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Published: December 3rd 2009
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We finally left Perth at 12:40pm on Thursday 15th October after much packing and re-packing and ditching of things we couldn’t fit in! We didn’t get more than a couple of hours down the Freeway however before the wild gesticulations from the guy in the lane next to us alerted us to the fact that our tarpaulin was coming off the roof rack and that most of the stuff carefully packed up there was in danger of being strewn about the city! We spent 3 hours at Scarborough (about as thrilling as its namesake) deciding on a solution (a special roof rack bag) and getting it fitted - aargh! Pushed on as far as Joondalup which isn’t very far at all, with everyone hot, tired and fed up. A friendly Welsh guy directed us to the nearest campsite.
Things didn’t improve much during the night (Charlie got up and Joe slept very badly) so consequently it was 12pm before we had mastered the art of packing our tent away and headed off again. We didn’t get far down the road before we had to stop yet again, but this time to help jump start somebody else’s car! We finally arrived
at a place called Cervantes, and set the tent up in time to head down to The Pinnacles for a sunset viewing. The Pinnacles are thousands of sandstone rocks, eroded by wind and rain and standing, well like pinnacles...! The photos explain it better than I can.
The next day was another full day’s drive up to a place called Kalbarri, which gave the kids the chance to test out their new DVD players in the car... We spent three days at Kalbarri and visited the Rainbow Jungle Parrot Sanctuary, Pelican Feeding, Seahorse Sanctuary, Pink Lake and Kalbarri National Park where we walked to Nature’s Window and the Z Bend. We also tried to go to Hutt River Province which the landowner/farmer declared as its own state in the 1970s in a row with the WA government over taxes. You can even get your passport stamped there! Unfortunately though we missed the turning, and in our first taste of how huge this country is, by the time we worked out where we were supposed to be going, realised we wouldn’t have enough fuel to get there, and then re-fuelled we were out of time! We had a great time
in Kalbarri though and even managed to start doing some lessons with the kids which they seemed to really enjoy (not sure how long that will last!)
Then followed another long day’s drive up to Monkey Mia, stopping at Shell Beach on the way which is composed entirely of tiny white shells, up to 10m deep in places. We also saw loads of eagles which was exciting. Monkey Mia is famous for its daily dolphin encounters so we duly got up really early to go and see them being fed. Although it was a very controlled session with us all being made to stand in a line while the dolphins were “walked” up and down in front of us, it was very informative and interesting, and great to know that these were wild dolphins who had been coming by choice to the area for years (although the fact they get fed lots of fish obviously helps). Saw more dolphins playing in the afternoon when they weren’t being fed, as well as turtles, pelicans and a rather aggressive crab that chased Joe and Bella out of the sea!
It was yet another long day’s drive (500km) up to Coral
Bay, starting at one town (Denham) and only passing through one other (Carnarvon) and about 3 roadhouses on the way, although we later found out that that was positively overcrowded by WA standards! Coral Bay is a little resort on the Ningaloo Reef which is WA’s equivalent of the Great Barrier Reef. According to people who’ve been to both, the Great Barrier has better coral (more colourful and varied) but the Ningaloo has better fish. Ningaloo’s other great advantage is that it is much closer to the shore - in many places you can just walk out and start snorkelling straight away. We spent 4 days there and saw rays, pipe fish and a reef shark just from walking along the beach. We also tried driving up the coast on a specialist 4WD track and, apart from getting stuck in some sand, really enjoyed the dunes and other scenery. On our last day we did a glass bottom boat ride out over the reef. Although the coral is all brown, the shapes and formations are amazing and many of them are absolutely huge! Joe and I did two lots of snorkelling although we couldn’t persuade the kids in once they
felt how cold the sea was. However they had a great time watching Daddy swim under the boat and laughing with glee as the driver threw lots of food pellets in right where we were swimming so that we were suddenly confronted with hundreds of big spangled emperors and other fish, not only swimming in front of our goggles, but actually butting us in their excitement!
We also made it up to Exmouth on the jutting out bit on the north west of WA where we saw some migrating whales in the distance - well we could just about make out spouts of water and the odd flick of a tail but it was still pretty exciting, as were the 3 emus boldly walking through the town’s main park whilst we were having lunch!
But, we had to press on and so we headed inland towards the Pilbarra and Karrijini National Park...
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Tracey T
non-member comment
Looks fantastic!
Hi Worboys crew. Loving the Australia blog. Reminds me of my travels (not that I got to WA). Looks and sounds fantastic. What a trip! Can't wait to see where you end up next. All well back here. Constantly raining, lots of floods and very very dark so nothing new! Baby due in two weeks. Head engaged but no sign yet of an early appearance. Will keep you up to date. Tracey xxxx