to greet the small group of us stood ankle-deep in the sea. It was pretty cute to see wild dolphins intrigued by the group of humans at the shore - or maybe they were more interested in the fish being fed to them by the resort employee's - a sure way to keep them coming back daily, not quite the way it had been portrayed in the brochure, ah well. Joanna had quite a sulk at not being able to feed them herself, apparently that right is reserved for cute kids and what one of the staff liked to call 'the Asian girl on the left'. Perhaps more amusing was the pelican drinking from the water sprinkers on the resort lawn and trying to snatch fish from the dolphins, while been shooed away by the Monkey Mia workers, they were pretty persistant and won James' affection for being more daring than the lazy dolphins, who were clearly there for the hand-me-outs. Saying that, it was a fun day out and the setting was fantastic, we had
a good swim and James had a good burger!
On our way back South we stopped off in a town called Cervantes - we can't remember who it was named after, but it was some Spanish guy and all the street names were Spanish. Anyway, the main draw here was the bizarre, moon-like, desert called the Pinnacles. We've no idea how this place was formed (it looked like the rocks had fallen to earth from space... can you tell we didn't pay for the guided tour?) but it was amazing and surreal being the only people walking around this landscape. We hope the photos give some indication of how strange and impressive this place was, because it was probably our favorite sight in Australia so far.
Oh, and on the way there we nearly killed three Kangaroos and an Emu! The one in the picture was the cockiest, refusing to move from the centre of the road, with James following him for half a kilometre at hopping pace! Joanna was leaning out of the passanger window snapping away!
We're on our way South now for a week before we go back to Perth for Christmas. We're heading
for the wine region of Margaret River, so no doubt there will be some time necking free wine samples and living off cheese and chocolate from the local factories. So stay tuned for Part 2 of our WA adventure!
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Sarah D
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Skanky ear infection update
So not only did Middleton fuin my social life last weekend, it appears that one of the lovely little mites gave me a cold which due to the torrential cold winds and rain I was unable to blow my nose properly and has now caused an ear infection which antibiotics isn't clearing resulting in an alcohol restriction over the festive period. Alas no Bucks Fizz, wine, vodka, "Good Elf" real ale, more Bucks Fizz, cheap sparkly stuff which the Nana gets me, sambuca, compulsory egg nogg, snowballs and Bucks Fizz. I am sad