Western Australia

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The time has come for us to start travelling again but as I will be updating the blog for our new adventures it made me realise that I haven't finished updating it for our old ones! After a lot of bugging from Ian I am going to try and write about Western Oz in the next couple of weeks before we leave Wellington, so that this blog is up to date and also to get my H2B off my back (for sure there will be a long story on that later!).

My last entry was from Kangeroo Island, which is def in my top 3 places in Oz. After our self drive tour there we got a flight to Perth. Neither of us actually realised how far Perth was from Adelaide as I remember thinking the flight would be about 2 hours when it was more like 6. Strange that even after being in Oz for so long I still can't understand the sheer size of it.

Perth
We only stayed in Perth for one day. It rained a lot, my umbrella got broken from the wind and for some reason we couldn't find Kings Park which as far as I can work out is the best bit of the city. Before we came to Oz I really wanted to live and work in Perth but now I've been there I think 1 day is more than enough!

The next day we picked up our lovely campervan to start our trip up the west coast. Now most of you will know what happened with this lovely van and how it has bascially ruined our views on campervanning and we will NEVER do it again but I am going to relive the experience within the blog so that no-one (mainly Ian!) forgets.

Campervan Day 1 - Perth to New Norcia
We picked up the van which was an Apollo 2 person high-top. Cost of the van was really high but I really wanted to try campervanning and also the alternative of a car and hostels seemed just as much. We couldn't decide if we should go to New Norcia or not. This should have been a sign that we shouldn't go there as whenever we debate something over and over again things always go wrong!

New Norcia is about 2 hours from Perth and is a strange little place and the only monastic town in Australia. As soon as we arrived and stopped - SMASH! Ian crashed into a metal awning, right into the roof of our high-top. The high-top is only made of fibreglass so the metal went straight through! The roof was dented really badly. There isn't really a lot you can do in a tiny town when this happens. So using the best things available Ian tapped up the van with brown packing tape. This meant we spent the next 3 and a half weeks driving around with a very injured looking campervan, which leaked when it rain, and of course it did rain!

So after this acident and realising there isn't anything you can do (and that you have taken out FULL insurance but then realise it doesn't cover the top of the van of course!!!!!) we went for a walk around the strange spooky place, with loads of empty buildings. The place looks like it was made to try and and make the Aboriginal become good Catholics.

So we are walking around and what do we see - a wedding! They were having pictures taken at the cemetry. No idea where they could have come from as the place was in the middle of no-where or why they would want pictures in a cemetry. All in all it was a very strange, bad day!

Day 2 New Norcia - Dongara
It was my turn to drive the van. Wasn't that bad actually although of course can't reverse very well or park! We stopped on the way at Jurien Bay which was a nice beach. Slowly starting to get over the whole New Norcia incident!

Dongara is a small village whos main attraction is an old mill which is covered in pigeons. Also has a good beach and a nice lookout.

Day 3 Dongarar to Kalbarri
Went passed the big lobster! Still get very excited about the big things over here! Just so random and funny!

On the way to Kalbarri we stopped at a couple of places including Geraldtown. This was a very touristy spot and I was glad we didn't stay. They do have a nice memoriable though which has amazing views of the beach and coast.

Also stopped at Port Gregory which had really cool pink salt lakes.

Day 4 Kalbarri
We woke up to more grey skies but ventured out to go pelican feeding (love the pelicans now and also it was just across the road from the campsite so no excuse really!). Ian was all ready to give the pelicans a fish but the feeding got cancelled cause the rain was now coming down. Ian still through his fish at them and they caught it!

We went to a few places in the national park in the morning like Hawks Head and Ross Graham lookout. Rain wasn't too bad and it was nice to be outside walking again. But then the rain and wind came. There is nothing worse then being stuck in the campervan in the rain with NOTHING to do! Luckily it stopped for about an hour before sunset so we rushed around trying to see some more lookouts.

All in all our first first fews days were filled with rain. This is pretty much true of most of the West Coast when we were there.

That's enough for now. There will be lots of entries covering this part of the trip.

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